The Wire was fascinating radio.  No wonder the series won a Peabody, a Prix Italia, and a Third Coast Audio Festival award; it started with an intelligent and unusual idea for looking at music, rife with possibilities, continued with interviews with the likes of Les Paul, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and other thinkers, musicians, and pioneers of music technology, and finished with a production style that incorporated clever and engaging ways of delivering the content, reflecting particular aspects of music and illustrating the concepts being discussed.  I've only one complaint about The Wire: the episodes were never made available for download online.  Apparently The Nerve promises to supply episodes on demand online.

The Nerve will air on Saturdays at 2pm on Radio 2 and Sundays at 8pm on Radio One.

HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" may be about the creator of "Seinfeld," but FX's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is the real Jerry's kid, a notch more outrageous than Kramer & Co. "Rescue Me" is a funnier "Entourage," its characters just as emotionally stunted but with a blue-collar bite and real-life dilemmas. Compare "The Shield" to HBO's "The Wire" or "The Sopranos" -- it has elements of both shows' moral ambiguities -- and the FX drama about corrupt cops holds its own.

FX develops discerning shows across all cultural aspects, it does so with a smaller budget and it is FREE with basic cable. Unlike its' premium cousin channel HBO.

"Wilds, who stands 5 feet 11 and is beautifully tanned, can light up a room with his sunny smile and dimples just like his character.

The original “Beverly Hills, 90210,” which ran for 10 years, had kids dealing with a host of issues, including abortion, addiction, eating disorders, homosexuality — even mother/daughter fashion shows gone horribly wrong.

To prepare for the role, Wilds had to watch the full run of the original show, but found it too female-oriented for his taste.

“I keep my manhood intact,” he says, only half-joking.

Wilds says he expects the new show to be edgier, wilder and more in tune with the experiences of today’s teens."

-NYDAILYNEWS

This is his Rocawear:I Will Not Lose Feature.

Clip of Him in the Wire

"We're Not in Kansas Anymore, The Jet Set"

September 2nd, 2008

"That's what a blog is supposed to do, make problems"

When The CW chose not to send screeners of their latest show out to critics, they were making a statement. Now that viewers have been able to see the show for themselves, we can finally discern what exactly that statement was: was it that the show is so poor that the network didn't want critics 'making problems'? Or, more positively, was it just that there are so many reasons to watch this show that they decided the critics were irrelevant?

I can understand the argument: between nostalgia and teen girls, a majority of 90210's potential audience is probably already aware of the series' existence. So those of us who either choose to or are employed to look past our personal interest to answer the question of whether or not the series is actually any good are not what they're interested in.

But I don't think they really needed to be quite so scared of our kind: no, the show is not a new standard in teen drama, and its various archetypes don't offer the type of wit or charisma of even the network's Gossip Girl, but if we're judging the series on its ability to offer flashy melodrama with just enough substance to keep it afloat, 90210 lives up to its hype.

However, only time will tell if the real people The CW wants watching are going to feel the same way.

If we're looking for a comparative series example for us folks too young to have been under the spell of the original 'Beverly Hills, 90210,' this series plays out more like The O.C. than anything else. There's the same "out of place" aesthetic, the same makeshift and damaged family at its core, and Lacrosse instead of Water Polo as the popular male sport of choice. The problem is that it doesn't do anything to stand out beyond these archetypes: it doesn't have a Ryan Atwood who provides a more subtle dramatic centre, and it doesn't have a Seth Cohen who brings an entirely alternate perspective on the affair.

Yes, it is unfair to judge the show too early: The O.C. took some time to develop its own voice, and 90210 might be able to do the same. The problem is that what we're seeing has been conceived in the wrong environment, one designed to ape other shows as opposed to creating any sort of true identity. Rob Thomas' initial setup, still fairly intact, has potential to create some interesting stories, but there's nothing about it that hearkens back to Veronica Mars, a show that simply had more interesting portraits of its bad boys or its heroines.

Right now, as much as low expectations are no excuse, the big benefit is that none of the characters are hideously unlikeable. There is something very innocent about Shanae Grimes (late of Degrassi: The Next Generation), and that works here: there's nothing overly deep about this young girl who seems simultaneously too adjusted and too panicky, but she strikes a balance that makes her fun to watch if not quite root for. I find her a bit earnest, but not in the way that keeps me from following her various emotions.

Her journey over the two parts of the premiere is solid: she has her sexual tension with Ethan, she has her dangerous friendship with Naomi, starting off on the wrong foot with Silver, and eventually a chance to experience the "good life" on a private jet with the richest kid in school. She's your regular 15-year old, in other words, in a way that feels both oddly refreshing and perhaps short on long term potential: normal can only last so long.

Dixon, meanwhile, brings Tristan Wilds back to my television screen only a week after I finished The Wire Season Five. The young actor has a certain charisma about him, but it is clear that material makes a difference: he's good at this stuff too, but the broody Michael giving way to Dixon, striving to fit in at all costs, is a tough sell whether it's playing lacrosse or organizing a school prank.

