The Wire is a T.V show which has just been handed its second showing on British Television thanks to the BBC after it had debuted on these shores on FX which was only available to the public if they had either Sky or Virgin TV. To say that this show is underrated would be a sin. It has been described by critics as the best show to ever of graced our screens and I for one am a Believer.
The show is based in Baltimore, USA and focuses on 5 or 6 main characters throughout the series with many other characters joining the cast in more minor roles. What is brilliant about The Wire is the fact that the writers and producers even make you feel sorry for the bad guys and I found myself often siding with the Drug Dealers because the portrayal of their lives is so in depth.
The creators of the show are the well respected David Simon and Ed Burns. Simon is a former Police Reporter from The Baltimore Sun while Burns is a Former Homicide detective. They both chose the Baltimore area because of their familiarity with the City. This has helped the series become so realistic because the creators have experience in the areas that it is based.
The series is based around a series of characters from The Police Department, the drug gangs and people from the streets of Baltimore. In terms of casting the Wire got it spot on, casting unknowns instead of bringing in already well known actors gave the characters a chance to grow and made the Series even more realistic than it was. The Lead actor in the Series is Jimmy Mcnaulty, a Detective played by British born actor Dominic West. The rest of the main characters are Cedric Daniels(Lance Reddick) who has featured in the T.V series Lost since The Wire ended, Bubbles(Andre Royo) who is a recurring drug addict and is loved by the audience for his schemes, Stringer Bell(Idris Elba) and Avon Barksdale(Wood Harris) who are the leaders of the feared Barksdale crew. The main characters are rounded off by Homosexual Stick up boy Omar (Micheal.K.Williams) who becomes a viewer’s favourite.
What is groundbreaking about this Programme is that it is just not about The Police Department or The Drug war; it portrays what lies beneath all of this and shows the lives of the people involved. I have only ever been captivated this much before by one show and that was The West Wing, what is different about these two shows is that The West Wing received amazing press coverage and won huge awards including multiple Emmy’s. The Wire however has received critical acclaim yet did not have the mass viewer ratings that The West Wing had. The Wire is one of the only shows in which in a short space of time has gone from being widely respected but unknown to a show which has spread like wild fire due to word of mouth and press reviews.
The Programme manages to cover a wide range of topics in 5 series and it is not all Drugs and Police Work. The Wire manages to convey the struggles in which poor American City’s face in terms of Unemployment and the rapid decline of the big industrial cities. This is represented in the form of series two which focuses heavily on the docking yards of Baltimore and where we are introduced to the Characters of Frank, Ziggy and Nick Sobotka.
The theme of Education is introduced in Series 4 with the focus once again shifting to the schools. It is here that we are introduced the four school children Dukie, Micheal, Randy and Naymond and where we see the different path’s in which we see these children grow up into. This Series also focuses largely on Politics and the race for the Mayor of the city of Baltimore. This brings in the characters Tommy Carcetti(Aiden Gillen) whos is seen as the good politican in comparison to the Mayor at the time Clarence Royce(Glynn Turman) who is seen as corrupt.
The Fifth series ties together the Police Department with the Baltimore Sun. This series introduces a big emphasis Journalism and Police Work and also brings about the ideas of a so called “Serial Killer” which actually is invented by Detective Mcnaulty to help bring down Marlon Stanfield who is now seen as the next ‘Avon Barksdale’ in the drug world. What we find in this series is that even after all of the hard work in Policing and Politics to stamp out drugs it has proved useless. This is a big point in which Burns and Simon are trying to make is that in these poor and urban areas the drug war will never work due to greed and corruption.
The Wire portrays real life perfectly because in the majority of T.V series the good people always manage to get what they want because of their good deeds. This often does not happen in The Wire with examples such as Bubbles being bullied by another Drug addict much to the dismay of the audience and Lead Drugs King Pins being killed when they were seen as untouchable. However in The Wire the audience is always shocked because main characters are often exposed to the effects of ‘Real Life’ at random times to keep the audience on edge and to show that even Lead characters are not safe from danger.
This wonderfully made T.V series has been the bulk of my conversations in recent weeks and I for one can certify that it most likely will be the best thing you have ever watched. The BBC also agrees with this view by putting The Wire on every evening on BBC2 for three months. The strongest thing that The Wire has going for it is that amongst throw away trash T.V that has been produced in the past few years it has substance, depth and a brilliant cast. The only bad thing in terms of the BBC is putting it on at 11pm...
