The Wire on HBO --- Discussion Thread
12-18-04 | 11:57 PM
#529
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From: Capitol of the Empire! Center of all Commerce and Culture! Crossroads of Civilization! NEW ROME!!!...aka New York City
a network known for unconventional plot twists and bold, can-you-believe-they-did that? surprises. "The Sopranos" has never been shy about doing away with major characters - Big *****, Ralphie and Adriana were all killed off. "Deadwood," the drama series set in the lawless West, lost its Wild Bill Hickok.
...moron writers
12-19-04 | 07:04 AM
#530
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Originally Posted by sven
You have to wonder though. If Stringer doesnt admit to being behind D'angelo's death would Avon have given him up so easily?
12-19-04 | 11:20 AM
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The Wire - 12/19 - Season Finale
"Mission Accomplished"
Directed by Ernest Dickerson
In the Season Three finale, a reticent Avon readies his troops for a seemingly endless war against Marlo. Meanwhile, as the detail works towards the top rungs of the Barksdale organization, McNulty reassesses his pursuit of Stringer Bell and the path he's chosen for himself. While Royce continues to grapple with Amsterdam, Burrell offers a deal to minimize the fallout, even as Colvin's idea becomes public knowledge. Carcetti's ambition becomes obvious to his friend and fellow councilman Tony Gray, even as Gray has disclosed his own political plans. Cutty struggles to keep his young boxers off the corners, as he and Fruit cross paths once again. Bubbles offers his view of the world, both as it is and once was.
I love this show. Just absolutely love it. Fuck CSI and Law and Order, showing such unrealistic portryals of law enforcement and criminals. Fuck them and their instant gratifying episodes.
Directed by Ernest Dickerson
In the Season Three finale, a reticent Avon readies his troops for a seemingly endless war against Marlo. Meanwhile, as the detail works towards the top rungs of the Barksdale organization, McNulty reassesses his pursuit of Stringer Bell and the path he's chosen for himself. While Royce continues to grapple with Amsterdam, Burrell offers a deal to minimize the fallout, even as Colvin's idea becomes public knowledge. Carcetti's ambition becomes obvious to his friend and fellow councilman Tony Gray, even as Gray has disclosed his own political plans. Cutty struggles to keep his young boxers off the corners, as he and Fruit cross paths once again. Bubbles offers his view of the world, both as it is and once was.
I love this show. Just absolutely love it. Fuck CSI and Law and Order, showing such unrealistic portryals of law enforcement and criminals. Fuck them and their instant gratifying episodes.
12-19-04 | 11:32 AM
#532
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Here's an article that was in today's Baltimore Sun. You have to register to view the Sun now, so I'll just paste it.
'The Wire': A different kind of reality TV
Local facts, fictions merge in a show some love, others condemn
By Doug Donovan
Sun Staff
Originally published December 19, 2004
It's nothing new for television shows to borrow real-life plots and players from the cities where they are set. New Yorkers, for instance, have long become accustomed to having their crimes and characters ripped from the headlines by Law & Order.
But Baltimore is a smaller, cozier place. So the appearance, mention or mere characterization of local luminaries on a show like the HBO drama The Wire has proven to be a far more intimate affair - for good and ill.
The show ends its third season tonight, and it's not yet clear if a fourth season will be scheduled. But over the past four months, Baltimore-area audiences have been tickled and prickled by a weekly parade of people and places they know well, including former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, influential pastor Rev. Frank M. Reid III, former drug kingpin Melvin Williams, and convicted felon and former Baltimore police commissioner, Edward T. Norris.
And those are just the most noticeable cameos. There are also real-life Baltimore story lines that only astute locals may perceive. Most noticeable has been the show's white city councilman with sights set on the black mayor's seat. Martin O'Malley circa 1999, anyone?
Fans of the drug war drama - especially Schmoke and Reid - are honored to see themselves, their friends and their city portrayed on The Wire. However, critics - those who believe The Wire offers a narrow, negative image of the city - are indignant that a show billed as fiction is rife with reality.
"David Simon isn't fooling anybody," said Baltimore City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. "The Wire is more documentary than it is drama."