Jessica Walter, as the family matriarch whose failing capabilities to drive herself around town without crashing into things have them moving from Kansas, has the opposite problem: her character is too similar to the last one she played, another alcoholic matriarch in Lucille Bluth ('Arrested Development'). The characters are almost scarily similar, but without the same cruel streak she's just an excuse to throw in some quippy dialogue that seems out of place for a woman her age to be saying - she can still pull it off very well, but it feels more like the director said "Be Lucille, but with less edge" than any sort of new character development.

As for the rest of our characters, I think it works: there's just enough shades of gray with Ethan, Naomi and Adrianna that they can easily grow into villains, friends, or characters we care about in some fashion. We get Ethan getting serviced in his car before first bell, but we also get him honestly caring for Annie and stepping up to save Dixon on two separate occasions. Naomi is a spoiled brat who steals Annie's term paper, but she also is incredibly defensive about people presuming she isn't as smart as her sister and that she isn't capable to do the work as opposed to being unwilling to do it. And Adrianna is threatened by Annie upstaging her in the Musical chorus (Maybe the most cliched scene of all), and is generally a bitch to her, but then we see her emotional breakdown after being pressured by her mother into going to the audition.

It's classic teen soap plotting, or so I presume from my limited experience: I can't speak to Jennie Garth and Shannon Doherty's roles from a nostalgia perspective, but Ryan Eggold (Playing the young Lacrosse coach/English teacher) nicely fits into that type of dynamic while also providing a more mature foil for some of the high schoolers. And Rob Estes and Lori Laughlin are old hat at playing these types of roles, so while they're no Cohens I think that they fit well into the universe and Estes in particular makes his dual Parent/Principal role work even if the whole love child angle feels tacked on and tired.

Regardless, if I do decide to stop watching the show (Which remains to be seen), it will really be an issue like with Ethan and Naomi: I'm more breaking up with us, me and the show, than I am with the show itself. There isn't anything deplorable beyond repair here, and with a little finetuning I think the show can work; if it doesn't put in its side of the effort though, I don't know if the relationship could possibly continue.

Cultural Observations

• One of my nagging issues with the show is the incredibly lazy plotting wherein every single commercial break is a dramatically-scored cliffhanger: "Why did Naomi pass in your paper?" "Look what I found in your pocket *DRAMATIC ZOOM*", etc. It isn't necessary, at all, and actually felt insulting: I don't need a cliffhanger to be capable of waiting through an entire commercial break, people.
• I came in a few minutes late (I've since watched the opening scene), but I felt like we jumped into the action really quickly: if this was a smarter show, I'd presume this was to mimic the family's sudden launch into their new environment, but considering how much the show is banking on nostalgia I'm guessing it was just the easiest and most efficient way to introduce new characters in quick expositional dialogue as opposed to long and drawn out character studies.
• I was Twittering the premiere as it went along, and pretty much all of them were some kind of statement about how strange it is to see Tristan Wilds not playing Michael, his character from The Wire. When he was running a prank, my mind runs to urine-filled balloons; when he explains how much he values his father/son relationship with his adopted dad, I questioned why he was so comfortable talking about male role models. It's going to be a hard disconnect, no question.

******

alas, labor day is upon us and the summer is officially over.  for me, the summer actually ended a little while ago when i finally returned to work after a 10.5 week vacation (jealous much?).  i enjoyed a pretty decent season, but for the most part it was one spent far away from writing this blog.  conjuring idiotic postings was never far from my mind, and if i HAD been more diligent over the past few months there are quite a few things i would have commented on.

for example, these are some of the things i learned during my summer vacation:

•    the pakistani taxis (say that fast 5 times) in berkeley are way creepier than the ones in nyc.
•    only people who own chihuahuas make facebook pages for their dog.
•    the ending to the movie “vanishing point” is mighty fucked up.
•    naked chicks riding motorcycles through the desert = gangster.
•    when driving long distances in a rental, never pass up an opportunity to refill your gas tank.  you only THINK you have enough fuel to make it to that rest stop 30 miles away.
•    drag-king chicks (well… the one i know, anyway) LOVE kool keith and the prodigy song “smack my bitch up.”
•    some stereotypes are just flat-out true.  ex: asian women are the worst drivers on planet earth.
•    arbitrarily lining up dozens of very fat and very skinny people next to eachother makes it seem like they are human pieces of binary code.
•    discussing the content of the book/website “stuff white people like” causes many caucasians to behave vaguely hostile.
•    although i am quite the racist/hater regarding other ethnicities, ricans who do inexplicable things like THIS keep me in check.
•    the official ghirdelli chocolates store in SF sells you the exact same bag of candy that you can buy at target.
•    few things in life are as sexy as a beautiful woman reading you porn.
•    bernie mac was much funnier in death than he was in life.  yeah, i said it.
•    miguel cotto’s heart pumps kool-aid.
•    i learned the following joke:  why do hippos always have sex in the river?  how else are you going to keep a 400 pound pussy wet?
•    also, this joke:  why do mexicans only cross the border two at a time?  because everywhere there are signs posted that read “no trespassing.”

get it?

