I thought it was quite clear that creating a living hell WASN’T a solution to the problem.
The Wire is one of my top 5 favorite shows ever. When I first tried it, I watched a couple of episodes and grew bored. I gave it a second chance later on and I was totally hooked.
The most notable thing about it is that it doesn’t make me roll my eyes at anything. It doesn’t leave lose ends, it doesn’t shove a particular brand of morality on me (I’m looking at you Smallville…), Pretty much everything in the show is believable and the stories and characters are superb.
My roommate downloaded all the seasons from the internet and he was the one who told me about it. I strongly recommend it to everybody who likes HBO shows. I believe the DVDs for seasons 1 and 2 are available now so go grab’em!
Do you know how the BPD reacted to the show?
Again, I disagree. The black minister gave Bunny a hard time for not providing any health support at first, but then they bring in the health workers, try to get the little kids who used to be runners something positive to do, and work at reducing the prblems of the free zone. And they show that it was beginning to work, until someone got shot in Hamsterdam.
In the meantime, the crime rate in the neighborhoods dropped significantly.
A concentrated living hell may look worse on the surface than dozens of smaller living hells scattered around the city, but that’s just appearance, not reality. And steps were being taken to make Hamsterdam less hellish.
Besides, what’s eminently clear is that the same old same old wasn’t working and that some new approach had to be tried. At least Colvin tried something, and if you asked the residents of the corners now free of drug dealers, I think they’d say it was worth it.
All three series are out on DVD. I got 1 and 2 on eBay for about US$40 each. I’m waiting for the price on 3 to come down a bit.
ISTR some Baltimoreans (not necessarily police) criticizing the show as bad for the city’s rep, but I think a lot of folks are happy that such a well-done and important show is being filmed in Baltimore. B’more was also the home to Homicide.
But the thing is, the “living hell” is going to happen anyway, for the addicts, their kids, and the people forced to live in drug-infested neighborhoods. At least with Hamsterdam, the hell was concentrated, regulated, and acknowledged. If it weren’t just Colvin and his guys, if there were a larger effort by government to step in for the children involved and to deal with the health crises generated by the drug problem, it WOULDN’T be a living hell. As it was, Colvin had the balls to offer a radical but realistic response to the unrealistic demands of his bosses: to lower crime in a situation that creates criminals and criminally bad consequences.
If memory serves the crime rate drop was in the single digits.
The show wasn’t saying something so simple as “the war on drugs is futile” it was saying that neither is working/would work without sacrificing alot. Even with the health workers, even with the needle exchanges, Hamsterdam was clearly a hell.
Ditto for the Shield. Two words: David Aceveda. Two more words: Claudette Wyms. The latter says more with those damn eyebrows than any character I’ve ever seen.
The Shield is more than an action show, it’s about the internal politics of a police station.
We forget that some people don’t know what On Demand is…
You have to get a digital box from your local cable company…and then, you have to sign up for HBO (and STARZ is also On Demand). Basically, you can then go to a specific channel (here it is channel 1) and you can select movies, or television series from the premium channel, and just click and they start. It is like having a video library available to you for free (as long as you pay for the box and the premium channels) to watch films and series whenever you want. You can also get movies just recently released on video, but you have to pay for those (your cable company will bill you) but they cost about the same as if you went to Blockbuster or where ever and rented them there.
Back to the OP.
We have loved The Wire since the very first episode and have seen every episode…am glad to hear there is another season coming as, for awhile, it looked like it might not happen. I agree, comparing The Shield to The Wire is a bit unfair, but both shows are great, very realistic in many ways, and the unpredictability of both shows is what makes them special…you never know what the hell could happen next, unlike most regular shows on television.
Just finished season 3… I thought it was the weakest season so far. In particular, I thought the Hamsterdam plot was fairly poorly handled. It seemed quite clear to me that the writers of the show are strongly in favor of such a solution, so they pushed it strongly. For one thing, I think they completely ignored the issue that there will be collateral damage spreading around to nearby blocks. Even if all the drug-selling takes place in that one area, nearby merchants and residents are presumably going to see an increase in petty theft, trespassing, passed out people in their lawns, etc. Also, the idea that this could be kept a secret from the press and the entire city/police administration for 5 weeks strikes me as ludicrous.
Still, a great show. Oh, and the absolute highlight of season 3 was:
Rawls in the gay bar
FYI, Season 3 is now available On Demand. I haven’t finished it yet so I don’t want to comment further until I’m finished.
Slated to be removed 9/10, so get crackin’!
I’ll correct myself here. By the time the brass found out about it, the crime rate drop was up to 13% in that neighborhood.
You’re right about this, and it is one of the very few things about The Wire that didn’t ring true, although I only barely realized it at first.
As for your spoiler, that was great, but I don’t recall that they make anything of it in the last couple eps of season 3. It doesn’t go any further, does it? Maybe it’s a plot point for Season 4.
BTW, they had an interesting trailer for Season 4 after last week’s Deadwood, differerent from the one that followed the Season 3 ep at 8. And this Sunday there will be two shows about the next season of The Wire in the 7 pm slot.
Creator David Simon at a conference for TV critics (article here ): “There is a certain portion of the audience that will change the channel. Not in any grandly venal, racist way, but there are a lot of people that are going to look and see that many black faces looking back at them, and they’re going to say 'This is not my story.” He also rued the overuse of words like “gritty” and “complex” to describe the show and wished aloud (albeit jokingly) that it was just the opposite.
FYI Season 4 is amazing. It’s set mostly in the school system and the child actors (pretty much the new starring cast, with old timers on the periphery) are incredible finds.
You’ve seen Season 4? How?
OK, finished Season 3. I really enjoyed it, and I find myself agreeing with Rubystreak that Omar is agreat character. At first I was thinking “How can they not find this guy?” But after seeing more of his resourcefulness, I believe that he can get away with not being found.
My favorite scene from the Season was probably McNulty’s last date with the campaign advisor. When he realizes that she thinks he’s so stupid that he won’t figure out that she’s using him to get to the bottom of the Hamsterdam story, and leaves.
I don’t know - growing up in St. Louis I can see why a really bad part of town got little or no attention by anyone. The metro section only mentioned shootings and the like - nobody seemed to care what went on down there. The people of the neighborhood certainly didn’t care - they were happy to get their streets back. Plus the police administration seemed too busy dealing with their own responsibilities to concern themselves too much with what was going on in another district. And don’t forget that McNulty’s division did know what was going on, and agreed to keep silent about it.
The “hard to believe” part of the show to me was that none of these dealers realize they’re being watched. The detectives seem to park in plain sight, staring through binoculars. Or that there was no backlash against the local police after the reneged on their promise. It was just business as usual after that.
And I have to believe that Bubbles would be dead by now. Surely everyone must know he’s a snitch?
I agree. Every episode when he shows up I assume he’s going to get killed at that point.
Hands down, best show on TV.
Deadwood and Rome are right up there too, no question about it.
Ahh, connections, connections.
Oh.my.god. You’ve really seen it haven’t you? Ok, here is what I’m feeling right now:
*BURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVY ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING ENVYBURNING
With that said, who’s your connection? And how awesome was it again?