The Wire
I love HBO, few channels have ever produced such an amazing selection of dramas so quickly. There’s pretty good odds you’ve seen some of their stuff, Deadwood, Oz, The Sopranos, Rome, Band of Brothers, all excellent shows and all miles ahead of most American drama television. So when I say that The Wire is easily the greatest HBO show ever made you’ve got plenty of reason to be sceptical, particularly since compared to the above examples it’s relatively unknown, here in the UK all of those other shows were broadcast on a terrestrial channel while The Wire got put out on FX, a digital channel with a small fraction of the viewers attracted by the likes of the BBC or Channel 4. There’s also the problem that we’ve all seen god knows how many cop shows and as a genre they throw around the words ‘gritty’ and ‘realism’ so much they’ve become a standard on synopses and are basically meaningless at this stage, which is a problem for The Wire since it’s realism is what people tend to point out a lot in reviews (and fair enough since this show is stunningly realistic).
At this point I should probably get round to telling you what The Wire is. The Wire starts out ostensibly as a cop show, but quickly becomes as concerned with the drug dealers targeted by the police as with the police themselves and then slowly widens the focus over the course of five seasons to encompass dock workers, politicians, schoolchildren, teachers, drug addicts, stick up men, reporters, the homeless and probably others I’ve forgotten to mention. Following HBO tradition every character in the series is written with remarkable depth and comes off as completely believable, and boy are there a lot of characters in this show. Every season of The Wire adds extra groups of characters to the proceedings, and with the exception of the dock workers introduced in the second season they all keep going right up till the final episode (assuming they survive that long of course). One of the many factors which makes this such a remarkable series is that it manages to maintain so many characters for so long without any of them deteriorating into the cliché to which they would be so easily surrendered in so many other shows.
Despite the initial focus of The Wire don’t be fooled into believing this is just about crime. The Wire takes place in modern day Baltimore, Maryland (or Bodymore, Muddaland as some prominent graffiti puts it) and over the course of five magnificent seasons the series attempts to paint a portrait of the city through the eyes of it’s inhabitants, by it’s conclusion The Wire has delivered a study of the dark side of Baltimore and American society that’s as unflinching and as gripping as anything ever produced for television. The conclusions drawn by the show are not necessarily comforting, with all the characters having remarkably little effect on their environment and any character who tries to change things in a significant way for either better or worse being severely punished for it, but they certainly aren’t nihilistic either, those rare happy moments are all the sweeter for their persistently dark setting. The Wire doesn’t preach to it’s audience, it just presents life as it is, alarmingly willing to kill off main characters and to leave loose ends hanging for the sake of realism but always maintaining a level of drama that prevents the series from feeling like a documentary.
This isn’t to say that The Wire is faultless, every season follows a single investigation and requires you to have seen the previous seasons to know what anyone’s talking about, therefore it has a jump-on factor of precisely bugger all. You need to have seen this from episode one of season one and you need to have not missed a single episode to have any chance of following it. Thankfully all five seasons are now out on DVD and as such missing an episode is no longer a worry. There’s also the problem of language, the characters speak English of course but they speak it with such thick Baltimore accents it at times becomes all but incomprehensible (several people I’ve leant box sets to ended up watching the first episodes with the subtitles on), eventually you get used to it but at times early on it can be like watching a Deadwood spin-off series focussed entirely on Calamity Jane. There’s also the fact that this is one hell of a slow burner, taking about seven episodes to set itself up and really get going. And of course this is HBO so if tend to be offended by explicit violence, drug use, swearing, sex and so on it’s probably not for you.
So what is it that makes The Wire so much better than any other TV show ever made? At the end of the day it isn’t any single factor but rather the overall weight of the achievements of this series that make it so very special. Giving us a staggering number of three dimensional and well rounded characters, The Wire gives us a bleak, violent, almost dystopic vision of the modern world, but it also tells the stories of people willing to risk and lose it all for the sake of saving that world. It doesn’t have us believe these people are heroes, rather they are often pushed to their actions by despair or frustration and are well aware of the likely bad outcomes for themselves, and yet they do it anyway. The series also shows us ruthless, terrifying people profiting from crime and often escaping justice at the hands of the law. It also shows us people who are victims of both the official and criminal systems, who seem destined only to lose in life, but who very, very occasionally triumph against everything, including themselves. The Wire shows us American society’s dark side, the side so rarely covered realistically or at all in television, and yet it does so without descending into complete darkness, perhaps this is it’s greatest achievement of all “ To give it’s audience such a horrifyingly brutal vision of their own world and yet never stop being compelling and endlessly entertaining.
Watch it, watch it now. Put simply, this is the greatest television show ever made and it deserves your attention.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
The Great Movie Never Made – Podcast Special
Rare Unsigned Copy – Book Review
Universal Soldier: Regeneration – Podcast Review
The Big Racket – Movie Review
The Men Who Stare At Goats – CSW Podcast Review
Slice Of Life – Book Review
Games Roundup – Week Three, March 2010
Signs of the Apocalypse Roundup – March 2010 – Week 1
Comic News Roundup – March 2010 – Week 1
TV News Roundup – March 2010 – Week 1
The Top and Bottom 5 films of 2009 – A (Cool) Shite Poll
The (official unofficial) Top 5 Video Games of 2009!