•   nancy botwin turning state’s evidence?  not a good look.
•    with all the sketchy things going on in l.a., playing with a battery operated bubble maker is what’s going to bug people out.
•    the quickest way to a woman’s heart (besides going through her chestplate) is a bottle of macallum 12.
•     “the nature boy” ric flair prefers to be called “the naitch” when among his close friends and associates.
•    according to justin, it’s o.k. to kill bunnies.
•    usain bolt is the terrell owens of sprinting… minus the teary-eyed cumguzzlery, of course.
•    osteria mozza on melrose is the spot for bomb goat cheese ravioli and zinfandel cask whiskey… if that’s your kind of thing.
•    naming your child “tulula does the hula from hawaii” is fucked up… but nowhere near as fucked up as naming your kid “hungry.”  especially if that kid is chubby.
•    people who think “the shield” (which is a fine tv show) is better than “the wire” are sorely mistaken.
•    if i could torture/kill any group of evildoers in the entire world right now, i’d have to choose the new york mets bullpen.
•    If you’re the type of guy to tell a girl that you’re going to “spiral into a vortex of drug fueled depression” if she breaks up with you, you’d better be cool with her laughing in your face.
•    i can't decide which mom is creepier:  michael phelps' mom or sarah palin.

and finally…

•    i honestly missed bullshitting with some of you people on here.  just not lady valentin… admitting that would only feed her already bloated ego.  effin' ricans.

När man ska förklara vad den egentligen handlar om är det svårt att ge ett snabbt svar eftersom fokus ändras varje säsong. Framförallt handlar den om en av de mest brottsfyllda och fattigaste städerna i USA nämligen hamnstaden Baltimore. Första säsongen handlar om kriget mot narkotikan. Skillnaden mot de flesta polisserier är att här får vi se det från två synvinklar nämligen dels polisernas men också langarna som hänger i gathörnen. Säsong två fokuserar mest på hamnarbetarna i staden och deras hårda vardag. Det politiska rävspelet och kampen om borgmästartiteln avhandlas därnäst. Sen är det skolans och sist journalistikens tur att granskas. Samtidigt som varje säsong introducerar ett nytt ämne och nya människor så får man fortsätta följa de flesta karaktärer man lärt känna i de tidigare. Efterhand blir det ganska många att hålla reda på och på HBO:s hemsida är över 80 skådisar listade. Det är alltså en ganska krävande serie att följa men för de som har gett den chansen är det nog väldigt få som har ångrat sig.

Sista säsongen som tyvärr inte var den allra bästa avslutades ändå på ett bra sätt. Medan signaturmelodin Way down in the hole spelades fick vi se snabba klipp av hur det gick för de flesta av huvudpersonerna. Mest värmde det väl att förre detta knarkaren Bubbles äntligen fick komma upp från sin systers källare och äta middag tillsammans med henne och hennes familj.

Ska jag rangordna säsongerna så blir det i följande ordning; 1, 3, 4, 5, 2. Men skulle jag få för mig att se om den vilket jag aldrig har gjort med någon annan serie så är det troligt att ordningen blir en helt annan. Nu när man känner karaktärerna så ser man nog allt ur en annan synvinkel från början.

Do not adjust your set . . . these uniforms really are that stupid.

Evil knows many of you, his esteemed readers, don’t care for the football. And, as he considers it important to humor these mistakes you call “opinions” or “feelings”, he’s been wrestling with a dilemma. The kind that throws itself off the top rope of trepidation wearing a Mexican wrestler’s mask of uncertainty.

The dilemma? How to write about football in a way that will soothe those of you who hate it? It took the Evil all of 20 seconds to decide—though rest assured, those were 20 of the most agonizing, irritating, and brow-furrowing seconds he ever endured.

Instead of arguing the merits of this running back, that offensive line, a revamped coaching staff, the Evil is fostering a healthy discussion of the 2008 NFL season based on quality of life. The question at hand: judging by the cities in which their teams are based, which NFL division would you call the best?

It breaks down thusly:

AFC East: Boston, Buffalo, Miami, New York.
AFC West: Denver, Kansas City, Oakland, San Diego.
AFC North: Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh.
AFC South: Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Nashville.

NFC East: Dallas, New York, Philadelphia, Washington.
NFC West: Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis.
NFC North: Chicago, Detroit, Green Bay, Minneapolis.
NFC South: Atlanta, Charlotte, New Orleans, Tampa.

