The Wire vs. The Sopranos

I've been meaning to write about HBO's The Wire since the final episode aired nine days ago and now it seems the show's creator David Simon has beaten me to the punch. My bad.

Even so, while Simon's defense of the show's final season is dead-on, and carries unfortunate echoes for critics -- the big picture that newspaper critics missed was that the newspaper in The Wire kept missing the big picture -- Simon's Baltimore Sun is still not as interesting as his Baltimore Police Department, as his Baltimore docks, as his Baltimore political and education systems, because the best in all of those institutions were monumentally flawed while the worst still came through at surprising times. This doesn't happen with his Sun. The good editor there is always right and the bad reporter is always wrong and the higher-ups always make the wrong play. Not enough gray area in Baltimore's gray lady. It doesn't surprise me that Simon used to work at the real Baltimore Sun and that these characters were based upon real people. In journalistic terms, Simon was perhaps a bit too close to the story.

Anyway that's not what I wanted to write about. I just wanted to urge people to watch the show. I admit I'm a late-comer. I only started watching it in January, and bulldozed through season after season on DVD, always amazed at how great it was.

Since it's HBO, people ask me how it compares with The Sopranos and I answer it's a different universe. But comparisons can be revealing. I love both shows but The Sopranos centered around one person, Tony, who was like the show's black hole. Everything got pulled into him and either came out damaged or disappeared completely. The Sopranos, a corrupt universe, inevitably collapsed in on itself. One of the big arguments against a Sopranos movie is the sad question: Who's left?

The Wire? It started out with these cops vs. these drug dealers and kept expanding: now the BPD, now East Baltimore gangs; now the docks and the old Greek mafia; now the political system and the education system and the media. By the end they'd created an entire city.

But it's more than that. I'm beginning to wonder if the five seasons of The Wire aren't the most relevant thing going in any media -- TV, news, books, movies, documentaries -- because it explains our world and it explains why our world is effed up. Boil it down to three words: the numbers game. Hell, boil it down to one word: appearances. More important than doing the job is the appearance of a job well done. For the BPD it's arrests, (no matter who's getting arrested and who isn't) and for schools it's test scores, (no matter who's getting educated and who isn't) and for the media it's Pulitzer prizes (no matter which stories get told and which don't).

So those who play the numbers game get rewarded and those who don't, don't. And those who try to shake up the system get shaken off. The system protects itself. It's like HAL in 2001. "McNulty, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."

It's not just Baltimore and it's not just the Police Department; it's everywhere. It's probably your job, your office, your boss. The show is infinitely relatable. It explains our world, not just theirs.

How about the characters? Characters. I fell in love with Det. Lester ("Louis Quatorze") Freamon in the first season and my girlfriend fell for Omar ("Indeed"), the gangbanger who stole from the gangs. Omar first makes an appearance and you think, "That guy doesn't know who he's messing with." Then you realize he does.

The show started smart and got smarter. I once interviewed Ron Safer, the assistant U.S. attorney who led the team that brought down the Gangster Disciples in Chicago in the 1990s, and one of the things he said to me was about the corner kids. "Those kids are there for you to arrest," he said. "There's an endless supply of them. They're the victims of the gang." When the best of the cops on The Wire knew this despite the urgings of the worst of the higher-ups, I knew the show knew, too.

I loved the team-building in that first season. Talk about a narrative device that never gets old. Whether it's cops, crooks, NASA, baseball, SWAT, whatever, you gotta love teams, where everyone's doing their bit, and we're all in this together and the sum of our parts add up to a greater whole. We're not isolated; we have meaning now. Most of us just wish for that kind of feeling. Most of us could use it now.

The second season seemed weaker to me ... until the final episodes, when it packed a punch I didn't see coming. Meanwhile, the results of the smart, endless police work were never clean; they never got quite what they wanted. It never felt satisfying but always felt right.

I fell for Bubbles next. Not even an Emmy nom for Andre Royo? Sheeeeeyit. Then there was Bunk (Wendell Pierce) and his perpetual cigar and his great three-word description of the state of things: "Shit is fucked." Hemingway never said it better although he might've said it the same.

Bodie, the worst of the corner kids in the first season, seemed the best of them by the fourth: last man/kid standing of the Barksdale clan. Suddenly he was my guy. By the fifth season it was Dukie. Where will he end up? How can he possibly survive? I identified. I grew up white and middle-class in Minneapolis and I identified.

There were surprises about the actors, too. First time Lt. Daniels (Lance Reddick) stands without his shirt on? Damn. You'd listen to interviews with the actors and think, "You're kidding -- the guy's British? And that guy, too?" And still no Emmy noms. The Emmys were looking elsewhere, as I had been. I can't point fingers.

I could go on but I don't want to say too much because I want you to watch the episodes from the beginning. It's worth the 50-60 hours of your life. I'm beginning to think it's worth another 50-60 hours of mine to watch it again.