Simon, the show's creator, called Harris' comment an insult and said The Wire's exploration of the struggles associated with the war on drugs is applicable to any American city.
"It's rooted in the real but it's all mangled up so that it's fiction," Simon said, reiterating an argument he made in The Sun in September. "There are moments when we put our tongue in our cheek and do something that ... references something that is real or topical, if you happen to be from Baltimore."
Municipal 'moments'
In case you missed such "moments," here are a few of the most notable, and ironic, ones:
# Schmoke portrayed a health commissioner who warns the fictional black mayor that he will be labeled "the most dangerous man in America" for endorsing a rogue cop's effort to legalize drugs. Schmoke would know: That's what he was called for his idea to decriminalize drugs.
"We know the reality on which this fiction is based," said Schmoke.
# Reid, who is Schmoke's stepbrother, was immortalized by a character named - what else? - Rev. Frank Reid. The real Reid, who follows the show, well, religiously, was set to portray himself but was sick the day of filming.
His take on The Wire: "I think it's a modern Dante's Divine Comedy, taking us through the hell of urban living, urban politics and showing us, not only hell, but purgatory as well, and a way out. As you talk to people who have lived that life, the writing is right on."
# One person who has lived that life is Melvin "Little Melvin" Williams. Once a Baltimore drug kingpin, on The Wire Williams plays a religious man and a voice of moral reason. Meanwhile, the show's drug kingpin, Avon Barksdale, is modeled on him, Williams says.
Williams said he has reformed himself after 26 years in prison and now advises young people to avoid the drug life. He hopes the show sends a similar message.
In one scene, Williams' character is appalled when he surveys an area that a rogue police commander has designated as a free zone for people dealing and doing drugs. In his heyday, of course, Williams would have made a fortune in such a place. (No such zone, both Schmoke and Simon say, ever existed.)
"I enjoyed [that] moment," said Simon, who suggests that Williams must take responsibility for many drug-addicted people in Baltimore. "That was a small, if artificial, bit of penance."
# While Williams got his role on The Wire after prison, Norris, the former Baltimore police commissioner, got his before doing his stretch.
Norris is in federal prison for public corruption. But before he was incarcerated, Simon gave him a small role as a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking city cop.
The show also took a shot at departing U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio, who prosecuted Norris. DiBiagio is not named, but a Wire character observed that the Maryland U.S. attorney is, to put it kindly, preoccupied with public corruption, a familiar criticism of DiBiagio.
# Another, lesser-known public official in the show is Richard Burton, who plays a character named Shamrock, sidekick to fictional drug dealer Stringer Bell. His real-life role: anti-drug crusader for O'Malley's "Believe" campaign. Simon said Burton was cast before the show knew of that connection.
Before Burton's audition, Simon said, he'd had a few conversations about The Wire with the mayor "that weren't particularly pleasant." He said the city subsequently became "remarkably professional" in its dealings with the show. Still, Simon did not want Burton's casting to "stick a finger in anyone's eye."
Burton said he cleared his role with the mayor; his character, he noted, never handles or deals drugs.
# Finally, there is the show's political plot, which many viewers say is drawn from O'Malley's 1999 challenge of two black mayoral candidates. O'Malley's competition was two black council members, Carl Stokes and Lawrence A. Bell III. The show's white councilman, Thomas Carcetti, is running against an incumbent black mayor and a black councilman.
Many people say Carcetti's friendship with councilman Anthony Gray is nearly identical to O'Malley's former relationship with Bell. Anthony McCarthy, a local radio personality who covered the 1999 mayoral race for The Afro-American newspaper, said he "can't imagine" that the one-time O'Malley-Bell friendship isn't "the basis for those characters."
Stokes, meanwhile, said that one of the characters is "absolutely me," down to his "education candidate" slogan and campaign color scheme.
Simon said the Carcetti character is a composite of dozens of politicians he wrote about during his time as a reporter at The Sun. Two other writers on the show, Rafael Alvarez and William F. Zorzi, are also former Sun newsmen.
"Are there elements of Carcetti that are reflective of O'Malley - yes," Simon said. But, he added, "It's just not him."
