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I won't even hear any debates about the title. I was not stating a subjective opinion; the above is fact.

THE WIRE

The Wire is an American television drama set and produced in Baltimore, Maryland. Created, produced, and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon, the series is broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States. The Wire premiered on June 2, 2002, with 50 episodes airing over the course of its first four seasons. The fifth season, which Simon has said will be the show's last, is expected to premiere on January 6, 2008.[1][2][3]

The plot of the first season centers on the ongoing struggles between police units and drug-dealing gangs on the west side of the city, and is told from both points of view. Subsequent seasons have focused on other facets of the city. The large cast consists mainly of character actors who are little known for their other roles. Simon has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is "really about the American city, and about how we live together. It's about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how... whether you're a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge [or] lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you've committed to."[4]

The Wire has received critical acclaim for its realistic portrayal of urban life and uncommonly deep exploration of sociological themes, and has been called the best show on television by TIME,[5][6] Entertainment Weekly,[7] The Guardian,[8] the Chicago Tribune,[9] Slate,[10] the San Francisco Chronicle[11] and the Philadelphia Daily News.[12] Despite the positive reviews, the show has failed to draw an audience commensurate with its press.[13]

SPOILERS WARNING IN THE FOLLOWING TEXT

Origins

David Simon, creator of The Wire

Simon has stated that he originally set out to create a police drama loosely based on the experiences of his writing partner and former homicide detective, Ed Burns. Burns, when working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology, had often faced frustration with the bureaucracy of the police department, which Simon equated with his own ordeals as a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Writing against the background of current events, including institutionalized corporate crime at Enron and institutional dysfunction in the Catholic Church, the show became "more of a treatise about institutions and individuals than a straight cop show."[14]

Simon chose to set the show in Baltimore because of his familiarity with the city. He approached the mayor to get approval to portray it bleakly and was welcomed to work there again. During his time as a writer and producer for the NBC program Homicide: Life on the Street, which was based on his non-fiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, Simon had come into conflict with network executives over the pessimism of the show, and wanted to avoid a repeat of these arguments. He chose to take The Wire to HBO because of their existing working relationship from the 2000 miniseries The Corner. Owing to its reputation for exploring new areas, HBO was initially dubious about including a cop drama in their lineup, but eventually agreed to produce the pilot.[14][15] Simon hoped that the show would change the opinions of some viewers but said that it was unlikely to have an impact on the issues it portrays.[14]


Themes

Simon draws a sharp line between his program and its influential, but thematically very different, forebears, such as Dragnet, Hill Street Blues, and his own Homicide: Life on the Street: "The best crime shows [...] were essentially about good and evil. Justice, revenge, betrayal, redemption. The Wire, by contrast, has ambitions elsewhere. [...] Specifically: We are bored with good and evil. We renounce the theme."[16]

Realism

The writers strive to create a realistic vision of an American city based on their own experiences. Central to this aim is the creation of truthful characters. Simon has stated that most of them are composites of real-life Baltimore figures.[17][18] The show often casts non-professional actors in minor roles distinguishing the series from other television shows by showing the "faces and voices of the real city" it depicts.[19] The writing also uses a lot of contemporary slang to enhance the immersive viewing experience.[19]

In distinguishing the police characters from other television detectives, Simon makes the point that even the best police of The Wire are motivated not by a desire to protect and serve, but by the intellectual vanity of believing they are smarter than the criminals they are chasing. Many officers portrayed on the show are incompetent, brutal, self-aggrandizing, or hamstrung by bureaucracy and politics. The criminals are not always motivated by profit or a desire to harm others; many are trapped in their existence and all have human qualities. Even so, The Wire does not minimize or gloss over the horrific effects of their actions.[4]

The show is scrupulously realistic in depicting the processes of both police work and criminal activity. Many of the plot points were based on the experiences of Simon and Burns. There have even been reports of real-life criminals watching the show to learn how to counter police investigation techniques.[20][21]

In December 2006, The Washington Post carried an article with local African American students saying that the show had "hit a nerve" with the African American community, and that they knew many of the characters in the show, or their real life counterparts. The article expressed great sadness at the toll drugs and violence are taking on the African American community.[22]

Institutional dysfunction

Simon has identified the organizations featured in the show; the Baltimore Police Department, City Hall, the Baltimore Public School System, the Barksdale drug trafficking operation, and the stevedores' union, as comparable institutions. All are dysfunctional in some way, and the characters are typically betrayed by the institutions that they accept in their lives.[4] Simon described the show as "cynical about [its] institutions"[21] while taking a humanistic approach towards its characters.[21] A central theme developed throughout the show is the struggle between individual desires and subordination to the group's goals. Whether it is McNulty pursuing a high-profile suspect for vanity, or D'Angelo Barksdale taking 20 years in prison contrary to his strong desire to turn in his uncle Avon and take a plea, this type of conflict is pervasive in all facets of the show.

Surveillance

Central to the structure and plot of the show is the use of electronic surveillance and wiretap technologies by the police—hence the title "The Wire." Salon.com described the title as a metaphor for the viewer's experience—the wiretaps provide the police access to a secret world, just as the show does for the viewer.[23] Simon has discussed the use of camera shots of surveillance equipment, or shots that appear to be taken from the equipment itself, to emphasize the volume of surveillance in modern life and the characters' need to sift through this information.[4]

Visual novel

Many important events occur off-camera and there is little artificial exposition in the form of voice-over or flashbacks. Thus, the viewer needs to follow every conversation closely in order to figure out what's going on and who's who. Salon.com has described the show as novelistic in structure with a greater depth of writing and plotting than other crime shows.[23] Each season of The Wire consists of 12 or 13 full-hour episodes, which form a single narrative. Individual episodes might make confusing and unsatisfying viewing if seen in isolation. Simon chose this structure with an eye towards long story arcs that draw a viewer in and then result in a more satisfying payoff. He uses the metaphor of a visual novel in several interviews,[14][24] describing each episode as a chapter, and has also commented that this allows a fuller exploration of the show's themes in time not spent on plot development.[4]

Social commentary

"Murderland Alley," like the rest of Baltimore, is both realistically and bleakly portrayed.

Simon described the second season as "a meditation on the death of work and the betrayal of the American working class... [i]t is a deliberate argument that unencumbered capitalism is not a substitute for social policy; that on its own, without a social compact, raw capitalism is destined to serve the few at the expense of the many."[17] He added that season 3 "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." The third season is also an allegory that draws explicit parallels between the War in Iraq and the national drug prohibition,[17] which in Simon's view has failed in its aims[21] and become a war against America's underclass.[25]

Writer Ed Burns, who worked as a public school teacher after having retired from the Baltimore police force, has called education the theme of the fourth season. Rather than solely focusing on the school system, the fourth season looks at schools as a porous part of the community that are affected by problems outside of their boundaries. Burns states that education comes from many sources other than schools and that children can be educated by other means, including contact with the drug dealers they work for.[26] Burns and Simon see the theme as an opportunity to look at how individuals end up like the show's criminal characters, and to dramatize the theory that hard work is not always justly rewarded.[27]

Season 1


Season 2


Season 3




Season 4




Season 5