To the Evil, the AFC West takes the cake. You’ve got San Diego’s perfect weather, the Bay Area, the Rockies, and legendary KC BBQ. And since San Diego is the class of its division, Evil supposes that makes the Chargers his pick to win Superbowl XLVIIXQ.

The worst? Gotta be the AFC South, with its murderer’s row of dismal metropoli. Think about it: when Nashville is by far the coolest city in any list not named “Best Cities for Opry Experiences," you’re in trouble.

So that’s the game. Anyone care to disagree?
…

Now, for you football fans, the real National Evil NFL Preview (a.k.a. NENFLP). In the spirit of a hoodie-wearing coach who lists his entire teams as “probable” on the weekly injury report, here’s a one-sentence-or-less (real or imagined) reason why each of the NFL’s 32 teams absolutely cannot win the Superbowl:

Arizona: Already owns coveted “first in alphabetical listing of NFL teams”; cannot be allowed to become any more powerful.

Atlanta: Inmate #77201C.

Baltimore: Because, as we learned from The Wire, nothing good happens in Baltimore.

Buffalo: Still haven’t finished stamping “Lose ten Superbowls and the next one you win!” card.

Carolina: Panthers sated from winning thirteenth consecutive “Most Generic Team Name” award.

Chicago: 100-year curse lifted from Cubs, shifted to Bears . . . ?

Cincinnati: Entire team shot by drunken tiger poacher.

Cleveland: Cursed forever as location of Howard the Duck movie.

Dallas: Because it will be a cold day in hell before the Evil predicts a Dallas Superbowl win.

Denver: Mike Shanahan concussed after inserting self as running back to prove once and for all that he can make anyone a thousand-yard rusher.

Detroit: Team finally accepts role as potent metaphor for Motor City industry’s collapse.

Green Bay: Aaron Rodgers turns out to be no Don Majkowski.

Houston: Team filled with crushing shame upon realizing stupidity of “Texans” nickname.

Indianapolis: Clock runs out on last play of Superbowl as Peyton Manning’s constant “audibles” turn out to be an advanced, crippling case of Tourette’s.

Jacksonville: Entire team assassinated on eve of Superbowl by panicked NFL marketing dept.

Kansas City: Players mistakenly apply Coach Herm Edwards’s “You play to win the game!” rant exclusively to Grand Theft Auto IV.

Miami: Fumes emanating from Ricky Williams.

Minnesota: “You’ll be a Superbowl winner someday!” stamp-card stolen by Buffalo.

New England: “Genius” leaks into hoodie, which achieves sentience and smothers Belicheck.

New Orleans: Sanctioned for Reggie Bush-related violations by NCAA.

NY Giants: Eli Manning suddenly awakens from “You are Joe Montana!” hypnosis when passerby absentmindedly snaps fingers.

NY Jets: Favre interception returned for game-winning touchdown in 2nd overtime of Superbowl.

Oakland: Zombie Al Davis shambles onto the field and devours Darren McFadden’s brain.

Philadelphia: Karmic punishment for worst throwback uniforms—hell, worst uniforms period—ever worn. (See above.)

Pittsburgh: Just attained “one for the thumb” in 2005; must await birth of six-fingered Rooney heir.

San Diego: National Evil predicted-Superbowl-winner jinx.

San Francisco: While watching from a luxury suite, Barry Bonds’s engorged skull finally explodes, killing thousands.

Seattle: Entire city and team still too grief-stricken over loss of SuperSonics.

St. Louis: Franchise bought by foreign company and converted to futbol team.

Tampa Bay: In failed yearlong marketing ploy, team reverts to throwback logo, unis, and success.

Tennessee: Jeff Fisher’s pornstache finally convinces him to abandon football and follow his true calling.

Washington: “Zorn” is a name befitting an Evil Galactic Overlord, not a football coach.

I LOVE The Wire, a television show that I recently heard compared, with plenty of justification, to a Russian novel. It's bleak, it's depressing, it's intricate, it's every superlative under the sun - having watched the first four seasons in rapt amazement, sympathising with drug dealers and disliking politicians, rooting for drug addicts and police alike, I think it's the best thing that's ever been made for TV (with the possible exception of Deadwood). If you haven't watched The Wire yet, stop reading this review, go and beg, borrow or steal the Season 1 box set, and then we can talk.

Good, you're back. So what I was saying was, when the opportunity to read and review a new edition of Homicide came along, I put my prejudices against true crime to one side, and jumped at the chance - because David Simon is the producer and one of the writers of The Wire, a show that might never have existed without this book. Once this book was made in to a TV show, the opportunities that opened up for Simon led him to creation of The Wire, so this is where it all started - and no wonder, because it's absolutely bloody brilliant.

