The Wire - The More Things Change... Season Three Review

Any fears I had about The Wire turning into standard TV vanished within an episode or two of Season Three. Having seen Season Four as of this writing (but not Season Five), I think Season Three is the strongest of the series so far.

At risk of spoiling the show for the five to ten people that might ever read this review, I have to share some specific details.

Like previous seasons, The Wire continued the threads of the previous seasons while adding an assortment of new ones. The main plot of S3 is the continuing investigation of the Barksdale drug organization. Despite kingpin Avon Barksdale's incarceration, he still runs the show, with partner Stringer Bell running things on the outside. The beauty of this show, and the epic, tragic scale of this show comes from these two characters interaction and season-long dance.

Avon is an old-school banger, and despite the massive amounts of money their organization has accumulated, he can't move past that thug mentality. Stringer, on the other hand, wants to take that wealth and move into more legitimate business, having taken business courses at college and buying up real estate. Increasingly, he has to do this without Avon's knowledge or approval.

It all is working okay until Avon works a way to get himself out of prison early. He returns to the neighborhood to get everything back in order, and that's when he and Stringer start to butt heads. Compounding everything is Det. Jimmy McNulty's personal investigation into the prison 'suicide' of Avon's nephew (and Season One main character) D'Angelo Barksdale. D'Angelo's death was ordered by Stringer (without Avon's knowledge) because D'Angelo was planning on flipping and turning all of them in.

So the amazingly tense conflict for this season ramps ever higher episode by episode. Our sympathies as the audience shifts from scene to scene, as we admire Stringer for attempting to move out of the drug trade. But we sympathize with Avon because of Stringer's betrayal and ordering the murder of D'Angelo. But we side against Avon because he can't pull himself out of the lowest-common-denominator lifestyle. But we like Stringer because he's the only person on the street with a plan. But we side against him because of how D'Angelo's mother was lied to about his death. But we side against HER because she is the one that convinced D'Angelo not to flip on the organization. And on and on and on.

I marveled constantly at the airtight plotting that allowed these shifts to occur and to be so powerful. And much of the conflict has its roots all the way back in the first episodes of Season One.

For anyone remotely interested in writing TV (or anything for that matter), this show is a masterclass on plotting and dialogue. It doesn't cut corners or go for the easy story at ANY time.

All the while, the good guys' story is compelling as well, but not nearly to the extent of Avon vs Stringer. These two kingpin's ultimate fates is pure Greek tragedy with a healthy dose of Shakespeare. Brilliant.

I could go on for days exalting this show. It just never makes a wrong step.

The ultimate compliment I can pay it is that I have to steal from it now. The Wire has the exact tone I was seeing and hearing and feeling in my head as I worked on "Going Nova". I want that kind of uncompromising honesty in my story, regardless of how unpleasant it might be or how bleak (for some characters) it might prove. Because if nothing else, The Wire has me thinking about drugs, crime, education, politics (and the News industry, I'm sure, after I watch Season Five) in a completely different light.

It's going to be hard watching regular TV ever again after experiencing this show.

The Wire - Trouble on the Docks? Season Two Review

Thanks to a really bad cold that confined me to my bed this past weekend, I managed to burn through all of Season Two of The Wire in just two days. You could say I was watching them feverishly.

I haven't had much luck with Season Two's lately. Dexter S2 totally let me down, to the point where I don't think I want to watch Season Three. Heroes S2 lost me only two episodes into the season. It totally jumped the tracks. Lost had a bumpy S2, as did Battlestar Galactica (although both of those recovered well enough over the short term).