Mayor O'Malley would not comment for this story. But he reportedly dislikes the show because he believes it offers too narrow and too dim a view of Baltimore. He also has expressed displeasure that police on The Wire speak of manipulating statistics to lower the crime rate.
Police concerned
More serious concerns have been raised by working police, who know that producer and writer Edward Burns, a 20-year veteran of the force, is intimately familiar with their operations.
"Police would hate to have the criminal element watching the show," said Dan Fickus, former president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3. "It depicts too much of what our investigation skills are and how we investigate. That's the major complaint."
On the other hand, city police have earned nearly $202,000 in overtime providing protection for The Wire's filming, and the city has received another $60,000 in permits and equipment usage, said Hannah Byron, director of the city's film office. For the Baltimore area as a whole, The Wire is estimated to have an annual economic impact of $17.5 million.
But at least one local business isn't thrilled.
The show's two drug kingpin partners - Bell and Barksdale - also own a legitimate business called B&B Enterprises. In one episode, a corrupt state senator arranges for the company to become the "minority contractor for lightbulb supplies" for the city of Baltimore.
In real life, B&B Lighting Supply is a certified minority-owned firm in Baltimore that last year won the city's lightbulb supply contract. Sharon Bradford, owner of the Druid Park Drive company, was not happy to hear that a fictional drug dealer's firm had such a similar name and contract.
Just a coincidence, Simon said: The fictional B&B was set up in the show before the real B&B won the city contract.
What some others find most disturbing about The Wire is its fictional West Baltimore setting, a landscape of drug dealers, addicts and vacant, burned-out homes. Where was it filmed? In the East Baltimore neighborhood of Oliver, where such despondency is all too real. It's the one spot where fiction and reality have most often inhabited the same space. With a real drug market a block away, fictional drug dealers have had to steer potential buyers off the set, one local pastor said.
Rev. Robert C. Burley Sr., president of the Oliver Community Association, said he had to negotiate with the show and the police who provided protection to treat Oliver as well as they treated the on-location set. He said residents complained of litter left by crew and cops alike, and of disrespectful treatment to Oliver residents. In the end, the show donated school supplies for area students to smooth out complaints.
Still, Burley said he believes the show "depicts us in a very negative light." He said it only serves to undermine efforts to improve life in the city's worst neighborhoods.
Reid says the opposite is true.
"We cannot change the reality of any of our cities unless we're willing to descend into the reality of the hell" depicted in The Wire, he said.
His advice to those who chafe at The Wire's depiction of Baltimore's burdens: "Lighten up and enjoy it. I believe something my father said about bad publicity: There's no such thing."
'The Wire': A different kind of reality TV
Local facts, fictions merge in a show some love, others condemn
By Doug Donovan
Sun Staff
Originally published December 19, 2004
It's nothing new for television shows to borrow real-life plots and players from the cities where they are set. New Yorkers, for instance, have long become accustomed to having their crimes and characters ripped from the headlines by Law & Order.
But Baltimore is a smaller, cozier place. So the appearance, mention or mere characterization of local luminaries on a show like the HBO drama The Wire has proven to be a far more intimate affair - for good and ill.
The show ends its third season tonight, and it's not yet clear if a fourth season will be scheduled. But over the past four months, Baltimore-area audiences have been tickled and prickled by a weekly parade of people and places they know well, including former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, influential pastor Rev. Frank M. Reid III, former drug kingpin Melvin Williams, and convicted felon and former Baltimore police commissioner, Edward T. Norris.
And those are just the most noticeable cameos. There are also real-life Baltimore story lines that only astute locals may perceive. Most noticeable has been the show's white city councilman with sights set on the black mayor's seat. Martin O'Malley circa 1999, anyone?
Fans of the drug war drama - especially Schmoke and Reid - are honored to see themselves, their friends and their city portrayed on The Wire. However, critics - those who believe The Wire offers a narrow, negative image of the city - are indignant that a show billed as fiction is rife with reality.
"David Simon isn't fooling anybody," said Baltimore City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. "The Wire is more documentary than it is drama."
