The Wire is probably my all time favourite TV show. It's probably the most well written piece of television drama on TV, or that was on TV and it doesnt hold back to shield it's audience from the realities of the everyday situations within this world. Every character has their own set of weaknesses and faults and what should be fixed positions within the show never turn out that way. The cold blooded killer can have a heart of gold, and the cop can be as crooked as the local drug king pin. The entire show paints a much more realistic portrait of any modern day inner city, filled with people who were born into a situation they probably will never get out of due to the lack of care and interest shown upon them by those in power and cops who are bogged down in the beauracracies of being a modern day police officer and the feeling that you'll never be able to get anything done worth doing.
I've already seen the entire series when it was shown here on TV and then a couple times more an DVD and it's a show I never tire of unlike shows similar to it such as The Sopranos and The Shield which are good shows in their own right but in my opinion do not come close to the complexity and intelligence that The Wire offers it's viewers. For those of you who are new to the show I would advise you to stick with it because by the end you will have experienced something extraordinary.
What I love about The Wire is that it does not limit itself to being a one episode story arc show that many shows do. It allows the story to play itself out over a number of episodes with minor storys to play out within that story arc in the meantime. I often hear The Wire be compared to a book and every season is one act of that book and every episode a chapter, and when I first heard that I thought it ws quite pretentious. But when you think about it, it's absolutly true, all threads of the story are current throughtout, right up until the end. Storys that come to light in the second season come back in the fifth (dont worry I wont give anytihing away
) and the fact that nothing ever really changes is as prevelant in the first episiode as it is in the last, more so even.
I wish more television was like this, another two shows that have a similar style are Deadwood and Carnivale which were both cut short before they even had the chance to shine which is a terrible shame because both had majoy plusses on their side, yes maybe they were never going to be of the stature that The Wire is but they were both well made and had exceptional stories and casts.
But it would seem that most people like that fact that a murder get's sloved within the hour because whilst The Wire was barely viewed by anyone, shows such as Law & Order thrived. Which I really cant understand, because on those types of shows it's far to easy to find the murder or the rapist and as we know it's not like that at all in the real world. What the Wire gives up is entertaining realism that is often tragic at one moment and funny the next. Which is why I consider it to be the best television show ever made.
How can you not love Omar?