I'm not sure what it is about second seasons that prove to be such bugaboos for the creative teams. I guess it's that during the successful first season, they never really had time to analyze what they were doing, and just reacted on pure instinct, which turned out to be right. After S1 ends, they sit back, and TRY to figure out what audiences liked about the show and try to break it down to the point where they believe they can construct the second season using only the good stuff, and none of the fluff. And almost every time, they're wrong. Recent movies have shown the same tendency. The Matrix sequels and Pirates sequels were wrong wrong wrong on just about every level. Utter disasters. Peter Jackson guessed wrong with King Kong, figuring that if we loved the cool Legolas scenes from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, that we'd LOVE a whole King Kong movie filled with nothing but those wildly over-the-top sequences. What worked beautifully ONCE per film became mind-numbing in King Kong. And I even have a personal example. The first Addy Awards we did in 1995 was received amazingly well (or so we're told, since we were too chicken to go to the show to see if anyone laughed or jeered what we did), leading Don and I to approach the 1996 show with a bit of over-confidence, and the belief that we could 'nail it this time'. Didn't work out that way. While it was received well enough, we knew almost right away that we'd missed the mark.

Point is, it's tough to catch lightning in a bottle twice. And that was the mindset I was going into for Season Two of the The Wire.

I'm happy to report that The Wire mostly safely navigated the dangerous waters of Season Two. My review? 8.5 teeth out of ten.

Some specifics- I loved how they continued everyone's stories, even the street characters, even though their stories seemingly came to an end after S1. We got to follow Avon and Dee in prison, and Stringer Bell as he attempted to hold together the crumbling pieces of the Barksdale empire. We got to meet a few new street characters that promise to feature prominently in seasons to come.

Omar became the Boba Fett of this series. It took me a while to figure out what made his character so appealing and interesting (besides the fact that I've never before seen a homicidal gay thug as a sympathetic main character). He doesn't have a whole lot of airtime, but like Boba Fett, the time he's given he makes the most of. He's decisive, he has a strict code that he sticks to (he only robs people in "the game"), and most of all, he moves easily back and forth between the worlds of the good guys and the bad, working with whoever serves his purpose at the time.

The cops story had some interesting turns. It took until the eighth (of 13) episodes until the whole team was actually back together. They ways they managed to keep them all together, even though they were all working in different departments, was pretty clever, but a weeee bit TV-ish, which is where I docked a quarter of a tooth.

Where the show lost most of its points was in the overall Port Murders plotline. The mystery itself was excellently done, it's just that a few of the aspects of the Greeks, the bad guys of this season, were a bit too fiendishly evil. Season One's drug lords and street thugs all had believable motivations for doing what they did. but The Greek, and Vanos were evil with no balancing good traits to make them human. The one thing that really confused me was the FBI leak. I'm still not sure how that guy worked, but the whole time, it felt very much like just a plot device to eventually lead to betrayals and twists, which is exactly what happened.

The Dock workers themselves were pretty good and I can't dock them any points except for a half-tooth for some cheesy dialogue late in the season. Especially good were the actors that played Ziggy and Nico. They had very tough roles with very fine lines they had to walk. But they were given strong parts to play. They were on the opposite side of the law, but were made human by making all their decisions, especially the bad ones, fit perfectly within their worldviews.

We got one major new character, Beadie Russell, played by Amy Ryan, who was really good, and who I hope they bring back in the final three seasons (early word is that she does return, but probably as a love interest rather than a member of the team). Prior to this, the only place I knew Amy Ryan from was her amazing performance in Gone Baby Gone. As it is, I didn't recognizer her at all, so different is this character and her portrayal, and in fact, I only knew it was her by looking it up on IMDb.

One of the things I like so much about this show is its unrelenting bleakness. There's no way for the Law to slow down or make the endless wave of Crime even NOTICE. The cops know they are only putting band-aids on the problem. But they go to work knowing that for a while at least, they can fractionally stop the bleeding. While it would be nice to think that The Wire offers up a far too pessimistic version of the war on drugs and crime, I tend to think that it portrays it pretty accurately, bleakness and all.

The Wire S2 missed the mark a tiny little bit, but as far as second seasons go, it is easily the most successful according to ME. I was riveted from first frame to last. I'm invested in these characters and mourn the loss of those that unexpectedly didn't make it to the end, including my favorite character, the one character who seemed primed for a nice redemption arc. But...his act of reaching for redemption is what ultimately cost him his life. Rest in peace, dude...