Originally published in 1991, Homicide has been re-published by Canongate with a new foreword and afterword by some of the cops featured in the book, and a new afterword by David Simon himself. Simon, a reporter on the Baltimore Sun newspaper, took a year's leave to shadow detectives from the city's homicide squad. The book tells the story of that year, 1988. At the time, Baltimore averaged roughly two murders every three days - but the men of the homicide squad (and they were exclusively men), the elite of the city PD's CID division, also had to investigate suicides, suspicious deaths and police-involved shootings, making for a pretty heavy caseload. Simon follows the detectives out to the scenes of fresh crimes, and as they follow-up on all their active cases. It's not gonzo journalism, because at no point during the story does Simon mention himself - but it is, ultimately, a sympathetic and thus subjective portrait of the challenge facing homicide detectives and the human cost of their job.

Homicide is subtly well structured to give us detailed insights into the investigative process, the role of the medical examiner, the nature of the court system, the internal police politics and much more, not to mention extensive explorations of the backgrounds and attitudes of the key detectives. For fans of The Wire, much will be familiar, though it does not do to overstate that; after all, the action here takes place nearly 20 years earlier, and is focussed solely on Homicide, while The Wire has a broader remit. Of course, times have changed too: modern Baltimore cops look back nostalgically to the murder rate of 1988, to a time when the perps did not have access to mobile phones and to a time when juries brought up on a diet of CSI-type crime shows did not have unrealistic expectations of what forensic science could achieve.

Homicide follows numerous investigations, including some notorious crimes, such as: the Angel of Reservoir Hill, the case of Latonya Kim Wallace, a young girl who was raped and murdered, her body dumped in an alley; a nasty police-involved shooting; and the unearthing of a seriously unsubtle Black Widow serial killer. Following the conclusion of the book proper, I was delighted that we got something I had yearned for as I was reading - an explanation from Simon of his methods and experiences, explaining how it was he was able to get so close to the action, and the extent to which his presence did or didn't influence the actions and attitudes of the detectives. We also get a new afterword which explains his changing relationship with Baltimore, from the plaudits following the book and the initial TV series, through to the brickbats that came from the much more clear-eyed portrayal of The Wire. We also find out about the crossovers between truth and fiction, with detectives featured in the book giving names to characters on the TV shows, acting as technical advisors, or in the case of Jay Landsman and others, actually acting in the show.

I doubt there can be a better insight in to the demands that America places on its law enforcement community than this book; demands that are voracious indeed, stimulated by the avaliability of firearms, aggravated by the legacy of racial division and entrenched by the economic decline of rust belt cities like Baltimore. You have to take your hat off to the men and women who do what they can to get justice for the victims, without begrudging them their cynicism, their foul language or their hard living; these, more than the regulation issue .38s they carry out on the job every day, are their essential defences.

I just finished all 5 magnificent seasons of what I now consider to be the best series to ever grace TV: The Wire.

I'm going to try and keep this brief, as I could go on for a long time about the many different reasons I love this show. I'll start by saying this if you haven't seen the show, go now to your nearest provayer of media and buy/rent the 1st season DVD set. I guarantee It will be an enjoyable experience.

I guess I'll start with a general explanation of why I think this series is without peer in all of television. It is a sprawling portrait of one of America's forgotten cities: Baltimore, Maryland. It does this as a massive character piece, studying everyone from the Streets to City Hall. It's an amazing feat to witness, as the show tells it's story with more than 75 characters by the end of the fifth season. There are no weak links in this cast, every actor portrays a unique and memorable character. This especially a triumph given the structure of the show.

This is a show that could have never have existed anywhere but on HBO. The portrayal of Baltimore and it's citizens is bleak, violent , and often profane but it never feels like it's indulging in it like some other HBO shows (The Sopranos for instance). There is cursing by the truck load here but, it never feels out of place. There is a lot of violence as well, but you only really witness the brutality of it when it is necessary to make sure you remember it. The style of the show is also very muted, it is shot in a grainy 4:3 aspect ratio even after most shows are in wide screen now. Even the soundtrack is natural, with the exception of a montage at the end of every season set to music, the music in the show is diegetic, meaning it only comes from things in the environment such as boom boxes and radios. All of this combines to make The Wire's Baltimore seem so realistic.

The Wire has been described by it's co-creator David Simon as a visual novel. The narrative structure of The Wire is indeed like a good book. Each episode is a chapter, and each season is a book focusing on a facet of the city. While the show is driven by the police it's not really a "cop show". Along with each season being about a case, you also get stories about drug dealers, junkies, politicians, dock workers, schools, reporters and many more. The Wire is a show that requires the viewer to absorb information from every episode to piece together the plot. There are no flashbacks or exposition to explain a returning plot element, it's just assumed that you are caught up with the story, like a book. It's so much more rewarding to experience the story without the normal hand holding most TV shows rely on.

As Detective Lester Freemon says early in the series "...all the pieces matter".

This story would not work as well in any other medium. It's too long for a movie, and if it where a book you would lose all the amazing portrayals of the characters. This show is simply the best example of what narrative in television can be. It's also a show that will probably never happen again, I feel it's just too unique and perfectly handled. For that reason alone, I think everyone who loves great stories needs to experience this brilliant piece of American fiction.