Australia’s R18+ Discussion Paper and Submissions – The Great Debate
Separation City – Paul Middleditch Interview
Kick Ass: Aaron Johnson – Interview
Planet Hulk: Josh Fine – Interview
Star Chicks – Interview
Van Diemen’s Land: Jonathan auf der Heide – Interview
Predators – Movie Trailer
Predators – Featurette
The Losers – Movie Trailer
Tron Legacy – Full Trailer
Iron Man 2 – Trailer 2
“this show is stunningly realistic.”
Stunningly, really? Omar is “stunningly realistic”? Brother Mouzone? Prez, a completely incoherent character, is stunningly realistic? The Greeks & Prop Joe coddling Marlo despite the fact it obviously goes against their best interests is stunningly realistic?
“Every season of €œThe Wire€ adds extra groups of characters to the proceedings, and with the exception of the dock workers introduced in the second season they all keep going right up till the final episode.”
False. Prez, Cutty, Bunny, Namond, & Randy were all written out of the 5th Season despite being major characters in the 4th. Avon, Avon’s Sister, Wee-bey, every Barksdale player who didn’t die was reduced to the occasional random cameo after S3.
“€œThe Wire€ doesn’t preach to it’s audience, it just presents life as it is,”
I mean, if you don’t think the entire Journalism plot arch is “preachy” you shouldn’t be using the word preachy in the 1st place.
SPOILER WARNING
I have to say I agree to many of your complaints, though not all.
Firstly let me deal with my point of the show’s realism. Certainly Brother Mouzone is unrealistic, though I have to disagree with you on Prez, and would be interested to know why you found him coherent. I also disagree that for the greeks and prop joe it is against their best interests ‘coddling’ Marlo, since a continued barksdale relationship seems increasingly unlikely to succeed in the long term.
Again I completely agree that I was wrong to claim every single character was continued in the way I stated. But I’d like to make the point here that I was trying to limit the article to 1000-ish words and I think I edited out a section dealing with that, admittedlyh I should not have done so since it makes a false statement as you pointed out.
I don’t consider the press arc from season 5 preachy. Though I do consider it, to say the least, unsubtle.
You’ve clearly watch most or all of the show so I’d like to thank you for your feedback, I really love this show (hell, I think it’s the best show ever made for television) and welcome any critiscism of my writing when it is presented like yours (i.e. in a helpful manner). If you have your own takes on the areas you have highlighted I’d love to hear them.
Whoops! Please read ‘coherent’ as ‘incoherent’.
I have been meaning to watch this show. I keep hearing good things about it, so will pickup the first season if I see it on the shelf.
Can’t reccomend it highly enough. Since you’re a fan of other HBO shows I have no doubt you’ll enjoy this.
This is one of my favourite shows of all time. I’m not going to be anywhere near as analytical about it as the above comments – I just really enjoyed the depth and breadth of the characters and storyline. Next lot of holidays I have, I intend to sit and watch all 5 seasons in a row. Coming out only for food, drinks and toilet breaks.
Good luck! I have to admit it’s got one hell of a ‘just one more’ factor, my flat mate almost passed out after binging the second season. It’s the sort of show that would make a really good marathon, need to try that sometime.
After hearing lots of good things about The Wire, I bought the first two season box sets for $15 a pop from my local JB Hifi. Watched both series during my Nam holiday over the last two weeks mainly during down time and travel time. Absolutely loved the shit out of it. How have I never watched this show before. I’m going to pick up series three on my way home tonight. I believe JB Hifi still have them cheap! Loving it!
You’re in for a real treat, the last three seasons (season 4 in particular) are even better than the first two. Hope you enjoy them.
SPOILERS
The problem with Prez is his character has almost zero consistency. One episode he is a bastard racist cop, permanently blinding some kid, the next episode he is a loveable math whiz, etc. He was a very strong character at certain points, mainly when they dealt with his sort of ‘unconscious racism’ visa vis the storyline where he shot that black cop. The problem is, making Prez a loveable math whiz was the default & they only brought up the ‘bad side’ of his personality when it happened to serve the storyline.
As for Marlo, I can’t see why Prop Joe would mentor Marlo when it was obvious that Marlo was gunning to be the top dog. I don’t know why the Greeks would be persuaded to work with Marlo when they had been working w Prop Joe for years. Etc. Again, it is a situation where the nature of the characters becomes distorted to serve the storyline.
As for the preachiness issue… the entire Newsroom storyline was underdeveloped, every character in it was underdeveloped, … it would’ve taken two full seasons for that element of the show to really get fleshed out. They tried to do it in one [short] season. Why? Because David Simon wanted to take a giant piss on the Baltimore Sun. & that is exactly what he did. Maybe ‘preachy’ isn’t the right descriptor but the whole Newsroom Story Arc is obviously melodramatic to a certain degree so as to display with greater OOOMPH the tattered state of American Journalism as David Simon [a jaded man with an obvious vendetta against the Baltimore Sun] views it. This isn’t even a knock against Simon, really. The Baltimore Sun probably deserves a mouthful of piss. Problem was, the whole bit was underdeveloped to the point that it became very, very, very ‘unsubtle.’
Anywho, I enjoy the show quite a bit as well, but I have grown exceedingly frustrated with reaction to the show. There seems to be no critical examination going on when people write about the show. This isn’t a shot @ you, because I don’t think your aim with this piece was to be critical, I’m more just howling @ the moon so to speak.
have a good day & a good life.
Thanks for your comments, it’s a good sign for the future of this part of the site that people like you are out there willing to voice critiscisms in an intelligent and coherent way. You make a good point and I will be very interested to read any comment you have on one of my future articles or for that matter to read any article you might choose to write.