The Wire: should I stick with it? (no spoilers)

[Deckerd]

Goddamn, yes it was. I thought he was supposed to be from Boston or something.

Herc's Boston accent wasn't much better.

I never understood why they hired an Englishman (or English sounding Welshman) to do that part. From our POV we can't tell the diff of course. I notice you're not all jumping on Idris Elba's accent so I'm guessing he was more successful at it.

 

[J.T.B.]

I never understood why they hired an Englishman (or English sounding Welshman) to do that part. From our POV we can't tell the diff of course. I notice you're not all jumping on Idris Elba's accent so I'm guessing he was more successful at it.

Elba and Aidan Gillen both had moments where the accent was off; less so than Dominic West but none of it was enough to intrude on the story for me.

--Justin

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I thought Stringer Bell was flawless. Carcetti wasn't, but he was better than McNaulty. McNaulty has one moment where he stands out as British. Normally, he just seems "not a Baltimorian."

 

[stj]

It seems a little ungenerous to carp when the positive accomplishments are so amazing, in comparison to the average television, but there are significant flaws.

A character called Omar is glorious fun but he is preposterous.

The closest to a lead character, McNulty undergoes a perfectly unbelievable evolution in season 5.

The first season is indeed a procedural, laying out in (for me) fascinating detail the ins and out of wiretapping. How warrants are applied for, how the wiretaps are placed, how the wiretapping crew operates. And why wiretaps are so dealing with a drug gang. And the wiretapping reveals the inner workings of a drug gang. All the while, it paints a revealing picture of how police bureaucracy works.

None of the other episodes really achieves the level of verisimilitude. For instance, the labor union in season two has no national leadership. It also has no political history, nor any politics other than simple corruption.

And that is a good example of how the ambitious theme is not matched by an intellectual depth. Simon et al. have a vision of society as hopelessly static, where even men of good will become villains as they are entrapped in an invincibly corrupt system. The villains are not innately evil for they too are trapped. It is manifestly true that the past was not like that, because it most certainly has been reformed, for both good and ill, many, many times. In that sense The Wire is phony, which is why such oddities as Omar strut around as diversion.

Nonetheless, despite its imperfections, it does achieve much of its ambitions. Watch it.

PS The makers pretty much assume that if the police were properly funded and led they would really clean things up. This is a profoundly dubious idea.

 

[sidious618]

PS The makers pretty much assume that if the police were properly funded and led they would really clean things up. This is a profoundly dubious idea.

That's not even close to what they were saying about the police department.

 

[nevermore]

Herc, like the actor who plays him, has an accent from the South Bronx of New York. It's established that Herc was from this area in season five, not Baltimore.

Really? I could have sworn he wore a Red Sox hat at some point.

That would be pretty unbelievable, actually.

A character called Omar is glorious fun but he is preposterous.

Yeah, except that Omar was based on an actual guy named Donnie Andrews (big, fat, ugly spoiler in that link, by the way - if you have not watched the whole show, do NOT click the link), as were many of the characters.

 

[Star Wolf]

PS The makers pretty much assume that if the police were properly funded and led they would really clean things up. This is a profoundly dubious idea.

That's not even close to what they were saying about the police department.

I agree a fully funded FBI is part of The Wire mix and look what happens when funding becomes available

 

[TheGodBen]

And that is a good example of how the ambitious theme is not matched by an intellectual depth. Simon et al. have a vision of society as hopelessly static, where even men of good will become villains as they are entrapped in an invincibly corrupt system.

I don't think that The Wire was saying that the system was invincible, but that corrupt systems have no interest in fixing themselves and that the public isn't motivated enough to fix them. If enough people stood up and demanded change then it would happen eventually, but people want easy solutions to these complex problems so they vote for guys that promise change, but aren't willing to do much else.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Herc, like the actor who plays him, has an accent from the South Bronx of New York. It's established that Herc was from this area in season five, not Baltimore.

Really? I could have sworn he wore a Red Sox hat at some point.

That would be pretty unbelievable, actually.

I wore a Red Sox hat in Baltimore. It was the better of the alternatives because I would otherwise have to pretend to like the O's.

 

[Deckerd]

I'd like to point out that nitpicking about dodgy accents (which isn't going to be picked up by the majority of the viewers) is a pretty mild form of criticism in the overall scheme. My casting query was rhetorical really since Dominic West nailed McNulty from the first frame, as did all the other actors their characters. The acting is quite extraordinary in this series. You simply can't imagine anyone else playing those characters. That's a fine thing to say about any casting as well as the performances.

 

[stj]

After reading the link above, if Omar is based on Donnie Andrews, then I must say that any character in The Wire who is supposed to be based on a real person, including Jay Landsman, is to be regarded as a cartoon, not a realisticly drawn character. (Or could it be that Mr. Andrews is exaggerating?)

