A show like The Wire seems like it should be right up my alley. It's gotten reviews that range from loving hyperbole ("[The Wire] will knock the breath out of you," says the New York Times) to hysteric hyperbole ("The best TV show ever broadcast in America," says Slate.) It's "gritty" and "character based," the type of show I'm naturally drawn to. And most of all, it's just off-the-grid enough so that it's "cool" to like. The Wire is one of those shows that make you feel like you're part of an exclusive club of awesomeness when you're watching it. And if you aren't watching it, well, then obviously you aren't that cool (see: Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks, Mad Men for other examples of this phenomenon.) But all of that being said, I still don't watch it.
Count me in the ranks of uncool. Honestly, The Wire just never seemed interesting to me--it looked like a second rate Law and Order episode, but with swearing. However, when my good friend Tony (the man who turned me onto the joys of Ricky Gervais' Office) emailed me to start watching The Wire with the following plea, I figured I should at the very least, check this show out: You have to watch The Wire. Have isn't even the right word. More like need: need to breathe, need to eat, need to watch The Wire. It's masterful. And not like The British Office masterful. It is 57 minutes of foot on your throat goodness.
And so here I am. The final season of The Wire is about to premiere and I'm four seasons and some fifty episodes behind. What to do? The solution is simple. Cram in all the information you can about the first four seasons and sit down to watch the fifth. I hate doing television shows like this, but at the same time, I don't see any other way to accomplish watching The Wire. Even I don't have 50 hours lying around to catch up--though I did just spend about 23 hours re-watching the third season of LOST, and it was *still* awesome. And if this show is as good as advertised, I'm sure I'll have no problem fitting it into my schedule.
The first step of this information cram session was for me to visit the very descriptive Wikipedia page that is devoted to The Wire. A good start, sure, but it's not enough. Well, fear not! Thankfully, HBO has The Wire: Odyssey available On Demand. It's a thirty minute retrospective about the previous four seasons. Perfect. Tell you what, I'm going to watch this right now. Grab a snack and I'll see you in thirty minutes.
(Thirty minutes later)
Um, that's it? No, no, seriously, that's it! Based on the thirty minute clip-and-talking head retrospective on The Wire that I just watched, this show, well, sucks. Yes, I am aware that's a giant generalization based on seeing zero episodes and it makes me sound like a completely clueless philistine. And I know what you're thinking: maybe The Wire: Odyssey is just a poorly produced piece. You're right. It could be. Watching a thirty-minute breakdown of four seasons and then making an opinion about The Wire is almost unacceptable (would anything as supposedly dense as The Wire look good in thirty minutes?) but I have to start somewhere. And right now, I'm starting with this question: what's the big deal here?
From what I can tell, The Wire plays like an east coast version of Steven Soderbergh's Traffic combined with a dash of Homocide: Life on the Streets, Law & Order, and countless other generic cop shows. The writing seems treachy and predictable (think Jack Black at 1:25 of the Be Kind Rewind trailer: "What's happening to our hood!") And the acting and the actors are borderline terrible. There are only two performers on the entire show that seem to have anything worthwhile to give an audience. Dominic West, playing tormented cop McNaulty with a big and expansive face filled with macho anguish, needs to be a bigger star immediately. And Michael K. Williams, as the gay thief and murderer Omar, is perfectly menacing and terrifying. You know these two performances are good if I'm saying that after watching what amounts to a thirty-minute "making-of" special.
But everyone else? Between the rejects from Spike Lee movies (the untalented Wendell Pierce, the utterly hateful Isiah Whitlock), the no-name character actors that all seem to have appeared on episodes of Third Watch, and the dude who played "Dom" on those bad episodes of Entourage from two years ago, the caliber of actor goes from bad to worse to downright confusing. I don't need to see full episodes to know that Wendell Pierce is a terrible actor. And he's one of the LEADS?! This just cannot be good.
I think it's safe for me to say that so far I'm underwhelmed. We'll see how I feel after watching the Season Five premiere.
See you in an hour. Again, grab a snack.
