One of my favourite things these days is spotting actors who starred in The Wire now popping up on other shows. I'm about 6 episodes into Heroes (and so far... meh) and two of the best things about it have been Marlo Stanfield as a badass bank robber, and Bubbles creating a vortex with his hand and sending people and things into it when he's upset. Bubs (okay, Andre Royo) gave one of the best performances I've seen on that show all season. I tried to watch 90210 because of Tristan Wilds, but couldn't handle it. The suckage was sadly far too great for my head to take. I loved Amy Ryan on The Office when she played Holly, who was a VERY different character than the one she played on The Wire. But despite enjoying all of these performances, all these characters were secondary to my Wire faves: Omar, Stringer, and Snoop.
And now... Stringer Bell is following in Amy Ryan's footsteps and is coming to Dunder-Mifflin. If I were Michael, I'd run. Far, far away. Idris Elba is a fantastic actor. He's British, but tends to play American. His biggest role outside The Wire was American Gangster, and he was amazing in that, too. His character on The Office will be coming to Scranton for a six-episode arc, and will apparently be making Michael's life very difficult (who doesn't?) I can't wait!
Now, if we can just get Omar and Snoop on Lost, I think I would be the happiest TV viewer on the planet.
And only a week after everyone else has done it, here is my best of list for 2008. What a crazy year. On the international stage, the United States finally has a president who can complete a sentence without a non sequitur and dodged the Alaskan bullet, while at home, it was a difficult year for many of my friends. Just the other day I was thinking about how last Christmas was a certain way for many people I love, and this year it was entirely different, marked by absences. I hope they made it through OK.
On the television front, it was a year of strikes, disappointments, endings, beginnings, and more endings.
Saddest Cancellation of a Television Show: Pushing Daisies. I don't know if I'll ever get over that one, to be honest. It was colourful, funny, kitchy, and awesome. The Writers' Strike cut its first season short, and ABC attempted to roll it out a second time this past fall, but new viewers were nowhere to be seen. I guarantee you this show will go down as a massive cult classic like Freaks and Geeks, with people like me whining 10 years from now into our chips and dip that it ended too soon.
Funniest Jack Donaghy Line on 30 Rock: In the Christmas episode, Liz asks Jack if he knows the Postmaster-General. He says yes, but they haven't spoken for a while because they had a fallout over the Jerry Garcia stamp. "If I wanted to lick a hippie," he says, "I'd return Joan Baez's phone calls." My husband and I were screaming with laughter.
Funniest Moment, Period: I already blogged on this, but when Jan shows up for a baby shower on The Office, she describes having a tub birth, and Creed's response is still something that makes me laugh just thinking about it (especially because a friend of mine had a tub birth in her home, and her husband once explained rather graphically to us what it was like for him cleaning it up afterward): Kelly: Uh, so you're in the tub with everything? Jan: Oh yeah, the afterbirth floats. Creed: Must be like the tide at Omaha Beach.
Biggest Reality TV Disappointment: After a gabillion seasons, America's Next Top Model finally went off the rails when Tyra Banks lost her mind. In the opening episode she emerged from some futuristic time machine thing like that vessel Jeff Goldblum stepped into in The Fly, appearing completely whacked-out and robot-like, while her cohorts stood nearby, all silver-haired and insane. I quit watching at that very moment, only to be pulled back in by a friend who assured me the next episode wasn't nearly as crazy. So back I came, only to see the makeovers with Fairy Godmother Tyra in a little box in the corner talking in a weird high-pitched voice about what magical things she was going to do with their hair and makeup. I hit Stop on the PVR, deleted the episode, and never watched again. You used to be a funny kind of crazy, Tyra, and now you're just CRAZY.