Simon, the show's creator, called Harris' comment an insult and said The Wire's exploration of the struggles associated with the war on drugs is applicable to any American city.
"It's rooted in the real but it's all mangled up so that it's fiction," Simon said, reiterating an argument he made in The Sun in September. "There are moments when we put our tongue in our cheek and do something that ... references something that is real or topical, if you happen to be from Baltimore."
Municipal 'moments'
In case you missed such "moments," here are a few of the most notable, and ironic, ones:
# Schmoke portrayed a health commissioner who warns the fictional black mayor that he will be labeled "the most dangerous man in America" for endorsing a rogue cop's effort to legalize drugs. Schmoke would know: That's what he was called for his idea to decriminalize drugs.
"We know the reality on which this fiction is based," said Schmoke.
# Reid, who is Schmoke's stepbrother, was immortalized by a character named - what else? - Rev. Frank Reid. The real Reid, who follows the show, well, religiously, was set to portray himself but was sick the day of filming.
His take on The Wire: "I think it's a modern Dante's Divine Comedy, taking us through the hell of urban living, urban politics and showing us, not only hell, but purgatory as well, and a way out. As you talk to people who have lived that life, the writing is right on."
# One person who has lived that life is Melvin "Little Melvin" Williams. Once a Baltimore drug kingpin, on The Wire Williams plays a religious man and a voice of moral reason. Meanwhile, the show's drug kingpin, Avon Barksdale, is modeled on him, Williams says.
Williams said he has reformed himself after 26 years in prison and now advises young people to avoid the drug life. He hopes the show sends a similar message.
In one scene, Williams' character is appalled when he surveys an area that a rogue police commander has designated as a free zone for people dealing and doing drugs. In his heyday, of course, Williams would have made a fortune in such a place. (No such zone, both Schmoke and Simon say, ever existed.)
"I enjoyed [that] moment," said Simon, who suggests that Williams must take responsibility for many drug-addicted people in Baltimore. "That was a small, if artificial, bit of penance."
# While Williams got his role on The Wire after prison, Norris, the former Baltimore police commissioner, got his before doing his stretch.
Norris is in federal prison for public corruption. But before he was incarcerated, Simon gave him a small role as a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking city cop.
The show also took a shot at departing U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio, who prosecuted Norris. DiBiagio is not named, but a Wire character observed that the Maryland U.S. attorney is, to put it kindly, preoccupied with public corruption, a familiar criticism of DiBiagio.
# Another, lesser-known public official in the show is Richard Burton, who plays a character named Shamrock, sidekick to fictional drug dealer Stringer Bell. His real-life role: anti-drug crusader for O'Malley's "Believe" campaign. Simon said Burton was cast before the show knew of that connection.
Before Burton's audition, Simon said, he'd had a few conversations about The Wire with the mayor "that weren't particularly pleasant." He said the city subsequently became "remarkably professional" in its dealings with the show. Still, Simon did not want Burton's casting to "stick a finger in anyone's eye."
Burton said he cleared his role with the mayor; his character, he noted, never handles or deals drugs.
# Finally, there is the show's political plot, which many viewers say is drawn from O'Malley's 1999 challenge of two black mayoral candidates. O'Malley's competition was two black council members, Carl Stokes and Lawrence A. Bell III. The show's white councilman, Thomas Carcetti, is running against an incumbent black mayor and a black councilman.
Many people say Carcetti's friendship with councilman Anthony Gray is nearly identical to O'Malley's former relationship with Bell. Anthony McCarthy, a local radio personality who covered the 1999 mayoral race for The Afro-American newspaper, said he "can't imagine" that the one-time O'Malley-Bell friendship isn't "the basis for those characters."
Stokes, meanwhile, said that one of the characters is "absolutely me," down to his "education candidate" slogan and campaign color scheme.
Simon said the Carcetti character is a composite of dozens of politicians he wrote about during his time as a reporter at The Sun. Two other writers on the show, Rafael Alvarez and William F. Zorzi, are also former Sun newsmen.
"Are there elements of Carcetti that are reflective of O'Malley - yes," Simon said. But, he added, "It's just not him."
