The Wire - "The game is the game"

I recently finished all 5 seasons of The Wire - a critically acclaimed HBO TV series that ran 2002-2007. I will add my voice to the celebration of this masterpiece of television. Television is most often produced as a religion. You are expected to attend weekly. They put on a show and life goes on. If your life is horrible or boring you can find excitement and escape in the lives of the characters of the TV show. This cycle is basically expected to continue forever. I personally think this happens to be awful. Religious fervour should be reserved for religion and even there one ought to be careful. We ought to expect better from TV, movies and art. The type of television I have described is basically soap opera although it is not reserved for actually soap opera. What it is not is good or meaningful storytelling...it is it endless, ultimately unfulfilling, character masturbation through arbitrary plot lines, perpetually postponing closure for the purpose of commercial revenue. There is minimal plan or meaning, merely the propagation of the powerful position of aired television.

The Wire is different. The wire is organized both within each season and the series as a whole, in order to share compelling, complex narratives, filled with engaging material, deep characters, and powerful social critique. It is one of the very, very few television shows I am aware of that truly ends, with an appropriate and powerful amount of closure. Its not that it ends with a neat little bow. Endings can be too neat and that can be equally repulsive as a non ending. But it truly ends.

Endings are like break ups. They can be difficult and painful. We need closure. Ideally we don't want to be angry. Hopefully, everyone is able to walk away as more of a human, filled with important memories. I, personally, can not claim to have experienced any great break ups. However, when The Wire broke off our brief and torrid affair (I watch the last three seasons in 3 days), I felt neither abandoned or relieved, but rather simultaneously sad and satisfied.

The theme that I found to be explored most pervasively was the price of power. This is explored both in Baltimore's drug trade, police department, politics and unions. The price of power in dollars, blood, integrity, relationships and justice... Everything has a cost. How much are you able/willing to pay? Is it worth it? Various answers to these questions are played out over and over creating a very thorough exploration of the theme. The game is the game. The game is power.

My final comment is that unlike many TV shows, that you might "try out," The Wire requires a season commitment. It took me until episode 6 or 7 to fully "buy in" to the show. And as one of the pickiest TV viewers I know it is with passionate conviction I can say that the possibly slow entry into the show is absolutely worth it. I expect you to commit to watching the first season. I am convinced that you will be thrilled to watch the rest without encouragement.

If you are looking for feel good, mindless, escapist TV... this is not it. Go watch Jersey Shore. If you believe in the value of great art, literature, stories and cinema and are able to handle mature content with a level of sophistication... then I recommend: The Wire.

***Note: This is an HBO TV series and contains profanity, violence and nudity.