(One hour later)
I wish I could sit here and tell you that my thoughts about The Wire were completely wrong. That every preconceived notion that I came into the show with was utterly trashed in the face of what's the greatest American television drama in the history of television. I wish I could tell you that. But I can't. This is truly a case of the Emperor having no clothes. It's not that The Wire is bad, it's just not that good. At its worst, it felt like I was watching a rote episode of a generic cop show, while at its best, it reminded me of a very average episode of The Sopranos albeit with worse acting, dialogue and observations about America.
And oh, the dialogue. Preachy doesn't even begin to cover it. At least three times I actually groaned at the obvious lines being spoken. The Wire favors big speeches about right and wrong over introspective and ambiguous moments. And with the exception of West (again, this guy should be a big star), Clark Johnson as the City Desk editor at the Baltimore Sun (who knew the guy who directed S.W.A.T. would be such a compelling actor?) and Andre Royo as Bubbles (workman like in his portrayal of a former junkie trying to hold on), the acting was pretty terrible. Most of the time I felt like the only direction given to the cast was "hard," as in, "look as hard as you possibly can." Also, if you're a cast member on The Wire I'm sure you are encouraged to yell a lot. Broad doesn't begin to describe most of the performances here.
If you're a fan of The Wire, I know you are about to put your fist through a wall. And I apologize, but the show just didn't do it for me. I totally understand if you think less of me for not liking this show, much like I would think less of a person who thought the British Office was anything less than perfect. But again, I'm left with the thought: what's the big deal here?
As the title card to start the episode said: the bigger the lie, the more they believe. The big lie about The Wire is that it's this Dickensian critique of American culture in the 21st century. But the truth is, it's a procedural done through the prism of HBO. It's allowed to have more characters, more violence, more cursing and a slower pace, but basically, it's a dolled up episode of Law and Order, sans any dry wit. Where's Sam Waterson when you need him?
Funny, not only don't I watch The Wire, but I thought it was an "HBO-wannbe" series on Showtime.
ReplyDeleteActually, that's not fair. Showtime has come a long way -Dexter comes to mind.
Chris, I'm a die-hard Wire fan, and I've been disappointed by the first two episodes of Season 5. So I'm sorry it's your introduction to the show.
ReplyDeleteBut: there is no way you can appreciate the show if you haven't seen the previous seasons. Not knowing any of the characters' backstories will only make you more confused and bored, and convinced that it's the actors' fault.
One reason given by many Wire fans for the lack of appreciation for the show is that it's "too black, too real." If you watch past seasons of the Wire, you'll see dozens of amazing black actors playing not only drug dealers, but school kids, politicians, yuppies (buppies?) -- no other show, no movie, has shown the divide between middle and upper class black Americans and the black Americans who are stuck in the inner city. You can hate on Wendell Pierce but he is just one of almost a hundred actors on the show. Go watch Season Four. The four kids on it are amazing actors.
Again, you have to see the previous seasons or you won't appreciate anything about The Wire.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteI totally understand what you're saying. What I'm doing with The Wire is akin to picking up a book and starting with the last quarter of it, and then, based on that quarter, deciding that the entire previous three-quarters stink. It's certainly faulty logic. I'd be the first to admit that. I mean if someone did the same thing with LOST, I would be appalled.
However, with that being said, the biggest problem I had with The Wire was that too much time was spent on the "generic"--not just with the third rate character actors like Wendell Pierce, but also with generic observations and storylines. Everything last night is stuff I've seen on TV before and seen done better. That is everything but one exception: the game of Connect Four between the corner boys.
That scene, though I didn't even know anything about the characters (a problem with starting a show in the fifth season) was excellent, different, interesting and shocking. Just how YOUNG are these kids? If the previous four seasons of The Wire are like that scene, I could get interested in it. And maybe they are. But if it's just L&O with swear words, I think I'll pass.
The big problem with your post is that of every show on TV, The Wire is impossible to jump into midstream.
ReplyDeleteThere are simply too many nuances, so many intricate details, to begin watching at Episode 3, let alone Episode 51. Even if you read all the Wikipedia information, you still wouldn't understand.