Best New Reality TV Obsession:So You Think You Can Dance. This show is freakin' fantastic, and I've never had a dance class in my life. This series doesn't spend the first 2 months highlighting the "hilarious" Clydesdales who show up for the auditions like another reality talent show that shall remain nameless, but instead celebrates dance and its many forms. From Bollywood numbers to some contemporary routines that brought me to the edge of tears, I can't get enough of this show. Next installment doesn't start until the spring (curses!) but I cannot WAIT. The Canadian version was in the fall and I'll admit I only caught the last half. It was good, and by the end it was excellent, but I need my screechy Mary week after week.
Series that Returned to its Former Glory:Friday Night Lights. Most people haven't seen it and are waiting for the January start on NBC after season 3 aired on DirecTV in the US, but it is SO worth the wait. Season 3 is glorious: I realized I care about these people like family, and when they're hurting, I'm hurting. Two major characters make their exits from the show, both wrapping up their storylines beautifully, but able to return if the show makes it to a fourth season, which it probably won't. A new character showed up with his family and started off as a bit of a disaster, but by the end I cared about him, too. God, I love this show.
Top 8 Lost Moments of Season 4 (check out THAT use of the numbers!): 8. The Oceanic 6 reuniting with their families as they get off the cargo plane. 7. Ben referring to Alex as his daughter in the first episode and Rousseau cracking him in the face with her elbow. 6. The return of Old Smokey as he flies into New Otherton and takes out the freighter folk. 5. Sawyer racing through the compound amidst a hail of gunfire to save Claire. :::swoon::: 4. Hurley and Ben sharing the chocolate bar while Locke went into the cabin to talk to Jacob's cohort. It was funny for its silence, and seemed like such a banal thing to do while the world was being changed inside that cabin, while at the same time suggesting that Hurley accepts Ben now. 3. The look on Ben's face when Keamy shoots Alex in the back of the head. 2. Desmond calling Penny and her picking up on the 15th ring, and the lovely way they begin to finish each other's sentences in delight. 1. Sayid blinking his eyes hard when he sees Nadia at the airport hangar, as if he can't believe his own eyes and is trying to convince himself he's not dreaming. It's wonderfully done. Yeah, I'm a sucker for reunited love.
Favourite New Show: Mad Men. Okay, I know it's in its second season, but I just caught on this year because it was not easily available in Canada. I started watching the show from the beginning as the second season and was piling up on my PVR, and I ADORE it. Jon Hamm is magnificent, and Betty Draper is one of the most complex characters on television, hidden inside a very uncomplex package.
Most Shocking Series Finale:The Shield. Without giving any spoilers, something happens in the finale that made my hand fly to my face, I gasped aloud, and immediately started weeping. I don't think I've ever had such a sudden and visceral reaction to something like that before.
Most Expected Series Finale: The Shield. Because Globe and Mail reviewer John Doyle, in his year-end column, GAVE AWAY the very ending that made me weep, despite the fact the season hasn't yet aired in Canada (yeah, I'm downloading it, but I've bought every season on DVD and will buy this one, too, so they'll get their money out of me). AGAIN making me wonder, why the HELL does anyone want to KNOW spoilers in advance?! I think my immediate reaction was because I knew what was about to happen in the next scene (though, because he didn't give specifics, I didn't know the nature of it), and my heart leapt into my mouth a moment earlier than it normally would have (this was only, of course, after watching about six episodes leading up to it where I thought, "Will it happen now? Now?"). After 7 years of watching that show, I really wish the guy had kept his mouth shut and allowed this loyal fan to watch it spoiler-free. Sigh.
Most Amazing Series Finale: Ok, it's a tie between my two favourite cop shows, now done: The Shield and The Wire. The Wire, which killed off a very important character a couple of episodes from the end in a completely unexpected way (thank you, John Doyle, for not mentioning THAT in your column), ended beautifully, showing that the world will go on, the sun will continue to rise and set, and things will get better, then worse. It didn't pretend to have the answers or wrap up everything in a lovely little bow, but instead showed us the world as it really is: dark, angry, depressing, hopeful, funny, loving, confusing, and difficult. WATCH. THIS. SHOW. The Shield wrapped up years of Vic Mackey in a way that was more satisfying than the way Tony Soprano's storyline ended up. Mackey's always told himself that everything he did was for his family, but it wasn't. It was for himself. And at the end of the series, what happens to him runs counter to everything he'd been working (and stealing and killing and silencing) for. Amazing.
