Reviews

by Chuck Cannon

The Wire- HBO

Every time I drift towards canceling HBO, I find yet another original series that is fantastic. Rarely do you see a show like this that has so much ambition in what it’s trying to accomplish, and more rarely do you see it succeed like this in its attempt in doing so.

Let me introduce you to The Wire, the best TV show put on the small screen. The show that will, after you’ve finished it, leave you empty inside because you’ll never find another TV show that can rival it. With its five seasons, The Wire raised the bar of quality for TV shows, the bar that no TV show to date has managed to reach.

The story is set in the city of Baltimore. It’s about its slow fall: the pointlessness of the war on drugs, the bureaucracy and corruption that infest both the police force and drug-dealing gangs, class war against the labor unions, and the city’s dysfunctional public schools system. It’s all shown through the perspective of law enforcement and drug dealers.

As the story goes, you’ll encounter well-thought-out plot twists. You’ll see a lot of characters die because, as creator/ writer David Simon said: “We are not selling hope, or audience gratification, or cheap victories with this show. The Wire is making an argument about what institutions—bureaucracies, criminal enterprises, the cultures of addiction, raw capitalism even—do to individuals. It is not designed purely as an entertainment. It is, I’m afraid, a somewhat angry show.”

And that makes the show so great, because deaths have meanings and consequences and aren’t just there for the shock factor like in Game of Thrones. It also helps that Simons knows what he’s talking about since he wrote for the Baltimore Sun and saw a lot of things on the streets that are portrayed in the show. One of the things I really love about The Wire is that the characters aren’t all good or all bad; they’re gray when it comes to their morality. Simon challenges the viewer to like characters. Characters will do bad things, but you’ll probably agree on a lot of them given the situation they’re in. The writing is just great. The Wire has a web of characters and the show spins them well. From McNulty to Stringer Bell, there are complex and well-written characters. But there are also some weaker ones, which is to be expected, because the show has more than 100 characters and you can’t expect that they’ll all be up to the same level of complexity. There is no plot armor in this show. A lot of characters will die and, as I’ve already said, their deaths have consequences and aren’t just meant to be a shock factor.

The acting team consists of familiar HBO actors and real cops and criminals, and they all did a pretty damn good job. Some are weaker, and that is most notable during Seasons 1 and 5, but weak actors aren’t that usual in the show so don’t worry. I’d say the best actor is easily Dominic West as McNulty, who stole the show for me – but since I’m biased towards McNulty, don’t take my word for it.

In the end, The Wire did what little to no TV show could hope to do: it succeeded with its extremely ambitious, and I’d say almost impossible mission to tell a story of Baltimore’s crumble. The social commentary, the writing of the characters, the well-thought-out plot twists, great directing, and David Simon’s expertise on the case made The Wire one of the best television shows ever seen on small screens.

Enjoy the ride while it lasts because once it ends, you’ll be left with an empty hole within yourself, because they’ll never be a TV show that could rival The Wire.

Now go watch it already!