This show is more challenging than The Sopranos and Lost combined.
The creator purposefully makes it as tough on the viewer as possible. What may look simple or awful to a newbie like you comes across totally different for us veterans.
Even if you go out and rent the first three episodes of Season 1, I'm sure you'll think The Wire sucks. But once you get immersed in it, you can't stop.
I understand where you're coming from. I don't get the popularity of other shows either. Lost, to me, has become horrible, especially Season 3.
But at least before criticizing it so harshly, give The Wire a decent chance. Five episodes of Season 1, at the very least.
ESPN's Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, was skeptical about The Wire, too. He avoided it for years because of all the hype. Then last year he gave it a chance and wrote about his resistance to the show.
Scroll down to No. 17 on this page:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060901
The link looked like it didn't show up. So I'll split it into two parts:
ReplyDeletehttp://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/
story?page=simmons/060901
"I'd be the first to admit that. I mean if someone did the same thing with LOST, I would be appalled."
ReplyDeleteIf you'd be appalled at someone judging your precious Lost without giving it a fair shot, then why are you doing the same thing to another show?
I love how the second The Wire FINALLY get a tiny bit of the recognition it should've been getting all 5 years it's been on people who haven't even bothered to watch much of it have to immediately start talking shit.
This has to be one of the most embarrassing pieces of "writing" I've seen in a very long time. Your first taste of the show is a half hour retrospective and then one episode of the FIFTH season. And from this small sample, you decide to completely condemn the show, even calling into question its popularity. This is absolute stupidity. It reads more like a forced attempt to be "edgy and cool" by going against other critics and viewers. The "untalented Wendell Pierce"? "Law and Order with swear words"? Comparisons to Traffic etc. Christ, get some perspective. The Wire is about the decay of a city and it evaluates this from the standpoint of nearly every institution. Does Law and Order go to the press, the schools or spend as much time on the streets? No. You'd think a "journalist" like yourself would do some research, watch the entire series and then present your all encompassing opinion. Instead, you've written this embarrassing piece of garbage. As someone else mentioned, you mention a similar opinion drawn from a few episodes of Lost as appalling. Yet you proceed to do the same for an even more complex, dense program. Are you even trying to appear professional?
ReplyDeleteChris do you post on AccBoards.com as RDurr? The Wire is Head and Shoulders better than anything else on TV. This is why Critics say it is the best show ever? Go and watch your Law and Order and Die Hard reruns. Those with brains will watch the Wire? FREDTERP
ReplyDeleteOkay, so you have never watched the prior seasons for a show that really needs to have viewers see the prior episodes because of all of the complex stories, characters, etc. You just watch one episode - and decide that the entire series is nothging but Law and Order with swear words? The Wire is somewhat known for having the first episodes of the season be the weakest for the respective season. But because of this one episode of an entire series you are ready to sneer it as not worthy? Might I recommend you see some of the heartbreaking action of the previous seasons, in particular the stories of the kids in season 4- before you declare that it is nothing but L&O with cursing.
ReplyDeleteYou admit that you would not like it if someone did this with Lost- and yet you are ready to insult and tear down a show as something that you will pass on after essentially what would be a 20 page semgent near the end of a 500 page book.
And yes- the scene with the kids and the Connect Four is something akin to what you could see in previous seasons. Wallace in Season One (one of the most interesting depeictions of a child in poverty ever imo) the students in season four. Plus, the show has characters like Bubbles and Omar- who are not something that you would just find on a L&O with swear words.
Too bad that you are ready to condemn a show as nothging but crap not worth your time while not giving it a fair chance. Well done!
I think your entire piece is invalidated when you twice call Wendell Pierce a bad actor. Good God, your standards must be up there with Olivier and Bernhard, because the one thing you can be sure of in the Wire is that the acting of the professionals is at a level very few ensembles will ever achieve. Actually, even the amateurs aren't too bad either, such as Felicia Snoop Pearson.
ReplyDeleteIt took me three episodes to get into the Wire (coincidentally, Omar usually shows up in the third episode). But then, I do love a good read, and sometimes it takes a couple chapters for the story to develop.
