The Wire – Episodes 1 – 3

Despite being a self-proclaimed pop culture nerd, there are a lot shows or movies out there that I have not gotten around to seeing that are just inexcusable. Still haven’t seen American Beauty or This is Spinal Tap. I’ve never watched an episode of The Sopranos or Mad Men all the way through and I just saw Fight Club for the first time last week (but like fuck Fight Club, right?). My favorite shows before college were Alias, Lost, The West Wing...uh…Batman The Animated Series. Ok that last one still is my favorite. Now these shows are all great, but a little mainstream. After beginning my pursuit of a college degree in television, however, I made a lot of friends that were all way more into good TV than I was.

And so they turned me on to Dexter and Six Feet Under and Breaking Bad…all of which floored me with their productions values, character development, and ability to never have a bad episode evereverever (respectively). But the one show that I kept hearing about over and over was The Wire. Every time I’d go back to my friends and say “I just watched the best episode of ____” and they’d say “Oh man, YOU would LOVE The Wire. There is a joke out there in the world of pop-nerds that fans of The Wire are the most dedicated and loyal fans in the world, and that they will try to insert it into conversations whenever possible. Those fans will also tell you that it is the greatest show of all time. If that was true, then me missing out on it any longer was inexcusable.

The Wire was an HBO series that ran from 2002-2008 and was created by David Simon (who is currently writing/producing/awesoming HBO’s Treme). The story follows both the Police and criminals that do their work in the more shady parts of Baltimore (see: Baltimore). So I queued the first season up on Netflix and the disc one came last night. With nothing else to do after work I popped it in my laptop and began to watch. The word “devoured” doesn’t adequately describe my viewing experience of these first three eps.

The first and most impressive thing I noticed about this show is that it doesn’t make any introductions for its main characters. Simon doesn’t hold your hand through the pilot. Hell, the pilot feels like the 4^th episode of season 2. It can be a little overwhelming at times…in just these three episodes we’ve already met D’Angelo, Avon, the two kid drug dealers, and Charles from The Office on the drug dealer side of things. On the police side, we’ve met Det. McNulty, Det. Burke, Officer Lesbian, Major Asshole, Major Dumb, the deputy, a bunch of guys on the task force, Bubs, and Lieutenant That Scary Black Guy from Lost. But I don’t find myself confused at all…on the contrary, I find myself intrigued.

Even though I only know half of these people’s names and have little to no understanding of how drug enforcement works, I find myself wanting to know everything about these people. They all appear to be so layered and dimensional. Some of the cops piss you off and some of the drug dealers tug at your heartstrings. This isn’t just a “cop show”…to call it that would be an insult. This is a character study of the lawmen and the criminals in a city that could use a character study of its own. So I’m strapping myself in and going along for the ride, because I trust the fans when they say, “This is going to be the best show you’ll ever watch”. I’ll let you know.

Hope you care,

Danny