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The Wire (TV series)

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The Wire is an American police procedural television series set in Baltimore, Maryland, told from the points of view of both the police officers and the criminals they are investigating. Created by producer and former police reporter David Simon, the series is broadcast by the HBO cable network in the United States.

Simon draws a sharp line between his program and its influential, but thematically very different, forebears, such as Dragnet, Hill Street Blues, and : "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."

Contents

Overview

The Wire is set in the mid-Atlantic American city of Baltimore, Maryland. It depicts the ongoing struggle of a unit of police officers against drug gangs in the housing projects of the city's west side. The narrative is told from both sides. 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".

The cast is large and after the relatively straightforward first season, the plot and style became increasingly complex and sophisticated, requiring a good deal of attention and work from the viewer. Many important events (murders, etc.) occur off-camera and there is no artificial exposition. Thus, the viewer needs to follow every conversation closely in order to figure out what's going on and who's who. Each season of the show forms a single narrative, and individual episodes would be confusing and probably unsatisfying viewing if seen in isolation. The seasons are twelve or thirteen full-hour episodes in length.

Crew

The show was created by writer David Simon, whose experiences as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun directly inspired many of the show's characters and events. Many of the creative team behind The Wire are alumni of Homicide as well as other related shows such as HBO's prison series Oz.

Season One

The show began airing in 2002 and has received some rave reviews from critics[Television Critics Association][Rotten Tomatoes], some stating that it is better[Flak Magazine][TelevisionWeek] than HBO's other, better-known "flagship" drama series such as The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. Despite the critical acclaim the show has received poor ratings, perhaps due to the demandingly complex and hard-to-follow plot. Simon himself admits this, stating that the show suffers due to its complexity, poor time slot, and heavy use of esoteric slang.[HBO Forums]

Season Two

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The second season of the show, along with its ongoing examination of the drug problem and its effect on the urban poor, examined the plight of the blue-collar urban working class as exemplified by stevedores (longshoremen) in the city port, as some of them get caught up in smuggling drugs and other contraband inside the containers that their port ships.

Season Three

In the third season, the action focused back on the street but expanded the scope to include the political scene. In addition, a new sub-plot was introduced to examine the potential positive effects of legalizing the drug trade within the limited boundaries of an uninhabited city block (called "Hamsterdam"). These were continuations of storylines hinted at in season one.

Season Four

The Wire will return for a fourth season in September, which is expected to tackle the education system. It has been speculated as well that Councilman Carcetti's rise to mayor could parallel Balitmore mayor Martin O'Malley's.

Cast and characters

Many of the characters defy expectations and stereotypes; some of the criminals are intelligent, sympathetic characters while some of those on the side of the law are incompetent, morally corrupt or brutal.

The show's creators are also willing to kill off major characters, so that the viewer is unable to assume that any given character will survive simply because they have a starring role or are popular on the show. In response to a question on why a popular character had to die, David Simon has said:

"I can only add that we are not selling hope, or audience gratification, or cheap victories with this show. The Wire is making an argument about what institutions—bureaucracies, criminal enterprises, the cultures of addiction, raw capitalism even—do to individuals. It is not designed purely as an entertainment. It is, I'm afraid, a somewhat angry show."[The Guardian Unlimited]

Current cast

Formerly starring

Spoilers end here.

Episode list

Baltimore locations

In Season 3 episode 7, the 'Madison Hotel' in Washington is actually the Colonnade, a hotel which is across from the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus in Northern Baltimore along University Parkway.

The Baltimore City Paper recently went on a tour of shooting locations with art director and location scout Vince Peranio.[Baltimore City Paper]

See also

External links

References

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

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