What can I say? The Wire explains our world, not just theirs. But theirs, too.

Comments

[LeftCoastLefthandedLefty]

I, like the blogger, was a late commer to the Wire. This show was simply the best thing on TV, end of discusson.

David Simon, did the right thing by never giving into the contrivances of neat tidy endings. He didn't make characters indespensible (Stringer Bell) and this ultimately led to the show not enjoying the commercial success that the Sopranos enjoyed.

The show set in a mid-sized city (Baltimore), a city that most have never seen up close, altough all have experience in a city like B-more (mine is in Oakland). This allows Simon to introduce most to the city without the preconcieved notions almost everyone would have about a better known metropolis like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. The scenes where "the Wire" gives you a taste of the city (McNaulty and Bunk devouring crabs in an interrogration room) gives you an affinity for the city without being overly romantic about it.

The genius of the show though ultimately lay in it's characters and dialogue. The actors, a mix of professionals and novices, were all perfectly casted and used expertly by Simon and co-writer Ed Burns to bring their world to life. The characters were all deep, nuanced , flawed, but all likable on some level.

I look forward to Simon's next project as well as all the excellent actors featured on the shows historic 5 year run.

[Moose49]

I absolutely loved the Sopranos, but I think the Wire is the best show ever to air on television.

In my mind, they were equally entertaining, but the Wire also provided the most comprehensive analysis of everything that ails urban America ever provided in a broadcast medium -- and that includes non-fiction as well as fiction.

I also enjoyed the fact that while plot lines started in the first season continued to weave their way in and out of the show for all five, each new season took on something new and challenging. When was the last show you saw that had a labor union as a main focus? Or inner-city schools? I especially loved the third season and Colvin's experiment with de facto drug legalization -- what a bold thing to do and ample fodder the Kurt Schmoke was right.

[mpgarr]

Both The Wire and The Sopranos were great television--as was Homicide:Life on the Street. The Wire was what Homicide might have been if shows on broadcast television did not have limits on what they could do.
I do wish that FX would air the final seaon of The Shield, which in its own way is also a great television show----between all of these progams----along with a few others--the last decade or so have actually been great times for television drama---it is too bad that broadcast television is going to "reality televison" though.

[Jain]

Fan from the first episode. The Wire is the best HBO has given us.

[HarrietandBlahBlahNyborg]

Never like to make such huge proclamations as "best show ever" but ...

BEST.
SHOW.
EVER.

I'm looking forward to revisiting The Wire a few years from now. Let the memories fade a little, then go season by season and see if it's still the Best Show Ever for me. Time will tell.

[debzim]

Thanks so much for this. I could not agree more with everything you've written about why THE WIRE was so good, as well as the criticism of this last season. I've become obsessed with the series since starting to watch it in January (as well!). I just came back from Europe where I couldn't stop talking about it. In trying to describe what it was about to people who have never heard of it, I just said, it's about everything and why everything is so fucked up. Thanks again!

[StephenSmoliar]

So is Carolyn Strauss "leaving her post" at HBO because she could not produce a new show that brought in new subscribers the way THE SOPRANOS did; and, if so, will we continue to see "critically acclaimed" series like THE WIRE?

[kindablu]

Indeed.

[Durango]

Tonight we will watch episode 1 season 4. We have been catching up through Netflix.

One of my thoughts about the Wire and is similar to the Sopranos.

How did they find so many great actors that I have never seen before.? The Sopranos had a few characters I had seen in other movies/TV. But I don't think I have seen any of the Wire actors anywhere else.

So how do you get to be 40-50 years old and as tremendous an actor as so many of the cast are without ever being well known? (to me)

Acting must be an incredibly tough racket to be in.

[Moose49]

"So how do you get to be 40-50 years old and as tremendous an actor as so many of the cast are without ever being well known?"

About a year ago, I went to the Olney theater in Maryland, a regional outfit about 15 miles from Washington, D.C., to see a play. And lo and behold, one of the actors -- not even in a leading role, by the way -- was none other than Delaney Williams, who played Jay Landsman on The Wire. Even in the middle of this great run on television, he was doing what I'm sure is relatively low-wage stage work.

From my experience, there are a lot of great actors doing regional theater who've just never gotten the lucky break it takes to make it on television or in the movies. Most TV and movie producers and directors want to have big names, not necessarily because of their acting ability, but because it helps with ratings and/or box office. One of the courageous things David Simon did with The Wire was to do the opposite -- to pick people who weren't well-known so the viewer would embrace their characters fully, without regard to a previously-developed persona. (It also helped that he picked some Brits, too, like Dominic West and Idris Elba.)

As you say, acting absolutely has to be one tough racket.

[zundra]

I watched The Wire from episode 1 season 1 was a junkie from that first hit. It was an amazing show and I also encourage anyone who hasn't gotten the chance to check it out.

The blogger's comparison to the Sopranos was also dead on. I too have been asked this question in the past and I usually respond that it's different but equally great if not more so.