The Wire

[percy toboggan]

Has anyone been watching this late doors on BBC 2 ?
On every night this week I think.

It's been vaunted for months by many as the greatest televison drama/cop show ever. I've seen both episodes so far but have a way to go to be convinced.

It's an utterly depressing portrayal of life in the roughest parts of Baltimore, in Maryland. Inevitably these are the black areas. Where drugs are the currency, along with death...which so far is handed out on a fairly casual basis.

Mono-syllabic grunting - I've had to resort to sub-titles - and the scripts constant use of the word that begins with 'm' and ends in 'ucker' -
and that's just the Police Officer's parts.


I'm afraid scenes of baggy panted low life with no aspiration, weighed down with shoulder high chips and basically unemployable are beginning to turn me off. It might not be long before I do. However, I'll stick with it for a little while yet. I hope to be hooked, but at this stage it's doubtful.

Those few black men who have risen to high office might prove the series' salvation....the Lieutenant Cop for instance seems to be a moral man without chips who'll stand no messin' aboot. He needs to start bangin' a few up - or
perhaps frying tonight.

It's fiction after all. Or should that be friction? I'd certainly not want to live within fifty miles of the place.

[Fluff]

Sadly I forgot it was on so I forgot to set it to record. There have been alot of hype in the media about it but I cannot say I know much about the show.
I will be interested as to what other people think.

[matelot79]

I have got all 5 series on DVD, thought it was good except for the last one. Won't go into detail, but then again it might be another 4 years before it gets shown here.

[rich]

It's a toss-up which is the most hypnotically watchable - the Sopranos or The Wire.

My vote goes to The Wire. (set in Baltimore MD)

It has the best musical score I have ever heard in a TV drama - thanks to the Blind Boys of Alabama.

What drives The Wire is character. The streets are miserable, the cops are corrupt, the newspapers tell lies, the docks are falling to bits causing massive unemployment, the educational system doesn't work but all the characters have a sort of reckless resilience. They always go that bit too far.

What drives The Wire is brilliant dialogue right from the street corners. I've spoken to people from the Baltimore/Washington area and they tell me that's how it sounds, that's the cadence and the rhythm. In the USA HBO fan pages you can read it in the letters and it's real all right. If at first you cant understand everything just let it wash over you. You'll get it.

Its a cast of star gazers packing heavy duty fire-power. It's planet USA getting ready to implode.

Consider McNulty - alcoholic, driven, looking for a fight, taking everything and everyone personally - except for his wife and child.

What about Stringer Bell the drug lord and stone cold killer who holds evening classes in economics for his dealers?

Or detective Lester Freamon inventor of The Wire - a decent guy but maybe driving too hard?

Hows about Sergeant Jay Landsman, all that quivering flesh and all that political conniving.

Basically each one of the series covers a theme - Drug dealing, - the Docks - the Education system - the newspapers/media - City Hall (I may have missed one out...)

The narrative technique is straight out of Shakespeare's cycle of history plays.

I can't say better than that!

[rich]

And here's the HBO cast list!

http://www.hbo.com/thewire/cast/

[percy toboggan]

High praise indeed.
I'm already looking forward to 'the docks'
And I thought Baltimore was inland!
Maybe a 'big river' - I shall see.

I've listened to the man who wrote it and filmed it, and he convinced me it was real in it's depiction of a completely different society outwith any rules we might recognise.

I have never seen an episode of 'The Sopranos'....oir the Simpson's but I'm not essphobic!

[percy toboggan]

Just checked a map and feel slighlty vindicated on Baltimore. Not a port in the conventional seaboard sense, but a port all the same. That's one big bay.

I always appreciate a Geography lesson.

[golach]

Just checked a map and feel slighlty vindicated on Baltimore. Not a port in the conventional seaboard sense, but a port all the same. That's one big bay.

I always appreciate a Geography lesson.
Baltimore is a big port Percy, last time i was there in '58

[percy toboggan]

As episode three drew to a close this afternoon I was thinking this is becoming an interesting watch.

[Rioskorrie]

Yep. You´ll be well and truly hooked by the third show (is that the one where McNulty and Bunt do the "F" crime scene investigation ?)

[percy toboggan]

Yep. You´ll be well and truly hooked by the third show (is that the one where McNulty and Bunt do the "F" crime scene investigation ?)

That's the fourth - which we watched last night. I think that scene it must have set a record for the 'eff' word ! Comical actually, and very well pulled off.
Also quite fascinating. I taped the fifth last night and will view this evening. Character development is now fully underway and likeables are emerging. Flawed likeables. This is a rich and varied seam of humanity they are excavating.

I'm even developing a certain grain of sympathy for the 'pawns' and
foot soldiers. If I watch it to the end I might be a changed man!

Why though I'm wondering, would Dee (Angelo) blurt out in casual conversation that he shot that woman in the ground floor apartment?
Street cred? If that kind of thing elevates ones level of 'respek' then I guess my sympathy might be truncated. I thought it strangely amusing though that one of his low life mates asked 'why' if she was naked and I paraphrase 'he hadn't made love to her first'

A parallel universe which is dragging me in kicking and screaming , ably assisted by a can or two of John Smith's smooth.

[scorrie]

That's the fourth - which we watched last night. I think that scene it must have set a record for the 'eff' word ! Comical actually, and very well pulled off.
Also quite fascinating. I taped the fifth last night and will view this evening. Character development is now fully underway and likeables are emerging. Flawed likeables. This is a rich and varied seam of humanity they are excavating.

I'm even developing a certain grain of sympathy for the 'pawns' and
foot soldiers. If I watch it to the end I might be a changed man!

Why though I'm wondering, would Dee (Angelo) blurt out in casual conversation that he shot that woman in the ground floor apartment?
Street cred? If that kind of thing elevates ones level of 'respek' then I guess my sympathy might be truncated. I thought it strangely amusing though that one of his low life mates asked 'why' if she was naked and I paraphrase 'he hadn't made love to her first'

A parallel universe which is dragging me in kicking and screaming , ably assisted by a can or two of John Smith's smooth.

I'll eat my hat if you are not hooked in time percy.

The Wire took a bit of time for my wife and I to get into but it becomes addictive viewing. By the time you get used to the ways and the language of the "Streets" and "Corners", the characters have grown on you and the various layers of the storyline starts to take hold. Several aspects of life in the City are explored in more depth and you realise there is a lot more to the series than strong language and casual violence. There are also moments of humour, look out for later in the series' when a gang member goes to buy a wreath for a fallen "soldier" and gets taken through the back to see the "special" selection!!

Baltimore is roughly two thirds Black people to one third White and this is brought to life in The Wire as we see Black Officers being groomed for positions in preference to White Officers. I found it ironic to see the positive discrimination of Black people, for political purposes, in contrast to the normal turn of events.

I have seen all five series and can't recommend it highly enough. Omar Little and Bubs were probably my favourite characters. (Honey Nut Cheerios anyone?)

[percy toboggan]

Mmmm...Friday night I used an erased DVD/RW and the damn thing froze up halfway in, so I missed the second half. I tried the i.player but it's not on there due to a 'rights' problem.
They are showing all 60 episodes back to back apparently so I'll have to stock up on discs and train Mrs.T to programme the recorder in my absence. This does seem to be addictive television, and the boxed sets are quite expensive.