Ugh. (Fist throught the wall)
ReplyDeleteCan't believe you wrote this. I expect more from you 42 incher.
You thought a Wiki-30 Minute Recap was enough to get you into this show? You said you don't have the 50 hours to invest. Sounds like you're not in the mood. You get the 50 Hours... you Get in the Mood!
The problem is the more and more you talk about something the more and more you compare it to something else. It's "Law and Order with curses..." ... it's "Traffic meets Homicide"... it's "My Mother the Car with a side of the Law and Order SUV..." yadda yadda yadda.
The Wire is what it is... because it's NOT what these other shows are. It doesn't compare. It's not some Hollywood hack's view of a city/cops/schools. It has no formula. It has no viewing prism. All this will come to you when you give it another chance and start from the beginning. You will give it another chance, right?
PS: Your Boy Sawyer created the Hard look. Tell him to knock it off, dimples.
Your repeated knocks on Wendell Pierce are bizarre, did the guy cut you off in traffic once or something?
ReplyDeleteBut lol @ you saying he's a terrible actor and basically everything else you wrote. What is this, Opposite Day?
I've never seen a single moment of the Wire, but even I know it's not fair to gauge what a show is by a clip show. Imagine getting into LOST or The Sopranos based soley on a clip show? That's retarded and anyone would dislike those shows. I personally don't see the appeal of the Wire. It looks and feels like shit. However, I'm not even gonna try to watch it without seeing the previous seasons first.
ReplyDeleteWhat would you have done if ou started watching 24 at season 3 and beforehand all you did was watch a clip show to get you caught up? The whole drama of Nina being a bitch would be lost on you.
Worst review ever! I am doing a write-in vote, The Wire for President in '08! You should be fired by all of the bosses that you have, that give you money for writing pieces of journalism. Also, area code the internet.
ReplyDeleteAlright where do I start this argument, in the beginning or 4/5ths of the way through. It will probably work better from the beginning, maybe be a bit more convincing.
ReplyDeleteOther equivalents of what you are doing:
You are watching the last scene of Shawshank Redemption and thinking the handshake between the characters seems ingenuine.
You are picking up the bible and wondering why Moses is in the desert and calling that hard to believe.
You are rooting for the Red Sox since 2004 since they never lose the big game.
The Wire revolves around the viewers' relationships to the characters, who we consider to be the good guys or the bad guys, because the writers are spoon feeding us the information. We dont need the case closed at the end of every episode or even every season like Law&Order viewers do.
On one hand I would expect a LOST fan to understand this but on the other hand, I'm reading the work of a guy who thought that E was a well acted character when he is actually a paper-thin pushover on a show that may actually return before the WGA strike is over since they seemed to scrap writers over the last 2 years.
Please dont watch the Wire Season 5 anymore. If you decide maybe it deserves a second chance, start over at 1 and take your time. Not every episode is an immediate hit but they will all stick with you. Unlike Entourage, 24, Law&Order, The Wire's whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Plus how could you not think the first scene with the Lie-Detector Copy Machine was hysterical.
Here's the problem: you compare The Wire to LOST and say that I can't possible appreciate the show since I don't know the in's and out's of each character. Since we're being spoon fed the information, it's imperative to start from the beginning. And, on the face of things, that's a very valid argument.
ReplyDeleteBut, here's my retort: I watched the second episode of season five last night (thanks HBO On Demand!) and I DO know these characters. Hey look, there's Lester the "sage old veteran!" Over there, it's Bunk, the "tough cop who's seen it all!" And McNaulty (no matter how much I love West), he's the "old tormented drunk cop!" It's Central Casting at it's finest. I don't need to see the previous seasons to guess what's going on. I can figure out from watching the season five premiere of The Wire that Amy Ryan is "dating" Dominic West and that she's upset he hasn't come home. I can gather that the Mayor is in over his head and wants to race to the Governor's office, almost as an escape from the hell that is Baltimore. I figured out that Clark Johnson is the old news man who knows his time has passed.