Thank you so much HBO.

"I think in the Ivory Tower there’s a problem with researching a group without ever talking to them. In academia, it’s all about measuring in quantitative stats. Culture matters. Cops live and work there, so they can see it. It cannot all be explained by money. [Academics] think it’s all about racism and economics".

His book Cop In the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District is out now. One to read before watching the next episode of the The Wire.

Alexander Skarsgård skötte sig bra i sin roll som den iskalle Sgt Bradley. Han tillhörde den tänkande typen medan många av hans överordnade var antingen totalt utflippade som Captain America eller otroligt korkade som Encino Man. Deras högste chef Colonel "Godfather" fick jag bara mindre och mindre respekt för ju fler avsnitt som visades. Han hade sätt att hålla de odugliga officerarna om ryggen och straffa de vettiga soldaterna kändes ungefär som min gamla arbetsplats.

Tyckte du att Band of Brothers var en bra serie och inte förväntar dig en actionfylld skildring av kriget så kommer du antagligen gilla Generation Kill också.

This American drama has been described as “one of the best and most original series on television in decades” and a “sublime epic of urban realism”.  It has a team of writers including leading crime novelists George Pellecanos, Dennis Lehane and Richard Price. It also features an Irish actor in one of the leading roles. So why aren’t more people watching The Wire?

Although it has attracted huge acclaim from the critics, and many of its devoted fans would argue it is superior to The Sopranos, in the US, The Wire has remained cult viewing, with its fifth, and last, season averaging roughly one-fifth of the eight million viewers who tuned in for its mafia stablemate’s final season on HBO.

The bleakly convincing drama has also built up a small but devoted following on this side of the Atlantic despite being ignored by the mainstream channels. Shown only on the FX channel in Britain (available on digital platforms here), viewing figures struggle to get above 50,000. It has built up an Irish fanbase thanks to the progressive scheduling of TG4, which until recently was the only terrestrial channel here to screen The Wire; the fledgling Channel 6 is currently screening the first series.

The fact that the show has stayed somewhat under the radar could also be down to the growing popularity of DVD boxsets. In the case of The Wire, box sets have the advantage of allowing people to catch up with the intricate plots in their own time – although going by anecdotal evidence and the comments on the huge number of internet forums devoted to The Wire, it just means marathon viewing sessions for fans unable to wait for their next fix.

“People tell me they feel like they’ve stumbled upon a secret and they can’t believe nobody else is watching it,” says Dominic West, the British actor who plays detective Jimmy McNulty, the closest thing the show has to a hero, albeit a distinctly flawed one.

Another reason the show hasn’t attracted a larger audience is its labyrinthine, almost novelistic, storylines.

The show’s title refers to the show’s first season, and the wiretap which a team of cops uses in its investigations into a drug gang. However, each season, while based around the complicated inter-relationship of the police, politicians and drug dealers, has explored a different social theme: the ravaging of poorer black neighbourhoods by drug gangs; the erosion of the working classes in post-industrial America; power and corruption; dysfunction within the public education system. This season, the show ventures into the world of newspapers, inspired by the former profession of the show’s co-creator, ex-Baltimore Sun reporter, David Simon.

Another subversive element is the show’s dialogue– much of which is urban slang specific to its setting, the east coast city of Baltimore. This is deliberately unfiltered, leaving viewers to pick it up as they go along, in much the same way as the police officers do. Simon eschews conventional exposition, the main building block of television drama, believing “it sucks the life out of the story”.   

He describes The Wire as a “political tract masquerading as a cop show” and calls it “a rebellion of sorts against all the horseshit police procedurals afflicting American television”.  Simon is unashamed about making few concessions to the lowest common denominator. When asked in a rare TV interview about the casual viewer, the person who likes to dip in and out of shows, he replied: “F**k the casual viewer”.

Simon doesn’t seem to be surprised – or for that matter, disappointed - that the show has failed to win large audiences: “People don't want to be reminded about real life,” he says. “They don't like the fact that our show doesn't deal in good versus evil and they don't want to look at this part of America.”

He acknowledges the bleak subject matter doesn’t resonate with people looking for escapist entertainment. “Life isn't always easy. People don’t always redeem themselves. You know the three things American television is about: kicking ass, blowing things up and finding redemption. Our show doesn't deal with any of these - apart from the ass kicking.”

Irish actor Aidan Gillen, 40, previously best-known for his role in another groundbreaking show, the Channel Four drama Queer as Folk, stars in The Wire as politician Tommy Carcetti.

“It’s not easy entertainment,” he says of the show. “It presents stuff that perhaps makes people uncomfortable. And it’s not driven by stars, special effects or quick payoffs. But among television shows that are regarded as the best, it’s still out on its own.”

