The OOs: TV Shows We Liked to Watch: #1 The Wire

The Wire was a television program that could not have happened before the 2000s. Really, it was probably 20 years too soon but it came when it came and it was awesome.

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The concept was huge
The concept was simple enough I suspect when he sold it. A police procedural about drug dealers and wire taps in Baltimore. David Simon (a former City Reporter for the Baltimore Sun and later a producer and writer for Homicide and author of the The Corner) delivered on this but he also gave us so much more. In the end he told a broad story about the failure of large US cities at the beginning of the 21st century starting first with the drug trade, and subsequently exploring the evaporation of the middle class, the inherent bureaucracy of local government, the complete failure of the educational system and finally why the media is no longer in a position to expose all these limitations.


The narrative and the characters are complex
Lots of writers who got paid to watch TV called the show “Dickensian in scope”, something that annoyed Simon so much that he used it as an example of the sort of drivel that Editors use at flailing newspapers in season 5. What the meant is that he managed to avoid following a strict linear narrative. Dominic West was ostensibly the star of the show but he spent the entirety of season 3 showing up every other episode, smirking, and then drifting back into the background. This is because the city (its street corners, funeral homes, projects, police precincts, city hall) was the star with several characters going into and out of focus at any given time.

They also never give you an upper hand over anyone in the show. You learn things as they do. You also have to pay attention. Police Chief Bunny Colvin shows up for 3 minutes in season 2, quietly observes a situation and decides then and there what his only course of action is; as witnessed by his Hamsterdam experiment in Season 3.

People love Omar Little – the Robin Hood of the ‘hood. They fear Marlo Stansfield. They inexplicably want Bunny to succeed and mostly because you are willing to trade anything away for a cessation of the insanity.


It also manages to be quite funny.


It won’t make you feel good
There is no redemption for the system it’s a disaster. Some characters find individual redemption but its few and far between and even then their position is assumed by someone else from the cast ensure that their system stays broken and things stay hopeless.

Season 4 is essentially about the children raised on the streets of Baltimore and it is at times heartbreaking. Your investment in the “hoppers” – Namond, Michael, Dukie, and Randy will leave in pieces after you realize where Baltimore leaves most of them… You also get to meet Kinard – who turns out to be the most evil 5 year old ever.

A closing thought
This is a tough show to watch. No one stops to explain anything to you - its one long sprawling narrative that unfolds bit by bit. It was also the single vision of one creator - an auteur – just like filmmaking in the 70s. This is the conceit of television in the 00s. Prior to this decade TV shows were pretty consistent. The status quo could not be disrupted week to week so viewers could check in or out without much work. This is no longer the case. As technological advances drove a drop in prices (as VHS went to DVDs then On Demand to our eventual post net work future), the revenue opportunity for television series also changed because revenue could be made up in the secondary market. This allowed people to stretch on TV. I suppose it could have happened earlier with VHS but it didn’t for whatever reason. I mean really, who went out and bought MASH or even Friends on VHS? I don’t know many folks who did.

I am not sure which was the chicken or the egg here. Was it the burning platform (the 10 hour drama of the Sopranos, FX’s The Shield or ABC’s Alias) or the technology? The best answer is that they probably helped each other out – a virtuous circle with each element re-enforcing the other. Now telling a story (large or small) across a series was possible because any audience sacrificed week to week could be made up future consumption. The medium of that consumption continues to evolve and soon no one will consume DVDs and eventually we won’t even being paying for cable (the next inefficiency to fall and I can’t wait)

So this is the TV story of the 00s. The first few examples of this in the decade (JJ Abrams work on Alias and the guy from Sopranos) begat others like Lost and even Glee. But it reached it potential with The Wire - a brilliant show that is probably best consumed on DVD or on Demand as one long single narrative.