The show is based in Baltimore, USA and focuses on 5 or 6 main characters throughout the series with many other characters joining the cast in more minor roles. What is brilliant about The Wire is the fact that the writers and producers even make you feel sorry for the bad guys and I found myself often siding with the Drug Dealers because the portrayal of their lives is so in depth.
The creators of the show are the well respected David Simon and Ed Burns. Simon is a former Police Reporter from The Baltimore Sun while Burns is a Former Homicide detective. They both chose the Baltimore area because of their familiarity with the City. This has helped the series become so realistic because the creators have experience in the areas that it is based.
The series is based around a series of characters from The Police Department, the drug gangs and people from the streets of Baltimore. In terms of casting the Wire got it spot on, casting unknowns instead of bringing in already well known actors gave the characters a chance to grow and made the Series even more realistic than it was. The Lead actor in the Series is Jimmy Mcnaulty, a Detective played by British born actor Dominic West. The rest of the main characters are Cedric Daniels(Lance Reddick) who has featured in the T.V series Lost since The Wire ended, Bubbles(Andre Royo) who is a recurring drug addict and is loved by the audience for his schemes, Stringer Bell(Idris Elba) and Avon Barksdale(Wood Harris) who are the leaders of the feared Barksdale crew. The main characters are rounded off by Homosexual Stick up boy Omar (Micheal.K.Williams) who becomes a viewer’s favourite.
What is groundbreaking about this Programme is that it is just not about The Police Department or The Drug war; it portrays what lies beneath all of this and shows the lives of the people involved. I have only ever been captivated this much before by one show and that was The West Wing, what is different about these two shows is that The West Wing received amazing press coverage and won huge awards including multiple Emmy’s. The Wire however has received critical acclaim yet did not have the mass viewer ratings that The West Wing had. The Wire is one of the only shows in which in a short space of time has gone from being widely respected but unknown to a show which has spread like wild fire due to word of mouth and press reviews.
The Programme manages to cover a wide range of topics in 5 series and it is not all Drugs and Police Work. The Wire manages to convey the struggles in which poor American City’s face in terms of Unemployment and the rapid decline of the big industrial cities. This is represented in the form of series two which focuses heavily on the docking yards of Baltimore and where we are introduced to the Characters of Frank, Ziggy and Nick Sobotka.
The theme of Education is introduced in Series 4 with the focus once again shifting to the schools. It is here that we are introduced the four school children Dukie, Micheal, Randy and Naymond and where we see the different path’s in which we see these children grow up into. This Series also focuses largely on Politics and the race for the Mayor of the city of Baltimore. This brings in the characters Tommy Carcetti(Aiden Gillen) whos is seen as the good politican in comparison to the Mayor at the time Clarence Royce(Glynn Turman) who is seen as corrupt.
The Fifth series ties together the Police Department with the Baltimore Sun. This series introduces a big emphasis Journalism and Police Work and also brings about the ideas of a so called “Serial Killer” which actually is invented by Detective Mcnaulty to help bring down Marlon Stanfield who is now seen as the next ‘Avon Barksdale’ in the drug world. What we find in this series is that even after all of the hard work in Policing and Politics to stamp out drugs it has proved useless. This is a big point in which Burns and Simon are trying to make is that in these poor and urban areas the drug war will never work due to greed and corruption.
The Wire portrays real life perfectly because in the majority of T.V series the good people always manage to get what they want because of their good deeds. This often does not happen in The Wire with examples such as Bubbles being bullied by another Drug addict much to the dismay of the audience and Lead Drugs King Pins being killed when they were seen as untouchable. However in The Wire the audience is always shocked because main characters are often exposed to the effects of ‘Real Life’ at random times to keep the audience on edge and to show that even Lead characters are not safe from danger.
This wonderfully made T.V series has been the bulk of my conversations in recent weeks and I for one can certify that it most likely will be the best thing you have ever watched. The BBC also agrees with this view by putting The Wire on every evening on BBC2 for three months. The strongest thing that The Wire has going for it is that amongst throw away trash T.V that has been produced in the past few years it has substance, depth and a brilliant cast. The only bad thing in terms of the BBC is putting it on at 11pm...
