The Wire - Where is the Love?

[rleidle]

In my opinion season 1 and 2 were pure genius -- especially season 2.

Season3 was ok, but the whole hamsterdam thing was a little too ridiculous. It took away from what the show has always been really good at -- being "real".

Season 4 is a completely new angle, focusing on the children. The plot has been buildnig very slowly but I think it will reach the climax soon. I think season4 is a good season but I actually wish it were longer to allow for more story line.

[Runkmud]

Pokerraja, if you can afford it, just buy all the seasons, they're well worth watching over again, and you can bug your friends to watch them til they finally submit and then thank you voraciously.

[moneyfaucet]

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Geez, we are in the midst of one of the best seasons of TV ever and there are no posts. WTF?


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It's a rerun. Season 5 hasn't come out yet.

The Wire is the best show I've ever seen on television. It's a shame that a lot of people don't watch it because they're either uncomfortable watching black people on their screen or because the show is too realistic. The Wire deals with important issues that need to be addressed in American society- corruption, drug abuse, gangs, the prison system, the education system, and so much more. If you can be patient and watch the show from the beginning, you will see that this is so much more than just a crime show.

"The writers strive to create a realistic vision of an American city based on their own experiences. Central to this aim is the creation of truthful characters. Simon has admitted that most of them are composites of real-life Baltimore figures.

In distinguishing the police characters from other television detectives, Simon makes the point that even the best police of The Wire are motivated not by a desire to protect and serve, but by the intellectual vanity of believing they are smarter than the criminal they are chasing. Many officers portrayed on the show are incompetent, brutal, self-aggrandizing, or hamstrung by bureaucracy and politics. The criminals are not always motivated by profit or a desire to harm others; many are trapped in their existence and all have human qualities. Even so, The Wire does not minimize or gloss over the horrific effects of their actions.

The show is also scrupulously realistic in depicting the processes of both police work and criminal activity. Many of the plot points were based on the experiences of Simon and Burns. There have even been reports of real-life criminals watching the show to learn how to counter police investigation techniques."

"Simon described the second season as 'a meditation on the death of work and the betrayal of the American working class... It is a deliberate argument that unencumbered capitalism is not a substitute for social policy; that on its own, without a social compact, raw capitalism is destined to serve the few at the expense of the many.' He added that season 3 'reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals.' The third season is also an allegory that draws explicit parallels between the War in Iraq and the national drug prohibition, which in Simon's view has failed in its aims and become a war against America's underclass.

Writer Ed Burns has called education the theme of the fourth season. Rather than solely focusing on the school system, the season will look at schools as a porous part of the community that are affected by problems outside of their boundaries. Burns states that education comes from many sources other than schools and that children can be educated by other means, including contact with the drug dealers they work for. Burns and Simon see the theme as an opportunity to look at how individuals end up like the show's criminal characters, and to dramatize the theory that hard work is not always justly rewarded."

[moneyfaucet]

Here is some interesting information on the actress who plays Snoop (Chris' partner in crime). I love this girl so much.

"In a show that is known for authentic characters, the 26-year-old Ms. Pearson has lived the kind of hard life embodied by her character. She was born to two drug-addicted and incarcerated parents and reared in an East Baltimore foster home.

'I was a crack baby,' Ms. Pearson said by telephone from Baltimore. 'I was, like, three pounds, and I had to get fed with an eyedropper.' She started selling drugs at 10 and at 14 was locked up for more than seven years after shooting a woman. 'I grew up not giving a damn about anything, because why give a damn if you are in a foster home and your parents didn’t care anything about you?' Ms. Pearson said. She added that she had so many drugs in her system when she was born that she was cross-eyed as a child. 'Kids would tease me, saying that I’m cross-eyed and don’t have a real mother, and all those kids who said those mean things, I beat the hell out of them,' she said.

She said her life turned around at 18, when a man she called Uncle Loney, a local drug dealer who looked out for her and sent her money in prison, was shot and killed. It was he who had given her the nickname Snoop because she reminded him of Charlie Brown’s favorite beagle in the comic strip 'Peanuts.'

