The main problem with writing about the HBO TV series ‘The Wire’ is that you quickly run out of superlatives.
I wrote about this show on September 16th 2007 after watching Season 3 and now having reached the end of Season 4, I have no reason to change my (and many others’) view that this one of the finest and most important TV series ever produced.
The Wire takes its title from the phone taps used by the serious crimes squad. In this season this investigative method is a non starter as the targets have got wise to this means of surveillance. The title still seems appropriate, however, given that the show is all about making connections between economic, sociological and political issues.
In the fourth (and penultimate) season the focus turns to the new generation of ‘corner kids’ in the underprivileged part of Baltimore. The problems of inner city education is linked both implicitly and explicitly with the power battles in the mayoral election campaign, the hierarchy in police departments and working methods of criminal gangs. The genius is in keeping all these plates spinning while maintaining the show’s integrity and believability.
They get this right because, while it is a work of fiction, it is based on a real and thorough knowledge of this city, which in many ways serves as a microcosm for other inner cities in America. The accuracy comes form the fact that the series creator, David Simon, used to cover crime stories with the Baltimore Sun while main series consultant is Ed Burns an ex-detective with Baltimore police department.
In season 4 the performances of the child actors are so convincing that you imagine they’d be playing these roles in real life if The Wire hadn’t employed them. One of the most amazing, and chilling, is Snoop played by Felicia Pearson (see above)who clocks up a high body count over the season’s 13 episodes. Before landing this role she sold drugs and spent more than seven years in jail.
This gives an insight into the urgent crusading message behind the series. It is more than just escapist entertainment. David Simon says that if they hadn’t got it right it would have been just another cop show. Instead it raises all the complex and messy day to day moral dilemmas that have to be faced by politicians, parents, kids, teachers, junkies, police and we the people.
The show doesn’t pretend to know all the answers but they sure as hell know how to ask the right questions.