Favourite SNL digital short: This one:
I actually watched it the next morning on my PVR before it became a viral phenom and was howling with laughter. I've seen it a million times since then. This is the first single of The Lonely Island's new CD, and the faces that Samberg and Akiva Schaffer make in the video (the DJ, Jorma Taccone, is the third member of the group) are worth the entire thing.
Easiest (and Most Fun) Target: Sarah Palin. It used to be Rebecca Eckler, but Ecky isn't nearly as interesting as Palin. I just wish the woman wouldn't make it SO freakin' easy. Her campaigning — which actually made George Bush look like a Rhodes Scholar — was legendary. The only thing that outshone her was Tina Fey's inspired impression of her. She refuses to believe it had anything to do with the campaign's outcome. I respectfully (and happily) disagree.
Favourite Fan Experience:The Buffy conference in Arkansas. I loved the people I met there, made new friendships that continue through blogging and emails (and postcards with Buffy stick figures -- thank you, Cedar!) and now 2010 seems SO far away. We need to find an excuse to all get together again and hang out. How about a weekend conference in my living room? It will involve Buffy viewings and we could even write papers if we want. I'll put up a sign-up sheet soon. :) Ian posted on his blog that Parade Magazine also included the Buffy conference in its year-end wrap-up, calling it one of the quirkiest events of the year. Ha!
Biggest Anticipation for 2009: Lost season 5 and Dollhouse. Joss Whedon back on my telly... I don't have words for what this means to me. And Lost's season 4 was just too fabulous, so season 5 is HUGE for me.
My New Boyfriend: I am sorry to tell you this, Desmond, but I have found another. It's been a lot of fun, and I thank you for keeping that blue shirt slightly open for most of season 4, but... I've met someone else. His name is Chuck Bass. Oh Chuck. You join a long list of fantasies that begin with Luke Skywalker and include Bo Duke and Spike, but you are the first one who is younger than I am. Sigh... but that is OK. I'm willing to let that one go if you are. You are so wrong for me, but when you gave in to your mourning over your father and curled up in bed with Blair, that was it: I was yours.
Worst Boyfriend: Henry on Ugly Betty. I mean, come ON, Betty, Gio is RIGHT THERE and he is SO superior. Henry, on the other hand, got a girl pregnant and decided to stay with her during the pregnancy with her understanding that he will dump her like a ton of bricks the moment that baby rears its head. Yeah, that's some prime manhood, there, Bets. Sigh. Thank god he hasn't shown up yet this season. Gio's only made a cameo. And super-cute dude across the hall turned out to be a dud. I want Gio back.
Best Comedy that No One Watched Until It Was Too Late: Aliens in America. This show killed me week after week, but NO ONE seemed to watch it. I blogged on it, no one commented. None of my friends turned on to it. It was risky and had its hugely politically incorrect moments, and I loved every minute of it.
Most Graphic Thing I Saw on Television: On Dexter, the other serial killer on the loose this season was "The Skinner," who would gouge out large sections of people's skin until they died. Near the end of the season, we saw the skinner at work. I wasn't watching the screen after about 5 seconds of the scene. Gnarl on Buffy was bad enough. :::shudder::: Dexter, by the way, continued to be fantastic, and somebody PLEASE give Michael C. Hall that Emmy!
