The Wire
I had hoped, before the fourth season premiere, to have the time to write a post about HBO's The Wire. I even started it a couple of times, but never could get any further than three sentences before it started to sound like a civics essay, and The Wire deserves better. It's THE BEST SHOW on television - I dare say better than Battlestar Galactica or Deadwood because it's so consistently and uncompromisingly excellent.
Each season is a self-contained arc, and together, they tell the story about an American city that could be many cities. The show is about Baltimore from the ground up: the dealers, the vagrants, the gangsters, the patrol cops, the homicide detectices, the mothers with kids, the educators, the dock labourers, the civil servants, the white politicians, the black politicians, the big wigs in Washington just a stone's throw away but it may as well be the other side of the world. It's gritty and realistic and smart as all hell. It requires your constant
attention but never exploits it (as Carnivale sometimes was guilty of). It may not have a draw like Molly Parker or Timothy Olyphant in its cast, but it's one of the best ensemble casts in the business, and like Deadwood, its characters are all part of something bigger without ever losing their individual depth and complexity. The struggles and contradictions inherent between institutions (the Street, the Law, the Port, the City Hall) and its individual components is what The Wire is consistently trying to capture.
So watch The Wire, buy the DVDs, and tell people about it. It seems like we're always saying goodbye to some beloved, critically acclaimed show that's been cancelled before its time. I don't know how many of you have seen The Wire (chele74 may just well be my one and only convert so far) but I will continue pimping; you haven't heard the last of me, see.
And for more infomation, there's always Wikipedia.
Whadya know? This turned into a whole post after all. :)