Le Flâneur

I am a massive fan of The Wire.  It’s completely out there on its own.  I can’t think of anything else that really compares to it.  Hollywood is dead but who cares when we’re living in televisual golden age?  People often talk about ‘realism’ when discussing the Wire.  Is it realistic?  I have no idea.  It certainly seems plausible enough.  I do know that’s it’s excellent entertainment that treats the audience as though they were grown-ups with the ability to think for themselves.  At this juncture, that alone is enough.  So just briefly, here are some of the reasons why it’s great:

Character. Characters in The Wire are rounded.  They surprise you and are allowed to develop as a season progresses.  Even the supposedly ‘good police’ have their flaws.  Gay and lesbian characters are realistically portrayed.  The writing at times does not shy away from making the characters act in a vile or ethically dubious fashion.  There are also loads of them too.  I can’t help thinking that you could make whole spin-off shows just on the exploits of relatively minor characters here.

Pace.  The Wire is not afraid to take its time.  It’ll lead you down dead ends where the audience know that the police are pursuing the wrong line of inquiry (incidentally many of the police are stupid, lazy and despicable).  Scenes are allowed to play out for as long as it takes and there is much more than just a sense of necessary information being conveyed.  It can drift off into the whimsical or even the banal at times.  There is no music except for what is heard on car stereos, in bars etc. and as a result we’re spared the little aural signifiers of drama used to manipulate our emotions and guide us through the complexity.
Acting. Performances are uniformly excellent.  For a show with such an intricate and complex plot, the characters very rarely look like they’re just trying to remember their lines.  In particular I’d single out Chris Bauer as Frank Sobotka in season two.  As a Polish-American longshoreman’s union boss torn between loyalties to family, the union and the temptation to skim a little off the top, Bauer gives a brilliant performance with just about as much intensity as I’ve seen on screen anywhere in any format.  When the rest of the TV land catches up with this show, performances like this will no longer go unacknowledged.

Moral ambiguity. The Baltimore of this show, right from the lowest gangster errand boy in the projects, to the movers and shakers at the highest echelons of power, consists not simply of bad guys and good guys.  Rather it’s all shades of gray in web of human intrigue.  This simple fact, may well be the shows greatest strength of all.

Writing. Okay maybe everything above comes under this heading to some extent, but when watching this show I frequently find myself marveling at the brilliance of the writing.  A cop drama show with half of the ideas here, and half of the characters, would still be worth watching.  Quite simply it spoils us with its depth and breadth.