Most Inspiring Thing I Saw on Television: CTV's W-Five aired a documentary called Peace Warrior, about soldier Trevor Greene, a Canadian who was stationed in Afghanistan when he was hit in the back of the head with an axe. I've talked about him on this blog before (here and here) because I worked with Trevor on his amazing book about the missing women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. When I heard the news, I was shattered. I was interviewed early on for the documentary and offered them some background, but I was unprepared for what I would see in the show. I hadn't seen him since the "accident" and the images of him being taken onto the aircraft with his head bandaged and half his skull gone were very difficult for me to handle (I think I started sobbing at the beginning of the episode and didn't stop until the end... though it was for a very different reason I was crying at the end). He has recovered his speech, some of his upper body motor skills, and is determined to walk despite so many experts telling him he won't (they don't know Trevor). At one point the interviewer asks Trevor what he would say to his attacker if he could see him again, and he says he'd say sorry, because he walked into his village with a gun, and his colleague shot and killed him, but Trevor is still alive. Wow. Keep an eye out for this show to re-air.
Favourite Jon Stewart Moment: Describing Dick Cheney's completely unsurprising support of John McCain, Stewart shows a clip of Cheney announcing his backing, and Cheney coughs at the end of it. Stewart then imitates him, doing his own version of the announcement where he's coughing and hacking so hard and so loudly he can't get a word out. I was laughing so hard I stopped breathing. I kept that on my PVR and watched it about a half million times before finally erasing it.
Favourite Thing About My Blog: The commenters, good and bad. I was at first surprised, then baffled, then amused by the people who came onto my blog during the election campaign and used it as their personal sounding board for Why the Republican Party Is Awesome, and while some of them made me want to pluck my eyes out with a fork so I wouldn't have to read the drivel anymore, I miss them and almost wish there was some Republican stuff happening in the media so I could spark the debates again. But I'm not the sort of person to goad just to bring them back. I actually had a lot of respect for the ones who used a name or reasonable facsimile to argue, knowing this was a blog written by a non-conservative and read by a lot of non-conservatives, but sadly, the anonymouses ruled the roost. But then again, if you were a member of the Republican Party, wouldn't YOU remain anonymous, too? (KIDDING... I'm not goading. Really.) But I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you who come and read my posts and comment on them (or not), whether it's because you like what I say or hate it. Some of the comments on here throughout the year have been some of the most insightful writing I've read, and after going to other boards and seeing some of the dumbass things people write, I'm constantly grateful that I have such an intelligent readership. Keep the comments coming... you guys make my day.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Stuff for a Wednesday Ah, more of that stuff I don't have time to post on properly because I'm too busy nattering about The Wire or Lost.
So first, as usual, some Wire and Lost. For those of you (that would be me and one other lurker on the blog, presumably) who watch The Wire, Entertainment Weekly has listed their 15 favourite moments. Not all of them would be my 15, but some of these are great, especially in how prescient they are (like the chess game). Now I have to go back and watch all of it again to see how much of the ending was evident in the beginning. If you haven't been swayed yet by my constant posting on how awesome this is (seriously, WHY NOT??!!), the first 4 seasons are available on DVD, and the entire fifth season of The Wire is currently (and will be for the next six months) available on The Movie Network OnDemand. WATCH NOW.
For Lost, something a little more upbeat than the usual fare. The Kirk and Skylar Show is something I just discovered, and it's hilarious. This is a father-and-son team who do reenactments of episodes of Lost by using the action figures (the son is a precocious 7-year-old). It's pretty hilarious stuff, especially when they're dealing with a bikinied Sun in the flashbacks. Check it out; I guarantee you'll laugh out loud.
In Treatment continues to be fabulous. Here's a piece in Salon on it, where the writer asks if she's the only one who's obsessed with it. No, I would make two of us. :) Just when I decide which story intrigues me the most, something happens in another one and I suddenly love that one more. All episodes of In Treatment (which is a 43-episode series) are available on The Movie Network OnDemand, so those who have the service can catch up on the series at their own convenience, so if you haven't started watching, start now (new episodes will continue to air each night of the week at 8:30 p.m.).