As to the underlying assumption that the police really could fight crime with the proper funding and leadership, if the show doesn't have this idea in mind, then the entire Carcetti storyline has no point whatsoever. I don't think the show is perfect. Dismissing an entire season is a rather radical critique, which goes too far. (Well, maybe fifth season.) I can't agree.

The notion that the sorry ass people who are lazy brutes who couldn't be bothered to clean house is a good example of what's wrong with The Wire's thinking. It is perfectly astonishing how engaged in politics and how determined people can be to make real changes when they feel they can really accomplish them. The system is geared towards making "the people" as irrelevant to the political process as possible. This is precisely because when the mass of people get involved they do indeed made changes, radical changes, which is something TPTB do no want.

The thing about The Wire is that its portrayal of Baltimore is in depth enough to make an alert viewer wonder, maybe even think (it is possible, really!) about such things.

 

[bluedana]

It's not precisely that the writers think that, given enough funding and good enough leadership, the city's problems can be solved. It's more that the characters, like their real life counterparts, think they can be the solution, their vision is different and they can lead the people out of the desert. And then they hit reality, the grinding poverty and entrenched social mess, and yes, the corruption of people who've been there too long and just want to make it to their pension, and they realize that they are powerless, too. Some get out, some stay and become part of the problem (or at least not all that interested in being Sisyphus), and that idealism dies. Until the next guy comes along.

Season three's social experiment is a great example of this.

 

[TheGodBen]

As to the underlying assumption that the police really could fight crime with the proper funding and leadership, if the show doesn't have this idea in mind, then the entire Carcetti storyline has no point whatsoever.

Spoiler: later seasons

If the major crimes unit had been given the funding needed to take down Marlo sooner, it still wouldn't have fixed the problem as some other asshole would just take his place. Taking down Avon Barksdale in season 3 actually made the problem worse because he was replaced by Marlo who was even more ruthless.

The point that The Wire was making was that the whole approach to the drug problem was wrong, that insisting on fighting it like a war only makes the problem worse. The BPD could double the number of police in its ranks and it still wouldn't have a significant impact on the social problems that are at the root of the drug and gang problem. As for Carcetti's place in the story, I think Ed Burns sums it up nicely:

I remember at the end of the third season, when he was still a councilman, we had Carcetti give an impassioned speech, and the camera gently panned in on him as he rhapsodized about saving neighborhoods and demanding better for the city. And it really was a beautiful speech. And you know, the writers worked on it for a long while. And yet, everything about the speech was just a recall and a retread of the drug war.

And he was arguing for more warfare. And whereas, the whole of the third season had shown this police commander trying to struggle with it on pragmatic and practical terms, in terms of Bunny Colvin. And I was amazed to find that a lot of viewers, you know, longtime viewers, had watched that episode and they followed Carcetti right off the cliff. They were, despite what they had been shown for 12 episodes in terms of the box that the drug war is, they thought he was the solution, because he sounded like the solution.

 

[nevermore]

Really? I could have sworn he wore a Red Sox hat at some point.

That would be pretty unbelievable, actually.

I wore a Red Sox hat in Baltimore. It was the better of the alternatives because I would otherwise have to pretend to like the O's.

Fair enough.

 

[stj]

Bunny Colvin would be the show thinking good leadership from the police could fix the problem. The role of the media in the drug war was skirted over in the entire series. The notion that the media wouldn't know, at some point, about Hamsterdam, stretches credulity to the breaking point. And whatever is the point of juking the stats save for the media.

Despite The Wire's imperfections, it is the TV series that comes closest to genuine realism. It should be seen.

 

[TheGodBen]

Bunny Colvin would be the show thinking good leadership from the police could fix the problem.

No, that was the show saying that an entirely different strategy to the drug problem may be more effective. And that was one of the central points of the show, that the drug war is fatally flawed and that it will never achieve its goals. And until the political establishment comes to terms with that fact, until they decide on a new strategy that's not just "more warfare!" then things will never get better.

And Hamsterdam was never presented as a solution to the problem, Hamsterdam was hell on Earth. Some of the ideas behind Hamsterdam may form part of a solution, but they would need to be part of a strategy involving various social and medical programs, hence a need to be led by the political establishment and not the police.

The notion that the media wouldn't know, at some point, about Hamsterdam, stretches credulity to the breaking point.

Umm, they did.

 

[stj]

The comparison between the coverage of Hamsterdam and McNulty's fifth season activites shows that the media was not portrayed as really finding out. Besides, news people buy drugs too.

 

[Star Wolf]

The comparison between the coverage of Hamsterdam and McNulty's fifth season activites shows that the media was not portrayed as really finding out. Besides, news people buy drugs too.

Perhaps but that doesn't mean they will go down to the Western to buy

 

[Lindley]

It would be polite to keep the season 3 and 5 discussions behind spoiler code, since the OP is in season 1.