The Wire

Category: Criticism

I'll try to be brief, because that is not my tendency. The HBO series The Wire demonstrates yet again that HBO consistently produces exceptional shows. It is now in its third season and remains compelling in a way that network TV police procedurals fail to even approach.

What is perhaps most unique about this series is its naturalism in character development. Characters like Frank Sobotka, McNulty, D'Angelo Barksdale, Kima, and Omar (and this comes in part from the mini-series-like continuity of each season) have a realness, a mundaneness, and a credibility that leads one to imagine their existences outside the narrative. Also, the format of the series means that narrative events carry their own time rather than conforming to an explicit resolve-in-60 minutes contrivance.

The fantastic thing about the police procedural aspect of this series is that we get a vivid sense of the density and irritating bureaucracy involved, but the series is written with an almost wonkish enthusiasm that leaves us fascinated rather than bored. The police procedural aspects of, say, CSI or L&O: CI are frequently rather fanciful. Criminal Intent in particular resembles a murder mystery show more than anything else.

I imagine the reasons are largely economic, but I wonder why it is that HBO series' tend to be so radically different and radically better than their network equivalents. There is a conviction and apparent artistic integrity to HBO's shows that is refreshing in a television landscape in which so much seems rote.