Mayor O'Malley would not comment for this story. But he reportedly dislikes the show because he believes it offers too narrow and too dim a view of Baltimore. He also has expressed displeasure that police on The Wire speak of manipulating statistics to lower the crime rate.
Police concerned
More serious concerns have been raised by working police, who know that producer and writer Edward Burns, a 20-year veteran of the force, is intimately familiar with their operations.
"Police would hate to have the criminal element watching the show," said Dan Fickus, former president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3. "It depicts too much of what our investigation skills are and how we investigate. That's the major complaint."
On the other hand, city police have earned nearly $202,000 in overtime providing protection for The Wire's filming, and the city has received another $60,000 in permits and equipment usage, said Hannah Byron, director of the city's film office. For the Baltimore area as a whole, The Wire is estimated to have an annual economic impact of $17.5 million.
But at least one local business isn't thrilled.
The show's two drug kingpin partners - Bell and Barksdale - also own a legitimate business called B&B Enterprises. In one episode, a corrupt state senator arranges for the company to become the "minority contractor for lightbulb supplies" for the city of Baltimore.
In real life, B&B Lighting Supply is a certified minority-owned firm in Baltimore that last year won the city's lightbulb supply contract. Sharon Bradford, owner of the Druid Park Drive company, was not happy to hear that a fictional drug dealer's firm had such a similar name and contract.
Just a coincidence, Simon said: The fictional B&B was set up in the show before the real B&B won the city contract.
What some others find most disturbing about The Wire is its fictional West Baltimore setting, a landscape of drug dealers, addicts and vacant, burned-out homes. Where was it filmed? In the East Baltimore neighborhood of Oliver, where such despondency is all too real. It's the one spot where fiction and reality have most often inhabited the same space. With a real drug market a block away, fictional drug dealers have had to steer potential buyers off the set, one local pastor said.
Rev. Robert C. Burley Sr., president of the Oliver Community Association, said he had to negotiate with the show and the police who provided protection to treat Oliver as well as they treated the on-location set. He said residents complained of litter left by crew and cops alike, and of disrespectful treatment to Oliver residents. In the end, the show donated school supplies for area students to smooth out complaints.
Still, Burley said he believes the show "depicts us in a very negative light." He said it only serves to undermine efforts to improve life in the city's worst neighborhoods.
Reid says the opposite is true.
"We cannot change the reality of any of our cities unless we're willing to descend into the reality of the hell" depicted in The Wire, he said.
His advice to those who chafe at The Wire's depiction of Baltimore's burdens: "Lighten up and enjoy it. I believe something my father said about bad publicity: There's no such thing."
12-19-04 | 01:05 PM
#533
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Great article, thanks for posting it. I had no idea about all those real life connections, but since this show never gets the publicity it deserves, I'm not surprised.
I really hope tonight I'm not watching the last ever episode of The Wire.
I really hope tonight I'm not watching the last ever episode of The Wire.
12-19-04 | 10:00 PM
#534
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From: IL
Great episode tonight, too bad I really don't have anything to look forward to on Sunday nights anymore. Great end to an otherwise mediocre season. They left quite a few ends untied, but from the look of things, it seems this show is headed for an all too early death. In the commercial preceding the finale, HBO was showcasing the Golden Globe (I think) nominations that it's shows/movies had picked up, and I didn't hear one mention of The Wire...
12-19-04 | 11:55 PM
#535
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From: Under a dead Ohio sky
Avon finally realised that String was right all along about not only the Marlow situation but the game in general. But by then it was too late.
HBO has more sense than to cancel the best show on TV. I hope.
HBO has more sense than to cancel the best show on TV. I hope.
12-20-04 | 04:53 PM
#537
DVD Talk Legend
While I love the Wire I see no need to dis Law and Order and CSI. You can like one without hating the other. Just like I love the Shield. I think Omar should be the King. He would wear the crown better than all of them.
12-20-04 | 05:47 PM
#538
DVD Talk Limited Edition
I can understand those who don't like the way Baltimore is portrayed, but if they don't like it maybe they should make the real life inner city Baltimore not be the shows near-perfect mirror. It is REALLY bad in some places.
