Why So Series: The Wire

“I had such fucking hopes for us.” -McNulty

How do I summarise the The Wire? Well, I can’t.

In the simplest terms, it was so good that I watched all five series in a warm flush of excitement over a period of no more than a five weeks.

Set and produced in Baltimore, I think it’s universally agreed that The Wire is The Greatest American TV series ever made. It’s insightful, honest, brutally dark yet comically entertaining. A true testament to the power and talent of American Televisions that makes other TV shows weep. And yet it’s one of those shows, like many great BBC/ITV series (which will be covered at a later date) that few seem to have seen on TV but everyone is catching the fever as it hits DVD.

The plot:

Created by David Simon, The Wire was originally to be a police drama based on the real life experiences of Ed Burns, Simon’s writing partner and former homicide detective. The series revolves primarily around the Police Department it delves into different facets of Baltimore city law, politics, poverty, crime and general disorder. As the song goes, life’s not all about girls and cars - this isn’t Law & Order or any of the many, many crime dramas launching vulgar assaults on our screens at present. You won’t get a murder trial in a day - “justice” is a bureaucratic, dirty, uphill battle.

“Thin line between heaven and here” - Bubbles

The show builds upon itself each season into a myriad of plot line and characters and yet no element can be described as throw away - even those that don’t return bear weight and poignancy in later episodes. The world of The Wire operates only in shades of grey. The “good guys” are flawed corruptible assholes, the “bad guys” are terrifying, heartbreaking and ambiguous. You become attached to both bad & good alike and find yourself hoping for some sort of happy ending that will certainly never come. (Stringer Bell will go down in history.) Welcome to true reality TV.

Each of the series’ five seasons has a different focus, while maintaining a consistent through-line tracking the Baltimore Police Department’s Major Crime Unit and their pursuit of the major drug traffickers in the city.

The Wire doesn’t dumb down for a lazy spoiled audience. Rather, it embraces the complexity of it’s characters and is faithful to unwavering focus detail. The exceptional writers really earn your love. The dialogue is authentic and violent, HBO’s lack of language restrictions giving the writers the freedom to embrace the graphic nature of the language of the street. You hit the ground running from episode one -no taking the easy road, no flashbacks, no voice overs. You just got to keep up!

However, despite the serious nature of it’s subject the show is humorous and never takes itself too seriously.

“Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit” - Clay Davis

Music is a key ingredient in the production of the show. Each season’s opening theme is a different cover of the Tom Waits song “Way Down In The Hole” and each time I hear the song now, I’m filled with a nostalgia for a dirty basement office in a Baltimore PD station and the smell of stale whiskey and sweat. Apart from the credit music The Wire primarily uses diegetic music (music that emanates from a source within the scene - a radio in the corner, the TV, a live band in some run down dive bar) and it’s a device which works remarkably well at drawing you directly into the scene.

The Complete Box Set of The Wire is now available online and in various stores for approximately €110 depending on where you shop. If you haven’t, like me, already bought each series individually, there are some new special features on the full set including a gag reel.

Special Features:

* Season 1: Three episode audio commentaries with writer/creator David Simon, director Clarke Johnson and writer George Pelecano

* Season 2: Episode audio commentaries

* Season 3: Q&A with David Simons and Creative Team, courtesy of the museum of Television & Radio.

Conversation with David Simons at Eugene Lang College, The new School for Liberal Arts.

Five Audio Commentaries with Creator David Simons, Director Joe Chappelle, Writer Richard Price and George Pelecanos, and Producers Karen L. Thorson and Nina K. Noble.

* Season 4: An Hour-Long Behind-The-Scenes Documentary In Two Parts: ‘It’s All Connected’ and The Game Is Real. Six Audio Commentaries With Creator David Simon, Cast And Crew

* Season 5: Six episode audio commentaries

* The Wire - The Last Word

* The Wire Odyssey