Wire Lovefest

I finally finished watching the 3rd season of The Wire. I don't have the time right now to write a full review.

Awards season has started in the States and it looks like it's going to be the same story in 2007 where The Wire and award nominations are concerned. The Golden Globe noms were announced some weeks ago and The Wire was absent again! Well, who cares about awards anyway (asks a thoroughly disgruntled fan)? We know that awards do not a great show make. And there has to be a solid reason why, despite low-ish viewership numbers, the show has four seasons under its belt with plans for a 5th season.

The Dec. 25 issue of Time gave props to the show in its annual Teddy Awards for "people who performed honourably as winners and losers in the public arena." Among the winners was David Simon, creator of The Wire, a show the articles's writer describes as "the finest piece of popular entertainment I've seen this century." High praise indeed. He goes on "Watching the show takes some effort; it's complicated, but every detail is delicious. It is, quite simply, the smartest show I've seen about the drama of public life, the corrosive cynicism of bureaucracies, the creativity and futility of the inner-city poor."

I think part of the appeal of the show is that you can take the plot out of Baltimore and transpose it to a host of other cities. The names would change but many of the issues remain the same: drugs; hopelessness; poverty; desperation; a corrupt and self-serving political class; weary and ill-equipped police; and citizens who think they have no power in fighting any societal ills and no choice than to look the other way.