As far as the (i fear series finale) season finale...just awesome. It felt like it ran for 2 hours instead of just the 60 mins. While I think this could be a satisfying end to the show, there is so much left to explore.
And that Kima love scene? Hotness.
As far as the (i fear series finale) season finale...just awesome. It felt like it ran for 2 hours instead of just the 60 mins. While I think this could be a satisfying end to the show, there is so much left to explore.
And that Kima love scene? Hotness.
12-20-04 | 09:42 PM
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'The Wire' fears
HBO may snip it
By MARISA GUTHRIE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
At the climax of its third season, HBO's gritty drama "The Wire" is hanging by one.
"We haven't been renewed," said creator David Simon, "We have not been killed either."
A decision on the fate of Simon's critically praised series about the dangerous corners of Baltimore's drug trade isn't expected until mid-January.
"I know [HBO] isn't particularly pleased with our numbers," Simon said. "Why would they be? But, at the same time, I'm not sure what on HBO besides maybe 'The Sopranos' could have gone up against the buzz saw that is 'Desperate Housewives' and Sunday night football."
"The Wire," which has its season (or series) finale Sunday night at 9, boldly killed off a major character last week when Stringer Bell (Idris Elba), a dealer trying to go legit as a real-estate developer, was gunned down.
"I checked the [message] boards this morning and every body's upset about Stringer," said Simon. "All I can tell you is the only way the writers can figure out how to make the stories matter is to not make characters matter more than the stories."
On Sunday, there is more closure and another character is put out to pasture, though not in a predictable way.
"If we have to end here, I'll be sad," said Simon. "There is a lot more I want to say. It took a lot to create this fictional universe of Baltimore and there's a lot more to say."
But "The Wire" has been criticized for its labyrinthine plot lines; its liberal use of urban vernacular has also stymied some viewers. But HBO has made a habit of nurturing esoteric series.
"This show would have been canceled after four episodes anywhere else," said Simon. "If [HBO] says, 'Nice try, but we're going to go with something else,' then they say it. Does that mean I have even the slightest regret that I didn't make the show simpler or dumbed it down or made the cast more white? Absolutely not."
If "The Wire" makes it to fourth season, said Simon, he plans to explore the failures of the public education system in Baltimore.
"Like a lot of cities," he said, "we have a remarkably dysfunctional school system, one that puts the lie to the idea that if you want to walk away from the street, you can just put your head down and do what's right. You start to get the impression that the children of this city are being raised by the drug corners, that this is a school system that fits with a society where the drug trade is the best deal of its generation."
But he may not get the chance. The overwhelming success of "The Sopranos" has changed the climate at HBO.
"Because of 'The Sopranos' breakout hit status," said Simon, "expectations have changed." The days when a dark prison drama like "Oz" could survive several seasons may be coming to a close, according to Simon.
"There was no angst about ['Oz'] ratings," said Simon. "It was what it was. There was a commitment to storytelling, even if it was idiosyncratic storytelling. Now I'm going up against 'Desperate Housewives.'
"What could have gone up against 'Desperate Housewives'? 'Desperate Housewives' is pretty. I'm not about pretty."
HBO may snip it
By MARISA GUTHRIE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
At the climax of its third season, HBO's gritty drama "The Wire" is hanging by one.
"We haven't been renewed," said creator David Simon, "We have not been killed either."
A decision on the fate of Simon's critically praised series about the dangerous corners of Baltimore's drug trade isn't expected until mid-January.
"I know [HBO] isn't particularly pleased with our numbers," Simon said. "Why would they be? But, at the same time, I'm not sure what on HBO besides maybe 'The Sopranos' could have gone up against the buzz saw that is 'Desperate Housewives' and Sunday night football."
"The Wire," which has its season (or series) finale Sunday night at 9, boldly killed off a major character last week when Stringer Bell (Idris Elba), a dealer trying to go legit as a real-estate developer, was gunned down.
"I checked the [message] boards this morning and every body's upset about Stringer," said Simon. "All I can tell you is the only way the writers can figure out how to make the stories matter is to not make characters matter more than the stories."
