Interesting question as to who the audience is supposed to most identify with. I agree that Omar wasn’t THE protagonist for the entire series, but he was for quite a number of episodes. Stringer was too, even though he was a drug lord he was trying to find ways to de-escalate the violence and rationalize the system. And McNulty wasn’t the protagonist for a lot of the series, though he certainly was at the beginning and the end.
I think even a lot of the bad guys in The Wire are fundamentally good people, who have very few choices or opportunities to do something else. And that’s something you see very rarely.
But I’d have to say that if you want an uplifting show that holds out the promise of a better tomorrow, The Wire ain’t it.
it’s a show about fundamentally flawed, admirable, likable people who are trying to do fundamentally good, admirable, worthwhile things as best they can…
but also about people doing selfish and cruel things, doing ‘fundamentally’ evil actions because they are relatively good.
It doesn’t focus on the dark side so much as try to show all sides of a dark situation. It’s actually when it stays too long on the “good people doing good” as in
McNulty early on, or the entire last season that it’s considered weaker.
I think the genius of The Wire is primarily that every relevant character is fully realized. All the conflict arises out of the interactions of these people whose motivations you become familiar with. That’s why it’s compared to a novel, and also why watching a few episodes isn’t as revealing as with other shows. It’s also why rewatching is rewarded, because the characters are so consistent that something that was unexplained as the series unfolded still makes sense in light of later knowledge.
That this was done as a television production, over years, with all the people required to make that happen, is incredible and why it is the greatest.
Thanks, you have spared HBO my outrage! He spent a lot more time in the street in a cop suit than he did in the school, so I never thought to look there. Definitely among my favorite characters.
True, but I don’t think it promises a grim future either. All it says is “This is how it really is and why. What do we do about it ?” and offers at least some avenues of inquiry and action.
Granted, most of them are of the “that’s rubbish, we need to stop doing that” variety :).
ETA: as for who the protagonist of the series is, if any, I’d have to go with Carver. He’s the only one to go through a typical “hero’s journey” and to overcome his crippling flaws.
The Wire has long since ended, but the odd thing about this show is that it still feels like I didn’t “watch” a TV show, it felt like I was really there.
The show is more of a distant memory of a past life I never actually lived.
So yes, I guess I would consider it one of the greatest TV series simply because it has imbedded itself so deeply in my psyche.
So how does having a poor season affect your estimation of a show’s overall rating? The first seasons were definitely some of the best television I’ve ever seen, but I thought the final season was pretty dire.
I’m not sure it’s all that fair to say “well, ignoring X, it’s the greatest show ever”.
It makes the top 5 in my book! I liked Mad Men better, but it didn’t have the gangsta stuff that the audience can live vicariously through, so it isn’t quite as popular as The Wire.
The best part about The Wire is that it showed that most criminals are not psychopaths. There were only two real characters that were portrayed as actual clinical psychopaths, Marlo, and probably the little cat-torturer Kenard. The rest of the bad guys were shown to have a softer side in one way or another(even Chris, that maniac, felt bad for Michael when he realized that his stepfather was sexually abusive).
The only character I didn’t like was Stringer. I could tell that he wasn’t African American immediately, and he didn’t feel believable to me, even when he evolved into a gangsta-turned-businessman.
I’d say it’s the best TV series I’ve seen. It’s a complex and very comprehensive look at a modern city, which is what draws the comparisons to a novel - and I think that’s a good comparison. It’s very well written, and while it’s probably not to true to say it’s more realistic than other crime or procedural shows, it does feel that way because they avoid a lot of cliches and easy answers, and they give their audience a lot more credit than most TV shows do.
For some reason my least favorite character was the kid with the hair (blanking on his name) that straightened out and seemed headed out of the hood. Good for him but I kept hoping for a drive by every time he was on screen.
Certainly The Wire is not a show about fundamentally good, admirable, likable people, at least not the way The West Wing is. And it certainly focuses on a dark and depressing place. But I don’t think it falls into one of two possible traps:
(1) it doesn’t just take every character who you might think you like and say “ah, but this guy has some FLAWS. Want to see them? No? Well, they are anyhow!”. (Nor, for that matter, does it feel obligated to take every bad guy and give them some heart of gold qualities just because.)
(2) It doesn’t show us bad things for bad things’ sake. It’s not somehow the metaphorical equivalent of torture porn, where it just delights in showing us how terrible and hopeless everything is. It shows us a shitty situation, and how various people survive in it, some trying to make it better, some exploiting it, some just trying to survive, etc.
It does, it’s worth mentioning, have some moments that are extremely funny, and even some that are extraordinarily uplifting and inspirational…
Of course, Namond’s story was one of the most uplifting in the series even though he could be pretty obnoxious himself. And his mother was one of the most horrifying characters in the show for me.
I was actually quite angry at the writers for letting Namond get the fairy tale ending when Randy didn’t, even though Randy was smarter, wittier, less of a coward and most of all tried way harder to leave the 'hood behind.
Before I knew much about it, I thought The Wire was not my kind of thing.
Over the years I have learned a little bit more about it, so now I think I can unequivocally say it’s not my kind of thing.
When people list the other shows that it’s similar to, or they also like (perhaps for similar reasons, perhaps not) it’s clear to me my tastes don’t jibe.