‘The Wire’ just may be the best show you’ve never watched
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- November
- 13
The Wire returns in January for its final season.
In some ways, that’s a damn shame. In other ways, it’s sort of a relief.
The Wire is unrelentingly real, showing a dark side of the American city that is neither hopeful nor hopeless.
It’s not hopeful, because it doesn’t offer any easy ways out. There were times, I admit, that I couldn’t stop watching, but I felt a palpable sense of relief when the episode was over. Then immediately wanted to see the next week’s.
But the Baltimore of The Wire also is not hopeless, because there are people out there who are trying to make things work. There are kids (last season focused on the education system) who, despite the odds being far more than stacked against them, are trying to make a go of it.
I’m a latecomer to The Wire. My husband discovered it in Season 2. He quickly rented Season 1 to get caught up, but the nice thing about the series is that each season is somewhat self-contained, despite a cast of continuing characters.
I don’t really know why I didn’t watch it from the start, but I didn’t. But last season, I was watching more TV than usual, as I was incredibly pregnant and had trouble sleeping some nights. I started watching The Wire in the middle of the night or when my toddler was napping on weekends.
About 15 minutes into the first episode, I was hooked.
This final season focuses on the media.
Here’s what creator David Simon, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun, explained to Fancast about why he wanted to focus a season on newspapers:
I’m not blaming the newspaper for the origins of the problem, the origins of the problem are a complete lack of social policy. Our social framework is “Can I get I promoted now, can I make a buck off it?” The entire country right now is like a pyramid scheme with no other ethic or social framework behind it.So obviously there are a lot of forces at work. I’m just saying the media, which is supposed to be the assertive watchdog of the political and social culture, the last hope of reform—they’re not here anymore.
I think The Wire is dealing with it in proportion in the sense that it’s the last season. After you’ve seen the the institutions themselves are incapable of reform, after you’ve seen the political process is incapable of introducing reform than the last question is, “While this going on, what are we paying attention to and why?’
What happened to the people who are supposed to be sounding the alarm? While the unions die, while the jobs disappear, while the political infrastructure dispatches one reformer after another, while the police department and the school system and every other agency create systems to deny the obvious – that they’re not doing their jobs anymore – while all this is happening, what was the external monitor doing and paying attention to?
And to that extent and only to that extent, yes the media is culpable. They had their job to do and they’re not doing it.
Is there a wee bit of hyperbole there? Methinks. Just like with any institution, folks who’ve been around it a long time tend to see things as having been better in the good old days.
But the media is no different than any other institution, and it certainly has its failings. As with all other institutions in the world of The Wire, that makes it perfectly fair game and I expect it will be held to the same standards as The Wire has held the other institutions it has examined: Police/the war on drugs, government, unions, social services, education, no different from anyone else. Except for, maybe, The Wire.
Simon is prone to tooting his own horn, but in the case of The Wire I think he deserves it:
The Wire is Greek tragedy. It’s literally like standing up and demanding better of your Gods for the average American.
The Wire photo courtesy of HBO. Photo of David Simon by Gail Burton, Associated Press.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 2:58 pm by Amy Vernon.
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No doubt.The wire is the best television drama I have ever watched and most people have never seen. What has intrigued me is that some people who have watched it and have not been completely hooked have said that there were too many characters or the plot lines were to complicated. The writters are very respectful of the characters they created making all cops, criminals,teachers,politicians, three dimensional. What is also interesting is that in its 5th and last season the wire is finally getting press