'He was my best friend,' said Ms. Pearson, who was an inmate at a women’s penitentiary in Jessup, Md., when Uncle Loney was killed. 'When he got shot, I had a reality check and said to myself, Man, you got to get yourself together and get yourself out of here, because nobody’s going to keep taking care of you.’

After earning her G.E.D. in prison, Ms. Pearson was released in 2000. She landed a local job making car bumpers, she said, but was fired two weeks later after her employer learned she had a prison record.

Then, two and a half years ago, while employed at a car wash, she got her big break. At a local nightclub she met Michael K. Williams, who plays Omar, a gay gangster who robs drug dealers for kicks, on 'The Wire.' Mr. Williams said he saw that Ms. Pearson had charisma, and he was fascinated with her hard-knock story and thought she would be perfect for the show."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/arts/t...and&emc=rss

[shaniac]

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In my opinion season 1 and 2 were pure genius -- especially season 2.

Season3 was ok, but the whole hamsterdam thing was a little too ridiculous. It took away from what the show has always been really good at -- being "real".

Season 4 is a completely new angle, focusing on the children. The plot has been buildnig very slowly but I think it will reach the climax soon. I think season4 is a good season but I actually wish it were longer to allow for more story line.

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The Hamsterdam thing wasn't as ridiculous as you seem to think, since the former mayor of Baltimore wanted to decriminalize drugs in real life, and I guess he got villified for the idea.

Even if it was pure whimsy, I thought it was an amazing depiction about what a decrimalized-drug-zone would look and feel like, and the Hamsterdam idea presented a fairly compelling solution to the inner-city drug problem without appearing like a candy-coated, unrealistic liberal fantasy.

The last 3 eps of season three are my maybe my favorite. I think the last 3 eps of each season are always the most satisfying.

Also, if you haven't seen "The Corner" which was Simon/Burns' project before The Wire, it's quite good.

[mikeymer]

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[ QUOTE ]
In my opinion season 1 and 2 were pure genius -- especially season 2.

Season3 was ok, but the whole hamsterdam thing was a little too ridiculous. It took away from what the show has always been really good at -- being "real".

Season 4 is a completely new angle, focusing on the children. The plot has been buildnig very slowly but I think it will reach the climax soon. I think season4 is a good season but I actually wish it were longer to allow for more story line.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Hamsterdam thing wasn't as ridiculous as you seem to think, since the former mayor of Baltimore wanted to decriminalize drugs in real life, and I guess he got villified for the idea.

Even if it was pure whimsy, I thought it was an amazing depiction about what a decrimalized-drug-zone would look and feel like, and the Hamsterdam idea presented a fairly compelling solution to the inner-city drug problem without appearing like a candy-coated, unrealistic liberal fantasy.

The last 3 eps of season three are my maybe my favorite. I think the last 3 eps of each season are always the most satisfying.

Also, if you haven't seen "The Corner" which was Simon/Burns' project before The Wire, it's quite good.

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I also heard a similar project was actually attempted in a Canadian city, I can't recall which.

[pauliewalnuts]

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Geez, we are in the midst of one of the best seasons of TV ever and there are no posts. WTF?


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It's a rerun. Season 5 hasn't come out yet.



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Not a rerun for me. I dont have on demand and I've refused to download the rest of the season. Nice info on Snoop btw. I knew she had been through a lot in real life, but I didnt know the extent of it.

[Miamipuck]

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[ QUOTE ]
Geez, we are in the midst of one of the best seasons of TV ever and there are no posts. WTF?


[/ QUOTE ]

It's a rerun. Season 5 hasn't come out yet.



[/ QUOTE ]

Not a rerun for me. I dont have on demand and I've refused to download the rest of the season. Nice info on Snoop btw. I knew she had been through a lot in real life, but I didnt know the extent of it.

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QFT. No way in hell I am caving and ruining this season. I so look forward to Sunday nights.

[Blarg]

I'm getting kind of sick of how HBO seems to play this every night.