You may well have heard accolades like "greatest television show ever" bestowed on this series, which not that many people have heard of because, like all the best America tele, it got shoved on to a channel which no one watches, not everyone has, and at a difficult time of day. Just like, in fact, creator David Simon's previous show, The Corner and many other great shows that have come our way from across the pond (Seinfeld, Arrested Development, even arguably Curb, the list goes on).
But suddenly everyone has started talking about The Wire, quite possibly because, having completed its 5th season, it has finished. Recommended to me by a few friends recently, I began catching up with this from season one. I owe my friends some serious beers for the recommendation.
Condensed over 13, hour-long, episodes, The Wire tells the story of a complex series of murder and drug-related investigations undertaken by a special unit of the Baltimore PD to try and take down a local drug baron by the name of Avon Barksdale, and his crew.
I was into it by the end of the first episode, to a degree and depth no first episode has ever engaged me before. The story is a little slow to get going, but the brilliant, deeply-drawn, characters drive the first few episodes on at an incredibly rapid and soulful pace, to the extent that I find myself watching the DVD clock shoot towards the hour mark at light speed desperately hoping it would slow down. Around Episode 5, this simply becomes the greatest series of television I have ever seen and sustains that level of interest, depth of character, engagement and general, all-round, brilliance right to the last reel of Episode 13, which leaves you gagging, and I do mean gagging, for Series 2. Like a book you can't put down, the watchability of this exceeds even the greatest, most engaging, television of the last decade (which, for me, constitutes, in terms of drama, the first seasons of Lost and 24).
Although the drama and the story are both utterly compelling, the best thing about this is it's characters. Alternating between being heroes and villains from one moment to the next, there is not one element, not one pore on any of their skins, that feels hackneyed and cliched. Again, this even surpasses season 1 of Lost, which did such a brilliant and, in a way, very original take on characterisation, with the layers of humanness that lie under the interesting skins of the Wire's characters. The main protagonist is the sublime McNulty (a brilliant Dominic West), an incredibly passionate cop, who likes the odd drink and who drives the investigation with his passion and verve, which comes to infect all of those around him who start of not wanting to be there. McNulty makes more enemies than Ashley Cole along the way, but it is relentlessly compelling. However, the other characters are so equally brilliant, he is not left holding, or even driving, the show in any way. McNulty's partner Bunk is hilarious and just as fun, but with a very deep soul as well, the chief, Daniels, grows into the series like a sunflower stretching up to the sky in summer. Kima, who grows close to McNulty, is perhaps the least well understood of the characters and you sense there is a lot more to come from her as well. The actress (Sonja Sohn) is spectacularly good as well. There are others, too, particularly Lester, who, like the Chief, grows into the series and will surely play a more prominent role in the series to come.
Then there is the other side, the drug dealers. Only, with the Wire, you can never quite be sure just whose side you are supposed to be on as heroes and villains lurk in every corner switching from one to the next just like the human beings they are. The main protagonist on this 'side' is D'Angelo Barksdale (Larry Gilliard Jr.), nephew to drug baron Avon, whose conscience is torn by the brutal, tormenting, world into which he was born and the deeds it compels him to carry out. D'Angelo is probably the deepest of all the characters (though that's like saying Pele was the greatest Brazilian footballer of all time in a team that comprised (say) Sokrates, Garrincha, Jairzinho, Ronaldo and 100m man Kaka) and every scene he is involved in is fascinating and you are just never sure which way he's going to go in any given situation. Avon (Wood Harris) is truly scary, one of the most frightening villains depicted on screen for years. Harris is brilliant and invests Avon with a ocean-deep sense of intensity, drive, power and strength. The same goes for Avon's lieutenant Stringer Bell (Idris Elba).
Further brilliant characters flit around the outskirts, meaning that no scene seems superfluous, padding or meaningless. As Anthony Burgess wrote about The Old Man and The Sea , every word tells a story and there is not a single word too many. Drug-addict turned informant Bubbles just tries to survive in a world you know he isn't made for and, again, more of his story waits to be told. Omar, a local rival to Avon, is almost as scary, but more sensitive, humorous and layered.I can't mention every character, otherwise this review will go on for a year. Wikipedia has a useful brief summary on every character for those interested.
The other sublime thing about this show is its depth of focus on the reality of inner city American life and ghettoisation. The far-reaching and very real impact of inequality and deprivation (including oppression, racism and ghettoisation) are here laid bare in all their wretchedness. These characters are forced to make choices and decisions the more fortunate of us simply never have to contemplate facing. If the world is to change, the beginnings of those changes will have to be felt here. But what has changed? This is the world Bobby Womack, in Across 110th Street, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5, in The Message and, in film, Charles Burnett, were warning the world about already 30 years ago. People can only take so much and one day the grapes of wrath will sow the seeds of revolution on these streets. This is a brutal and unforgiving world and, ironically, one which makes for a relentlessly compelling season of perfect drama.
Just go and buy this, you cannot possibly regret it. I'm going to return to Season 1 time and time again, especially whenever I feel the call to revolution. It immediately has a longevity way beyond that of most TV seasons, even the most brilliant. Just superb, brilliant and beautiful. TV cannot, and will not, get any better than this.
A+
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