And with that, I get ready to fire up Season Three. I have no idea what it's about, and I love it. But from everything I HAVE allowed myself to read, it seems that Season Two was the show's only bump in the road and that it only got better from here on, with Season Four being a masterpiece. We'll see...

The Wire - Best TV series ever? Season One Review

I'm a TV and Movie curmudgeon now. I freely admit it. I go into every bit of filmed entertainment looking for, and waiting for, that point in which a show or movie jumps off the tracks. For me, there's no excuse for any TV show to get lazy or silly or fall into cliche'.

My favorite TV shows of late (notably "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica") seem to eventually not have any idea what they are doing. Until "Lost" got its act together late last season, it was on the verge of my declaring it the most disappointing show ever produced. This season has restored nearly all of my anger towards the show, but ultimately, I can't forget that for a while, "Lost" was unfaithful to me. You can forgive, but you can never truly put it out of your mind. As such, "Lost" and "BSG" will forever be "almosts'.

Earlier this year, I wrote reviews of "Dexter", both season 1, and season 2. That show had an amazing first season, and then completely jumped the rails in the second season. I was convinced that finding "The Best TV Show Ever" would prove to be a pointless endeavor.

So, it was with that mindset that I sat down to finally watch "The Wire". Not sure what prompted me to pick up the first disk of season one, but there I was last week, putting the disk in the DVD player and sitting down to watch.

And I have to say, that season one delivered, 100%. I don't have a single bad thing to say about season one. I normally don't even LIKE cop shows, finding the procedure tedious and cliche'd.

However, "The Wire" did everything right.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, "The Wire" is a police drama set in Baltimore. Season one centered on drugs and featured both the law and the street. It's hard to say if there truly are 'main' characters, as the cast is a couple dozen deep, all given major screen time. They range from the lowest of the low (homeless drug addicts), to the top (police commissioners and judges). And what's most remarkable is that more successfully than any movie or TV show has dome, "The Wire" has given every character both good and bad qualities. One of my favorite characters was one of the drug dealers. The ostensible 'hero' of the series, Jimmy McNulty, is a completely screwed up mess. These are all real people who exhibit the best and worst of humanity.

Part of what makes this show so good is that it never once compromised the logical next step of the story for a cheap Hollywood cliche'. No character was ever put in false danger for the sake of drama. Even the non-case related situations (such as the home lives of some of the characters) was handled perfectly and added to the overall tableau.

This show has been described as 'televised novel', and I'd have to agree. None of the episodes have forced themes or situations. They all form once chapter of what feels like a book.

Best of all, it seems obvious that each season was intricately plotted and planned prior to filing, so that there doesn't seem to be any abandoned plotlines, or abrupt changes in direction. And best of all, no filler episodes.

What makes this show even more gritty and realistic is that it is 100% realistic in its portrayal of these characters, especially the language. This show aired on HBO, so make no mistake, the language is pretty raw. I learned a few dozen new ways to use profanity. Every once in a while it seems a bit gratuitous, but for the most part, it seems pretty authentic to the characters and this world. It really stands in stark contrast to typical, neutered TV language. I have no problem with keeping the language clean on broadcast networks, but at the same time, when the language is authentic to the story, I have no problem with excessive profanity.

Adding to the authenticity is that "The Wire" casts many of its minor roles with local people who have little or no prior acting experience. Some of them are painfully obvious to point out, but even those ultimately work, making everything feel more like it's a documentary rather than a fictional drama.

Again, the acting across the board was uniformly brilliant. Every actor is interesting, and no matter what character they switch focus to, it's always exciting to see what happens next. Proof of this is that as I stated previously, even all the bad guys are sympathetic.

I could go on writing for hours about this show (and will probably return to it at some point), but I simply have this to say-

SEE THIS TV SERIES AT ALL COSTS.

It's that good.

Ten teeth out of ten.

(Coming soon, review of season two)