Book Report: The Wire

The. Best. Written. Show. Ever.

In fact, the show is so good, I think it is more than fitting for it to be a "book report". The show was pure literature - the story lines and the characters were complex and full of life - not a single two-dimensional character (okay, maybe Carcetti).

Because the characters were so full, I have so many favorites: Bunk, McNulty, Carver, Bubbles, Bodie, Stringer Bell, Snoop and Chris, Avon and D'Angelo Barksdale, Omar, Freeman, Greggs, Prop Joe, Senator Clay Davis, Pryzbylewski, Michael, Randy, Dukie, and Namond - I could go on.

It is also the most intense show I have ever watched - my heart races throughout the whole episode because I don't know what is going to happen. All of the characters are at risk - no one is safe - but it doesn't feel artificial. And the writers make you care about so many, if not all, of the characters.

Of course, the test of any show shot on location is how well they use the location for the show. In the best cases, the location becomes one of the characters of the show. I know of few shows that did this better than The Wire. The way they used Baltimore was perfect - from the accents to the class and race divides and from the neighborhoods to the progress of the city over the last decade.

Unfortunately, although so many people I know recognize this show as one of the best ever, it went largely without any critical acclaim or awards. Hopefully though the show will prove everyone wrong and be remembered long past the shows that did win awards. It certainly deserves it.

Beyond the literary accomplishments of the show - it is also near perfect social commentary. For those who do not know, the show chronicles American urban problems through the lens of the City of Baltimore. Its five seasons swirl around the drug trade, although each season has a slightly different focus and closeness to drugs.

Season one is very much about the drug war between dealers and the police and why each side fails but neither side wins. Season two moves to the docks and the decline of white union shipping jobs and how it leads them into drugs. Season three deals with Baltimore politics and their inability to stop the drugs. Season four, the most intense fictional experience I have witnessed and the hardest season to watch, took place in a Baltimore middle school and shows how the adults we see on the streets might have started out and where we go wrong trying to help them. Finally, season five looked at print journalism and the Baltimore Sun and its declining ability to cover this problem, among others.

The show was especially effective because it was more concerned with being honest than with making good drama (unusual for TV and mainstream movies). And surprising enough, because urban life is full of drama, it was able to accomplish both. And in so doing, it became the only show to give us a glimpse of the real urban life - I say glimpse because the show takes us to close to showing us what really happens, then pulls back because we handle seeing reality and still come back for more.

In the end, we are left knowing that all of our systems are imperfect - or to be more blunt, fucked up. So any belief that we are solving, or even managing, these problems is ridiculous. We can only think that way because we choose not to look too deeply at our problems. The Wire remedies that for us.