Simon and his team of writers went to admirable lengths to make the show as realistic as possible. Ed Burns, who created the show with Simon, is a former homicide detective while Simon spent years gathering information on drug dealers - and the cops fighting a losing battle in the drugs war. When it came to the world of politics, Simon covered political stories to get a handle on the issues involved, but also added Bill Zorzi, the Baltimore Sun’s political writer, to the writing staff. When it came to the port storyline in season two, Rafael Alvarez, a former reporter whose family had spent three generations in dockland industries, was brought on board.

“We spent weeks getting to know longshoremen and the operations of the port and port unions, just hanging around the shipping terminals for days on end, so as to credibly achieve those voices,” says Simon.

“If you write something that is so credible that the insider will stay with you, then the outsider will follow as well. The Wire is a travelogue of a kind, allowing the average viewer to go where he otherwise would not. He loves being immersed in a new, confusing and possibly dangerous world that he will never see. He likes not knowing every bit of vernacular or idiom. He likes being trusted to acquire information on his terms, to make connections, to take the journey with only his intelligence to guide him.”

 Simon’s success was in achieving this authenticity is perhaps best reflected by an anecdote relayed by actor Wendell Pierce, who plays cop ‘Bunk’ Moreland: “The highest compliment came when a police officer told me on the set, ‘They talk about you guys on the real wire.’ One time, they were sitting on this wire, and it was quiet for a real long time, and finally somebody called, and the first thing this guy said was ‘Motherf**ker, what did I say? Don’t call when The Wire’s on.’”

As Simon said in an online farewell letter to fans when the show finished its final season in March, The Wire arrived to little fanfare and modest expectation - it demanded from viewers a delicate, patient consideration and a ridiculous degree of attention to detail.

However, as the show’s small but dedicated fanbase would attest, the effort of matching up the finely-crafted fragments of the dramatic mosaic was more than worth it when the masterpiece came together. As
kind-hearted cop Lester Freamon says in a scene now accorded legendary status by aficionados: “All the pieces matter”.

Season five of The Wire will be shown on TG4 every Monday at from Channel 6 is currently showing season one.

"The Wire reinforced white middle-class stereotypes of inner-city life. The show’s writers, producers, and directors portray most of the characters—clergy and cops, teachers and principals, reporters and editors, union members and leaders, politicians and city employees—as corrupt, cynical, and ineffective. Viewers may have thought they were seeing the whole picture, but the show’s unrelentingly bleak portrayal missed what’s hopeful in Baltimore and, indeed, in other major American cities. In that way, it did the opposite of what its creator, David Simon, said he wanted the show to do: spur our country to end the plight of the poor and minorities who live in America’s inner-cities."

The main argument of the article is that The Wire paints a picture of inner-city urban life that does not allow room for any positive change through collective action such as community organization or coalition-building. The writers of the article takes David Simon to ask, by concluding:

"He generally views the poor as helpless victims rather than as people with the capacity to act on their own behalf to bring about change. He may think he’s the crusading journalist exposing injustice, but he’s really a cynic who takes pity on the poor, yet can’t imagine a world where things could be different."

To support their argument, the writers list several examples in which people living in the kind of condition that The Wire portrays were able to form coalitions and affect positive political/economic change in their communities.

But to me, this argument misses the main, and perhaps the most important point in The Wire: namely, that while successes are possible at an individual level, they are rare if the broader institutional environment is itself corrupt. Thus, the show is really about how institutions affect individual behavior and trap its participants in social pathologies such as poverty, drug-abuse/trafficking, gang violence, lackluster education, etc.

The show itself can be seen as a dramatic illustration of institutionalism at work: in the show, the institutions--the political system, the police department, the public school system, the newspaper, the unions, the drug gangs--are really the main actors. It is really the interaction between these various institutions that produce the social pathologies that the show so accurately portrays. To its credit, the show follows good social science research and portrays each institution, as first and foremost, interested in preserving its own survival and entrenchment.

The critique, levelled by the article I linked, that The Wire somehow discounts individual expression, is missing the point: The Wire is full of individual heroes who do act with good intentions and who do try to reform the system. In fact, a couple of them does succeed. But what The Wire shows, correctly I think, is that unless the institutions themselves change, the odds of systemic reform are very low, because institutions, due to their very nature, are self-entrenching and path-dependent. In this way, they tend to outlast and wear down the individual participants acting within them. Thus, even as Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell, and Marlo all quit the drug game, new actors arise within the INSTITUTION of drug trafficking to take over.

The remarkable thing about The Wire is its insight, almost Weberian in nature, that modern institutions, despite their seemingly divergent contexts, all operate under a similar logic: thus, the show draws explicit analogies between the police department, the drug trafficking cartel, and the political machine at city hall. They all deal with problems of insubordination, bureacratic redtape, self-perpetuation, and so forth. This insight is best illustrated by Omar's best line in the show: the lawyer's got his briefcase, and I've got my shotty.

