Review of HBO's The Wire, Season One
I thought I'd lead this column off with something I'm pretty sure you haven't seen but that you should. There are, as I have argued, a lot of things worth seeing in the theaters, but let's ignore all that for the moment. There is something else that deserves your time and is in fact a whole lot better than even the best film out there right now. Yet it tends to live so far under the radar that even I, who used to work in a video store and who regularly tracks films and videos of interest, had never heard of it until I found it on the shelf. Yet, believe it or not, this unassuming little epic is one of the best stories ever filmed.
Before I saw The Wire, I thought all TV cops shows should be taken out and shot. The first season of The Shield (the extent of what I’ve seen of that show) I found to be an ill-conceived cheat. Vic Mackey is no one to side with, and the show repeatedly lies. It promotes itself as gritty and realistic, but it’s just cynical and immoral. Even so, it is still probably the second-best cop show around right now. The phenomenal success of the many clones of CSI I find a little disappointing if not all that surprising. Other shows like Monk, while enjoyable, still are just rehashing an age-old cozy formula of likable detectives in lukewarm situations of bloodless danger. Fine and dandy if that’s what you dig (and sometimes, I'll admit, it's what I dig), but not one of these shows approaches anything you could call art. No one will get that excited watching reruns of Criminal Minds. These shows are meant to be seen and forgotten. Though The Shield breaks out of this formula and attempts to do something unique and important, I think it’s a fundamentally irresponsible show with no real soul.
So it was with a reluctant heart that I watched the first episode of HBO’s drama about cops and drug dealers in present-day West Baltimore. I’d only put on The Wire as a last resort, having run out of Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Sex and The City, Deadwood, Entourage, and Carnivale episodes (and yes, those are placed in order of preference). I generally really enjoy HBO’s television shows for their originality, vitality, and richness of texture. Granted, some of the shows listed above are a lot better than others (I actually pretty much hate Carnivale, and as much as I enjoy Deadwood, it is often plagued by some seriously dull subplots), but overall HBO’s track record is something for any other network to envy. Even loving HBO as much as I do, I had trouble bringing myself to watch The Wire. It was a cop show, plain and simple, and I am so deeply prejudiced against cop shows that I’ve made it a quasi-rule to keep cops out of my own fiction. I am really not kidding about how much I hate cop shows: I hate the “juris-my-diction” rivalry you always get when cops are around; I hate cheesy cop talk; I hate cops who solve cases with improbable and often absurd technology; and I am definitely sick to death of toughguy cops like Vic Mackey, who allegedly have to be tough to get the job done. I mean, can we please be done with this crap?
That said, the first season of The Wire rivals even the first season of that other gem in HBO’s crown, The Sopranos. The Wire is unique in that its episodes are not really meant to be viewed in a standalone fashion. The show very much functions as a season, which can be a weakness if you are a certain kind of viewer who doesn’t like investing thirteen hours into something. But I think this kind of show can work for people who like good books and can keep a plot in their head for more than an hour. Though many shows, including The Sopranos, have overarching storylines, these shows still offer a lot of very complete episodes to viewers, and sometimes the strongest episodes are those that take off on a wild tangent (such as the “Pine Barrens” episode in season three of The Sopranos, where Paulie and Christopher wind up stranded in the woods, chasing a mad Russian). But an episodic story is not a tightly-constructed story, and where The Wire transcends all other television shows is where it becomes clear that every moment in the show has been building to a conclusion so powerful that it does more than just involve you emotionally: this show drags you in by your very soul. Once you have seen the full story, you wonder how anything else is ever going to seem as significant and important. You’re not going to necessarily be blown away by the first episode, but that is because it is just getting warmed up.
So what’s so good about it besides the fact that it takes a long time to tell its story? First of all, it is amazingly realistic. It’s set in West Baltimore, and true to HBO form it has been shot on location in West Baltimore. The story revolves around a team of cops trying to bring down a drug operation run out of the projects, known in the show as “The Towers.” The environment feels so real that after watching the show, you will feel like you could find the couch where D’Angelo sits and oversees the drug deals. Secondly, the characters are unique and unforgettable. Stringer Bell is one of the best, scariest, and most chillingly realistic bad guys I have ever seen on screen. The cops are interesting people rather than support systems for techno-babble or grim rage-addicted stereotypes. Ditto for the criminals and the other people living in the Towers. In a lot of ways, the show is a more realistic, more complicated version of The Sopranos that allows you to side with both the cops and the criminals. Finally, the intricate portrait of city politics could never be accomplished in anything but a thirteen-hour epic.
The first season of HBO’s The Wire is one of the most engaging, important, and tightly-crafted stories ever told on television. It not only transcends the cop show genre; it transcends everything movies and television shows have dreamed they were capable of. Do yourself a favor and give it a shot. I promise you will not be wasting your time.