It doesn’t take much to start me off on a little empassioned rant about how great The Wire is, so the fact that I had tickets to attend the preview screening of the first episode of Season 5 of The Wire at the BFI last night was almost enough to send me into a foaming froth of near collapse.
As if a preview wasn’t enough, David Simon – the show’s creator – was there to answer questions from Wire evangelist, Charlie Brooker, and an audience of hand clasping Wire devotees.
Keep reading to find out what I thought of Season 5 of the BEST SHOW EVER, and for David Stone’s interview.
Well, up there on the big screen, The Wire looked even more well crafted than it usually does, with McNulty, Bubbles, Snoop, Marlo and the rest of the characters glowing with their own brilliance.
The show starts with a great comedy opener from Bunk and the Homicide gang, who manage to convince a hapless hit man that the photocopier is actually a lie detector machine. Then we move swiftly back into the main plot, with events this season focusing on the final piece in the puzzle: the press. This time it’s the Baltimore Sun that’s under the steely gaze of The Wire scriptwriters, with and it’s inability to help the disaster that is Baltimore’s drugs war – thanks to an unwillingness to report what really matters.
Usually, you have to watch at least 2 or 3 episodes of a season to get into the swing of the slow, thoughtful pacing of The Wire, but this season – possibly because it’s shorter at only 10 episodes – things seem to pick up with a bit more gusto than previous openers.
Episode Recap
The Major Crimes Unit has been tailing Marlo and his crew for a year with no breakthrough on those 22 dead bodies, and the great white hope that was Mayor Tommy Carcetti has no money to pay the police (thanks to his refusal in the last season to humiliate himself by taking funds from the Governor).
With no money for policing, and with all the cities resources going into trying to plug the gap in the schools’ funds, the Major Crimes unit once again bears the brunt, getting rationalised to just Lester and Sydnor. Their job is to focus on the corrupt Senator Clay Davis – as the newly promoted Major Daniels discovers “one corrupt politician is worth more than 22 dead bodies”. We’re left with a closing image of a VERY frustrated McNulty (who’s back to his old boozing and cheating ways), back on Homicide with Bunk and Kima.
Meanwhile, a new plot is emerging with a new cast of characters from the Baltimore Sun. It’s still early days, but Simon explains that this season explores “what stories get told and what don’t and why it is that things stay the same.” So far, the characters have already proved themselves to be compelling and likeable, and that’s part of the brilliance of the show – we have to watch people we like doing things that simply help to contribute to the ever-decaying society within the Baltimore underclass.
Quite simply a brilliant, funny, compelling, tragic and truly remarkable show that everyone should watch.
David Simon Q&A Hosted by Charlie Brooker
During the Q&A, David Simon (who was suffering from “whatever plague it is that you catch on a BA flight” answered questions from Charlie Brooker – who made “Tapping the Wire” a documentary about The Wire for FX – and the audience. Here’s a sample of some of the things he talked about.
Simon and his writing team don’t really watch a lot of television. In fact, the writing staff is made up of former journalists, police and teachers. Most of them aren’t from any of the “media cities” and they weren’t aspiring TV or film writers. Because of that, they tend not to treat TV like a mass medium, and “consciously rejected some of the rules” when they came to make The Wire
When Simon saw Oz, he realised that if something that dark could make it onto our TV screens, HBO might go for his TV series “The Corner” and he pitched for The Wire at the same time.
The idea behind The Wire is to “build a city” and “go through each theme one layer at a time”. Simon explained that that was always the idea, “but you can’t sell that, so you start with what you can sell”.
DVD boxsets and cable have allowed for proper story telling, which means that the story doesn’t have to break for adverts every 13 minutes. “And by the way, people round the campfire didn’t stop their story every 13 minutes to introduce their sponsors and let people have a pee.”
The Internet has been the secret to their success. Simon says he “learned a lot about the internet during The Wire” and clearly feels that word of mouth and online support are what has allowed The Wire to go for 5 seasons despite low viewing figures for a long time. He’s also very keen to thank Brooker for helping to spread the word in the UK, and he was clearly surprised and happy to find that it was such a well-received show here.
Cable has allowed Simon freedom from Network television (which is where his first show, Homicide, was aired). On network TV you are constantly being asked “where are the victories?” “All characters have to have closure and redemption; there always has to be lightness. I used to have to remind them that the show was called Homicide”
And when it comes to the demanding nature of the show – which often leaves you struggling to understand what the slang-using Baltimore drug dealers are saying, and what complex plot is slowly unravelling? “Most people watch TV shows slouching back in their chairs. If you don’t give viewers everything, they lean in to watch. As soon as you lean in, I’ve got you.”
And finally? Apparently Barack Obama picked The Wire as his favourite TV show. His favourite character? Omar! The “gay gangster who only robs drug dealers”. David Simon had a chuckle about that one, wondering where Obama’s press people were to tell him not to say that.
You can listen to an audio clip of Obama talking about Omar (and swiftly back-tracking) here
The Wire season 5 airs on FX in the UK in July.
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Tapping the Wire
Set the video: The Wire