And I've got some amazing news (FINALLY) on Friday Night Lights. It's not a definite go, but things are lookin' pretty positive for our favourite football show that's not about football. According to several news reports, NBC is very close to signing a deal with DirectTV to do a deal where they'd both air the show in different ways, thus spreading the costs over the two networks and ensuring a third season. Come on, DirectTV!!! Thanks to John for directing me to one of the stories.
Oh, and, um, back to Lost! A week late (I've been meaning to post this forever), here are some answers about The Constant, care of Damon himself. And reader Danielle sent this hilarious link to me, called Lost Madness, where you can try to eliminate Lost characters the same way teams disappear in the NCAA championships. (They refuse to allow you to eliminate Nikki and Paulo together, but presumably whoever makes it to the next round will be instantly squashed.)
Paleyfest, you're killin' me. Here are some of the panels, along with the confirmed guestage. Not only do I heart Chuck, but check out the moderator!!!! ARGH.
March 15 Saturday 7:00 pm
Pushing Daisies
In Person: Kristin Chenoweth, "Olive Snook"
Bruce Cohen, Exec. Prod.
Anna Friel, "Chuck"
Bryan Fuller, Creator/Exec. Prod.
Ellen Greene, "Vivian Charles" Dan Jinks, Exec. Prod.
Swoosie Kurtz, "Lily Charles"
Chi McBride, “Emerson Cod”
Peter Ocko, Coexec. Prod.
Lee Pace, "Ned"
Chuck
In Person: Adam Baldwin, "John Casey"
Chris Fedak, Cocreator/Exec. Prod.
Joshua Gomez, "Morgan Grimes"
Scott Krinsky, "Jeff"
Sarah Lancaster, "Ellie Bartowski"
Mark Christopher Lawrence, "Big Mike"
Zachary Levi, "Chuck Bartowski" Julia Ling, "Anna"
McG, Exec. Prod.
Ryan McPartlin, "Captain Awesome"
Vik Sahay, "Lester"
Josh Schwartz, Cocreator/Exec. Prod.
Yvonne Strahovski, "Sarah Walker" Damon Lindelof (exec. prod., Lost) will moderate this evening's discussion.
Taylor Momsen, "Jenny Humphrey" Kelly Rutherford, "Lily van der Woodsen"
Stephanie Savage, Cocreator/Exec. Prod.
Josh Schwartz, Cocreator/Exec. Prod.
Matthew Settle, "Rufus Humphrey"
Jessica Szhor, "Vanessa Abrams"
Ed Westwick, "Chuck Bass"
Cecily von Ziegesar, Author, Gossip Girl books
March 25 Tuesday 7:00 pm
Dirty Sexy Money
In Person: Samaire Armstrong, "Juliet Darling"
William Baldwin, "Patrick Darling"
Greg Berlanti, Exec. Prod.
Jill Clayburgh, "Letitia Darling"
Glenn Fitzgerald, "Brian Darling"
Seth Gabel, "Jeremy Darling"
Matthew Gross, Exec. Prod. Peter Krause, "Nick George"
Zoe McLellan, "Lisa George"
Josh Reims, Exec. Prod.
Donald Sutherland, "Tripp Darling"
Blair Underwood, "Simon Elder"
Craig Wright, Exec. Prod.
Natalie Zea, "Karen Darling"
And this one really, really, really hurts:
March 20 Thursday 7:00 pm
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reunion
In Person: Amber Benson, "Tara Maclay"
Nicholas Brendon, "Xander Harris"
Charisma Carpenter, "Cordelia Chase"
Emma Caulfield, "Anya"
Eliza Dushku, "Faith"
Sarah Michelle Gellar, "Buffy Summers"
Seth Green, "Oz" David Greenwalt, Exec. Prod.
Alyson Hannigan, "Willow Rosenberg"
James Marsters, "Spike"
Marti Noxon, Executive Producer
Michelle Trachtenberg, "Dawn Summers"
Joss Whedon, Creator
Kill me now.