But is this institutionalist view cynical, as the writers contend? I would say that it is no more cynical than reality itself is. The reason why so much attention has been paid to institutional reform is the fact that institutions shape individual behavior. In fact, twentieth century political philosophy is almost exclusively concerned with institutions, a la A Theory of Justice. Yes, individuals can break out of the institutions, but it is extremely hard, and it is unreasonable, if not impossible, to demand that any particular individual act completely outside of his institutional environment and still be able to achieve systemic reform.

Therefore, it misses the point to criticize The Wire for merely painting a realistic picture of how institutions behave in real life.

1. Sell Desperate Housewives to foreign tv stations.

2. Make revenue from The Wire dvd box sets.

Anyway - last night I managed to trick my iTunes into thinking that I´m American, or at least reside in the US. After Googling for a few minutes, I found the following about obtaining a US version of iTunes:

1. Get a US mailing address. Easy. After living in Baltimore for five years, I had plenty of streets past to choose from.

2. Order an iTunes gift certificate from eBay. Also simple. The only thing I had to do was to connect my eBay and PayPal accounts. Six hours later, the gift code was in my inbox.

3. Create a new iTunes account. Make sure to change the country settings to US and don´t forget to register your newly obtained US address.

4. When asked for payment options, choose "none".

5. Enter your gift code and your in.

6. Right now, I´m watching episode 1 of The Wire´s fifth and final season.

7. Earlier today, I bought an Apple TV to be shipped to AngerHangover who´s bringing it across the ocean (cheaper to buy it in the US. I save 35 percent).

Mudhouse Sabbath - Lauren Winner

This one was a tiny, three-trip book, and it's one of the books I got with my birthday gift certificate from my sister-in-law. Lauren is one of those authors with a solid following amoung those of the post-modern or Emergent mindset, but I've never felt that her stuff really screamed her allegiance to that bunch. Rather, her upbringing in Judaism gives her Christianity a unique, insightful voice. Mudhouse Sabbath is just a collection of ten Jewish practices that she feels like Christians should understand and possibly adopt. She does a great job bridging the two religions, highlighting their similarities and helping Christians see the beauty of the rhythm and rote of Judaism.

The Humanitas Prize has announced this year's finalists, which included episodes from Boston Legal, John Adams and The Wire in the 60-minute television category and The Bill Engvall Show (that sound you hear is me scratching my head), In Treatment and Scrubs in the 30-minute category.

The Humanitas honors film and TV writing that "explores the human condition in a way which affirms the dignity of the human person and reveals common humanity." The complete list of finalists is behind the cut.

Feature Film Category ($10,000)
The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, written by Ronald Harwood
Juno, written by Diablo Cody
Lars and the Real Girl, written by Nancy Oliver

90 Minute Category ($10,000)
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, written by Daniel Giat
Charlie & Me, written by Karen Legasse Struck
A Life Interrupted, written by John Wierick
Pictures of Hollis Woods, written by Ann Peacock, Daniel Petrie Jr. & Camille Thomasson

60 Minute Category ($10,000)
Boston Legal: "Roe V. Wade, The Musical" written by David E. Kelly & Susan Dickes (teleplay); David E. Kelly, Susan Dickes & Jill Goldsmith (story)
John Adams: "Part 1" written by Kirk Ellis
The Wire: "Late Editions" written by George Pelecanos (teleplay); David Simon & George Pelecanos (story)

30 Minute Category ($10,000)
The Bill Engvall Show: "Aloha Raffles" written by Kathy Ann Stumpe
In Treatment: "Sophie Week 2" written by Sarah Treem
Scrubs: "My Long Goodbye" written by Dave Tennant

Children's Animation Category ($10,000)
My Friends Tigger & Pooh: "Eeyore's Sad Day" written by Brian Hohlfeld
Sweet Blackberry Presents: "The Journey Of Henry Box Brown" written by Karyn Parsons
Toddworld: "Come Out Of Your Shell" written by Don Gillies

Children's Live Action Category ($10,000)
Johnny Kapahala: "Back On Board" written by Ann Austen, Douglas Sloan, Max Enscoe & Annie DeYoung (teleplay); Ann Austen & Douglas Sloan (story)
Minutemen, written by John Killoran (teleplay); David Diamond & David Weissman (story)
Sheira and Loli's Dittydoodle Works: "Sacrifice" written by David Lawrence, Bill Rodman & Cory Rosenberg

Sundance Feature Film Category ($10,000)
Henry Poole Is Here, written by Albert Torres
A Raisin in the Sun, written by Paris Qualles
The Visitor, written by Tom McCarthy

The David & Lynn Angell Fellowship in Comedy Writing ($10,000)
Fair, written by Cameron Porsandeh
McKellar Hall, written by Nik Blahunka & Marcy Holland

The Humanitas Student Drama Fellowship ($10,000)
Heroes: "The Cure" written by Marla DuMont
House: "Witch Is It" written by Katherine F. Lovejoy

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