On Sunday, there is more closure and another character is put out to pasture, though not in a predictable way.
"If we have to end here, I'll be sad," said Simon. "There is a lot more I want to say. It took a lot to create this fictional universe of Baltimore and there's a lot more to say."
But "The Wire" has been criticized for its labyrinthine plot lines; its liberal use of urban vernacular has also stymied some viewers. But HBO has made a habit of nurturing esoteric series.
"This show would have been canceled after four episodes anywhere else," said Simon. "If [HBO] says, 'Nice try, but we're going to go with something else,' then they say it. Does that mean I have even the slightest regret that I didn't make the show simpler or dumbed it down or made the cast more white? Absolutely not."
If "The Wire" makes it to fourth season, said Simon, he plans to explore the failures of the public education system in Baltimore.
"Like a lot of cities," he said, "we have a remarkably dysfunctional school system, one that puts the lie to the idea that if you want to walk away from the street, you can just put your head down and do what's right. You start to get the impression that the children of this city are being raised by the drug corners, that this is a school system that fits with a society where the drug trade is the best deal of its generation."
But he may not get the chance. The overwhelming success of "The Sopranos" has changed the climate at HBO.
"Because of 'The Sopranos' breakout hit status," said Simon, "expectations have changed." The days when a dark prison drama like "Oz" could survive several seasons may be coming to a close, according to Simon.
"There was no angst about ['Oz'] ratings," said Simon. "It was what it was. There was a commitment to storytelling, even if it was idiosyncratic storytelling. Now I'm going up against 'Desperate Housewives.'
"What could have gone up against 'Desperate Housewives'? 'Desperate Housewives' is pretty. I'm not about pretty."
12-20-04 | 11:04 PM
#540
DVD Talk Limited Edition
I just watched the last 7 episodes that I had Tivo'd. Wow. This show is great, especially when you get to watch them back to back. Some were calling this a mediocore season, but I felt it was better than the previous one.
If the next season does get picked up it sounds like a good premise. I had my doubts about this season when they said it would focus on the political side of things, but Simon fit it in to the existing cast of characters very well.
It is infuriating that a show like Desparate Houswives would cause the death of a show like The Wire. I'm hoping that HBO will show faith in the show. With such critical acclaim, a passionate fanbase, a creator with fresh ideas for a new season, and some of the best actors and actresses on television, I can't see them passing on this show. Here's hoping for season 4.
If the next season does get picked up it sounds like a good premise. I had my doubts about this season when they said it would focus on the political side of things, but Simon fit it in to the existing cast of characters very well.
It is infuriating that a show like Desparate Houswives would cause the death of a show like The Wire. I'm hoping that HBO will show faith in the show. With such critical acclaim, a passionate fanbase, a creator with fresh ideas for a new season, and some of the best actors and actresses on television, I can't see them passing on this show. Here's hoping for season 4.
12-21-04 | 12:15 AM
#542
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From: Under a dead Ohio sky
Originally Posted by BigDaddy
While I love the Wire I see no need to dis Law and Order and CSI. You can like one without hating the other. Just like I love the Shield. I think Omar should be the King. He would wear the crown better than all of them.
01-08-05 | 03:57 PM
#544
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wow, this is one of the best shows on television ever (next to 24 and the shield).. i'm on the season finale of season 3, havent watched it yet.. but i've watched season 1-3 up til the last eps in 1 weeks period of time. season 3 i think is the best, then season 1, season 2 was alright, but the drugs in the project was much more interesting than the docks.. omar is my fav character in the show 
01-09-05 | 01:58 PM
#549
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
I just bought the first season, and I love it. I can't wait for the second season to come out in the next couple weeks. I've got it ordered already. If the show is as good in the second and third seasons as it is in the first, then I'd agree it's one of the best shows on TV.
03-17-05 | 04:17 PM
#550
DVD Talk Hero
TVguide reporting the 4th season is a go
URBAN RENEWAL: It was touch-and-go there for a while, but sources confirm that HBO has renewed its acclaimed police drama The Wire for a fourth season. New episodes probably won't start airing until early '06, so you've got plenty of time to Netflix the DVDs.