Monday, March 10, 2008
The Smartest Show on Television™ Comes to an End Last night marked the end of The Wire. Most of you come here to see me talking about Lost, but regular readers know I am deeply in love with HBO's fascinating look at the Baltimore drug scene, and all of the levels of bureaucracy surrounding it. This show was groundbreaking in many ways.
And after watching the finale, I can tell you that this show is as close to perfect as a television series can be. Lost has had its missteps (Nikki and Paulo, parts of season 2, parts of season 3), Buffy and Angel each had a bad season, Alias had more than one... but The Wire is near-perfect from beginning to end. It never let me down, and refused to take the easy way out on any of the storylines. Unlike many viewers now, I've been watching this show right from the beginning, so the ending has been five years in the making for me.
And what an ending. My favourite character, Omar Little, died a few episodes ago, not in a hail of bullets, not by Marlo, not by the police, but by a freakin' kid. Randy, the young entrepreneur of season 4, shows up in one single scene this season, broken and disillusioned. His appearance is so fleeting, but it casts a shadow over the entire series. Randy had potential, a LOT of potential. He was smart, sweet, and loyal, and he knew right from wrong. When he went to the police with some information, Herc -- the sonofabitch to end sonofabitches -- kinda, you know, TOLD, and now Randy has the rep of a snitch. He's angry at the police, his innocence is gone, and he probably won't live to see his twenties.
Dukie was the real innocent of the show, however, and we see him again this season, joining up with an older man looking for scrap metal to take down to the scales. Michael was the one who actually turned to the corners by the end of season 4, and by the end of season 5, he's a full-fledged gangster. Marlo and his people ended up in jail, with the exception of Snoop (and when she was told to take out Michael, he was on to her, and took her out before she could do the deed, in one of the most strangely touching scenes of the year). McNulty fashioned a lie that got out of hand, and paid the price for it. Bubbles FINALLY stayed off the drugs, and watching him come to terms with who he is and who he used to be has been one of the highlights of the season.
The season had its share of amazing moments, and many of them came last week. Michael shoots Snoop, and then realizes he's a target, so he takes Bug and Dukie and goes to his aunt's to drop off Bug, and leaves Dukie with the scrap metal guy. As Dukie walked away with his dirty t-shirt and small backpack, paused for a moment in the alleyway, and then realized it's all he had and continued on to sit next to the bonfire, it was a sad, sad moment. I thought it was the last we were going to see him, until the finale, where his story took an even worse turn. He returns to school, patiently waiting outside to see Prez, and when his old teacher comes out, Prez takes one look at his matted hair and dirty clothes and knows he's on the streets. Dukie tells him he wants to get his GED and asks for some money, and Prez knows before he even gives it that Dukie's going to use that money for other things.
McNulty gets outed by Kima, and in the finale he's told exactly what he's going to do -- he'll keep his job until they can fire him quietly, but he won't be allowed to do any police work. McNulty does the right thing, and just "retires," along with Freamon. His wake at the pub was a nice moment, but it was a little odd that no one actually said, "Hey, why are you guys retiring?" When Kima showed up at the end to 'fess up, McNulty blinked once, and then said, "Well, if you thought you had to do it, then you had to do it." It was one of the very, very few insincere lines in the series, I thought. The brass all think McNulty was doing it for the money, but it was to bring down Marlo. In other words, he had to create a crime in order to do the police work that he was actually being paid to do. And Kima, knowing his intentions, ended what he was doing, almost brought down the department, and destroyed Jimmy's career. And all he has to say is, "Well, if you thought you had to..."? I just didn't buy it.
It was the only insincere moment in a 90-minute ending, though. Marlo is told that he needs to retire as well, but just like McNulty breathed police work, Marlo is a gangster. It's what he does, it's who he is, and upon his release, the first thing he does is go right back to the corner and just stand there, doing what he does best. But he's powerless to do anything, or he'll be brought down. So a new army is building, and they just need the $10 million to buy the corners from Marlo. They kill Cheese (thank cripes), they collect the money, and then Michael shows up just in time to take it off their hands, along with a little quip. And in that moment, it was clear: Michael is the new Omar. He's the perfect successor.