The reason a person couldn't get into LOST is because the show doesn't make any sense unless you see it from jumpstreet. Others? Smoke monsters? Charlie Salinger is a good actor? It's mindblowingly absurd on fifty levels. If you jumped in on episode 50, you'd be, well, lost.
The Wire however, is what it is--an all encompassing vision of America's cities in decay. You can jump in anytime and figure out the plot if you've ever picked up a newspaper or ever seen Boyz N The Hood. And honestly, that's a good idea on paper, but in the two episodes I've seen the execution is flawed: too many speeches, too much obvious preaching (I can't wait for you to see the "This ain't Aruba, bitch!" sequence in the second episode) and too much bad acting.
If you jumped in on The Sopranos, at any point, you'd like it on face. You can figure out the characters and the plots. It's not rocket science.
I'm not saying The Wire is bad. I'm saying it's over-rated. Over-rated by fans who think they're in on something cool and different and over-rated by the media since it feels guilty for not showing ANY of the stuff that The Wire brings to the forefront.
Because I respect the people who tell me this show is good, I'm going to give it a chance. But I'm going in expecting it to be the "GREATEST TELEVISION SERIES IN HISTORY." Maybe that's a lame expectation, but that's what the show advertises itself as. And from seeing two episodes, it's not.
I agree with you on one thing: so far season five has had too much speechifying. It's been disappointing. Everything else you say is so ridiculously off base it's embarrassing. You don't know the characters, and your summarizations prove it. McNulty isn't the "old tormented drunk cop". That bares a passing resemblance to what he is right now, but it in no way sums him up. If you watched a random episode, you'd see a very different McNulty.
ReplyDeleteOn an unrelated topic, I've recently started reading Hamlet, the so called greatest work of English literature. I didn't have time to read the first four acts, and I'm only part way through the first scene of the fifth act, but I'm ready to declare that William Shakespeare, emperor of English literature, must have been buried nude, because I doubt he ever wore clothes in his entire life. I thought this was supposed to be a tragedy, but instead we get "comic" relief. The two gravediggers are total stock characters. One playing the "clever wordsmith", the other the "straight man". Throw in some heavy handed sermonizing on class differences in the area of Christian burial for sucides, and you get the most overrated play in the canon.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteWhat youre trying to do is win a championship without the right tools. Its not possible for anyone to be able to sum up the wire's characters after 2 episodes and a wikipedia page. I want to put this in a way you will totally get it.
If someone said to you, I watched LOST twice and the characters are cliche. There's the doctor who is haunted by a mistake and there's the rockstar who has a drug problem, and the southern guy who is always grumpy.
Clearly that wouldnt begin to describe who Jack, Charlie and Sawyer are.
Its like youre in Pleasantville and only seeing black and white. Meanwhile its not possible for you get the color yet because you just arrived and you dont believe.
You can do it.
Nice retort, 42 incher.
ReplyDeleteYour next defense will probably be *I'm gonna watch Season One, and if I don't like it, I'll cut bait, stop there, and really Jesse-and-the-Ripper it on the blog*.
Bwha. Bwha. What a veiled threat. You're gonna love it and you know you're gonna love it. I'm convinced you just went contrarian for the sake of going contrarian. That's the only way to explain what just happened. I've read your other recaps, I know your likes and dislikes. I don't know if there's another person on the planet that loves LOST, 30 Rock, Mad Men etc. etc. etc, and oh yeah, thinks The Wire is toad. You're the one. So you wrote an entry doing that to get the bump in readers and coments. I get it. It's fine. Just watch Season One and pass the crow.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately you've done the worst thing possible.
You've jumped into the Wire five seasons too late AND you've spoiled yourself for the previous four seasons.
The Wire is classic "slow-cooker" TV. You won't "get it" on the first episode and you won't "get-it" on the second episode or even the third.
You really need to commit to watching a season of it - ideally the first season in its entirety. If you do that and still hate it then by all means blast it to hell and back but blasting it after only watching one episode is a bit like reviewing a car by just turning the ignition.