TV review: The Wire
Article published: Sunday, December 7th 2008
American cop series The Wire has got to be one of the most widely – and favourably – reviewed shows in recent times. So why aren’t you watching it?
Satirical newspaper The Onion once ran a story explaining that a recent Pepsi advert during the Superbowl raised Pepsi awareness by 0.00000000001 per cent, reaching one new potential customer. The Wire may not yet be at such levels but the recent media blitz has been staggering. Maybe the fact that my daily newspaper is the Guardian doesn’t make me representative, but even the Telegraph made Season 4 their DVD of the week.
For those who have, against the odds, managed to avoid The Wire, the five series follow various aspects of life in Baltimore, Maryland. The ‘War on Drugs’ is the main theme, but it also examines institutions: the school and police systems, government, unions and the media. In the UK it hasn’t had the prime-time terrestrial slot it deserves. Instead it’s hidden away on Fox Networks less right-wing younger brother FX. But DVDs and, with a little creativity, the internet, make that less of an issue.
OK, enough preamble: why should you watch it? If this is the umpteenth review you’ve read, you’ll never want to see the words biting social commentary again. Obviously then, there’s the biting social commentary (time to tick it off your Wire article bingo card), and while the show doesn’t necessarily come up with answers to the big problems plaguing Baltimore, it certainly comes up with the right questions.
Questions such as: how to stop schools systematically failing large numbers of children, how to minimise the negative impact of the drug trade, and how to ensure a healthy media that keeps the public informed and holds those in charge to account. Such questions aren’t routinely asked by those in power, either in TV-land or real life. The Wire also demonstrates fantastically the natural instinct of institutions to privilege the status quo over risk taking, even if existing practices are demonstrably ineffective. Every police or government character primarily works to protect their own skin, often at the expense of their actual duties. The rare examples of independent and pragmatic thought don’t end with the praise of superiors, but rather with derision and rebuke. Deviation from received wisdom is seen as a liability by everyone in the chain of command, and is not tolerated.
Don’t for a moment think that watching The Wire is a worthy chore, as with Al Gore documentaries. I enjoy progressive calls-to-arms as much as the next person, but 60 hours worth? I doubt it would have achieved the same cultish following if that was all it had going for it.
Any message the show may have is often forced to take a back seat by the staggeringly good scripts. Many in the writing team come from a novelist background rather than television. Given that most characters are police or drug dealers, it would be easy for writers to use sloppy generalisations, or allow a simplistic good/bad dividing line to separate them. Not so, fortunately. Even the most cold-blooded killers have their own forms of morality and convincing redeeming features, while the flaws of the most devoted police officers are also laid bare.
Dialogue is the foundation to the show, not a filler between action sequences. The word-perfect Baltimore slang (a real life Baltimore resident confirmed this to me) is disorientating at first, but always compelling, and the main reason that the characters are so unusually well-developed. If this sounds too heavy for an entertainment show, rest assured that the script’s humour is phenomenal, despite the grim subject matter.
Barack Obama’s election victory has been all the more exciting to me since I heard reports that his favourite TV show is The Wire. If anyone needs a lesson in problems afflicting American cities, it’s an incoming President. I can only hope that he’s taken on board some of the morals of the many interwoven Wire stories. Everyone else, just watch it. Please. You won’t be disappointed.
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