Y'all ask me, y'all ugly ass niggas shouldn't be in here fuckin' around with all these guns and shit
Don't nobody like to hear dirty words like that
Alright, alright, The Wire is clearly one of the great modern American TV dramas. I'm now halfway through Season One, on the collective recommendation of just about everybody who posts on this blog, and it's had its hooks in me since Episode Two. I can't tell the converted anything about it that they don't know, and here I am again, last on the block, but fuck it, who cares? I'm with the programme now, literally. I'm watching it in two-episode chunks. One isn't enough. It's set in Baltimore, whose suburbs appear to have much in common with New Jersey, hence the immediate Sopranos echoes - however, although it's a police procedural first and foremost, it's different to NYPD Blue in its prime, as the the drug dealers and stick-up merchants get equal airtime. We care about the police and the criminals. All have backstories and motivation and character, and because it's a serial, rather than a series, a longer narrative arc unfolds, which makes it compulsive. The language is strong, but nothing to shock a fan of gangsta rap. And there's poetry within it, not least when (in the scene pictured) D'Angelo explains the rules of chess to two young hustlers in the Pit who are using the chess pieces to play checkers. I'm knocked out by Dominic West, who plays chief protagonist McNulty - the boozy cop who makes a special trip to Ikea when his kids are coming to visit and assembles them a bunk bed, despite sucking on a half-bottle of whisky as he does so - but mainly since I discovered he's English! He had a small part in the 1999 Patrick Stewart Christmas Carol they showed on Christmas Eve. The bloke was born in Sheffield. And while we're on the subject of English actors making a decent fist of an American accent in a US TV show, one of the dealers is played by Idris Elba, who used to be on Family Affairs in the early days. I used to write dialogue for him as Tim! Now he's in The Wire, which - I don't know if I mentioned this - is one of the great modern American TV dramas.
I understand it's into its fourth season in the States. I've got some catching up to do. Better cover my ears.
Thank you for the tip-off by the way.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 7:46 PM
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Glad you're enjoying it.
You cares if you're last to see it. It makes everyone else jealous because you're discovering it for the first time.
The problem with it is you end up rooting for everyone - the cops, the dealers in the low rises, Bubs and especially Omar. It really is such a rich narrative. But you don't need me to tell you that.
Because the TV schedules are utter crap, get done with The Sopranos if you have to and then get back on The Wire.
The first season is fantastic. The thing is, it gets better.
You have until February to get up to speed with the Wire. Season 4 airs on FX that month.
Why couldn't Christmas TV be better? The only things I've enjoyed the past few days were Peter and the Wolf animation, and Some Like it Hot - seen it before, but still brilliant.
It seems that The Wire isn't getting the props it deserves over in the States either. I enjoyed this exchange taken from the Bill Simmons (The Sports Guy) mailbag over at the ESPN site...
Q: In a perfect world, you would be bombarded with e-mails telling you how right you are about "The Wire." Even with your strange cross-section of fans, I'm afraid this show is still under the radar. The show is indescribably detailed, so much so that you should try this test: Try explaining every character to someone watching the show for the first time. You realize you can spend 20 minutes describing even minor characters. And this after only four seasons. This has become the ultimate litmus test for me: If someone isn't obsessed with "The Wire," then I can't possibly be good friends with them.
--Bryan, Amityville, N.Y.
SG: We'll make sure not to introduce you to any Golden Globe voters; they didn't even nominate "The Wire" for "best dramatic series" this week. How does a show finish the greatest season in the history of television and not even get NOMINATED? Unbelievable. No wonder all the celebrities in attendance have to get drunk to make it through that awards show. Just watch the first three episodes and see if you like it. Come on. I don't ask for much.
Sorry for slight thread hijack. I've been off line for a few days while Mrs J and I hosted family over Christmas. Just wanted to say thanks for such an interesting blog which brightened up my 2006 no end. So, a belated Merry Christmas and a premature Happy New Year. DJ
Can you play checkers with chess pieces? Don't you reach a point where you have one piece stacked on top of another that acts as a kind of super piece? You could only do that with rooks, couldn't you? And what kind of shoddy chess set doesn't come with draughts pieces as well? Is this why I don't enjoy US dramas?
Dave - and I suspect you know this - the implication was that the poor black kids had probably nicked the chess set and were from the wrong side of the educational divide in West Baltimore to have been taught chess by their probably crack-addicted moms or absent fathers; thus they were using the chess set to play checkers. D'Angelo, a wiser and older drug dealer with a conscience, instructed them in the ways of chess such that they would understand them ("the Queen, she got all the moves"). It was a lovely piece of writing that spoke volumes about the socio-cultural setting, and was also very funny.
You can play Monopoly on a Cluedo board. I'm having a game now and just bought the lead piping in the study for a picture of professor plum.
You can't play strip poker with a pet unless you have no shame.
This show is great. I'm at season 1 episode 8, and dreading coming to the end. To binge or drip-feed? that is the question.
One scene bewildered me. The continual 'Fuck' word scene between McNulty and his partner at the crime scene in episode 2 or 3.
Did they think they were in Four Weddings and a Funeral?
Almost as good as the Sopranos.
Any other recommendations?
I gorged, Rob. It's OK. I can tell you now that Season Two is equally compulsive: different in many ways, but similar in enough. Most of the characters are carried over, but there's a completely new story set around the docks. Inspired. And there's Season Three after that, due on DVD in Feb.
The "fuck" crime scene with McNulty and Bunk was brilliant: complete black comedy, and yet with a crucial part to play in the story.
Maybe bewildered was the wrong word. It just seemed out of context with what I had seen up to that point. Perhaps I need more time to acclimatise?
I'm really enjoying the adventures of McNulty and co (and B'ungalow Barksdale)
I've now reached the end of season 4 of Sopranos. I want to have seen all of the episodes and none of them at the same time. I need a word to describe the feeling (regrecipation?).
Navigating this blog is a minefield for me, with it's intriguing pictures and an occasionally glimpsed season 6 phrase.
On an unrelated topic, I've sneaked a peek at the first couple of episodes of Heroes. Have to say it's pretty entertaining. Not as mature as Sopranos or Wired, but its got promise. Unbreakable meets the X-Men.
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