In fact,the end of the series -- handled beautifully with a montage of scenes to let you know what the future holds -- illustrated that the next generation is on its way, and things will pretty much continue on as they have been. That one cop whose name I always forget (he helps Freamon with the wire tap this season) goes to a judge the way McNulty used to do in the first season, trying to do an endrun around the department. The final, sad scene we see with Dukie is him shooting up in an alleyway, just like Bubbles used to do. Carcetti becomes the governor, and after we see the way he coldly covers up everything in this episode, we realize it's NOT a new day in Baltimore, as he'd suggested, just the same day, different head honcho. Marlo will be succeeded, the police will continue to try to bring down the corners, the higher levels of government will prevent that from happening, the media will continue to miss all the big stories, and nobody wins.
The only people who show us a modicum of hope in this show are the ones who go out on a limb and do things for themselves. Bubbles gets himself off the corners, and the scene of him walking upstairs to have dinner with his sister's family -- a seemingly innocuous moment, but HUGE if you know the show -- is a triumph of epic proportions for him. McNulty does the right thing and returns the kidnapped homeless man to Baltimore. Michael figures out a way to be on the corners but not being a henchman for the drug dealers.
The Wire is an extraordinary piece of television, and now that it's over, there's only one thing left for me to do: break out season 1 and start watching all over again.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Goodbye to My Favourite TV Character
In life, a titan on the corners.
In death, an unknown body in a bag with the wrong tag.
Rest in peace.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Reminder: The Wire Starts Tomorrow I previewed season 5 on my blog a few days ago, and just wanted to remind people it will be starting up tomorrow night. This season has gotten FAR more hype than any season previous, and that's probably because it's the only new thing on these days, thanks to the writer's strike. If you're new to the series, I urge you to watch seasons 1-4 before tackling season 5, but if you want to try to watch it on its own, TV Guide suggests you could try, and probably won't be disappointed.
I'm typically not a fan of John Doyle's reviews at the Globe and Mail, but his review of season 5 is right on the money, and has earned my respect. This guy is a true fan. The Toronto Star had a huge 2-page spread on it, and Rob Salem, like so many other critics (myself included) heralds it as the best thing on television.
There will be some controversy in the reviews this season, since the camera is focused on The Baltimore Sun. AP ran a story about David Simon's personal vendetta as the paper, and how it might have coloured his negative portrayal of the paper's administration. The Sun's arts reviewer, David Zurawik, has been a champion of the show since it began, but he gives a different review of the final season. That said, I thought he could have torn a strip off Simon if he wanted to, and still talks about how much he loves the show and what he liked about it this season.
E Online has an article about how they were sick and tired of critics lauding The Wire as the best thing on television -- until they got around to watching it and realized hey, they were right. (Apparently if the show isn't about Britney Spears, it'll take E a few years to get around to watching it.)
I could go on and on, but just google "HBO's The Wire" and click news, and you'll see dozens of reviews.
And there's always an exception. The National Post in Canada lets their theatre critic occasionally dabble in television criticism, and when you read his review of The Wire, you see why that's a problem. I'd link to it, but The Post doesn't put up all of their reviews. Basically, Cushman compared it unfavourably to The Sopranos, and stated that the sad thing about The Wire is that it sacrifices character development to plot (??!!) He says there are no characters on The Wire that inspire the onscreen awe of Paulie Walnuts. Apparently he's never heard of Omar. The best thing about The Wire is the way Simon takes an issue that's a headline-grabber, and makes it personal. We care about everyone on the show, from the corrupt politicians to the drugrunners on the corners to the children of the cops pulling overtime. That statement alone betrays the fact Cushman doesn't watch the show. It was a review clearly written by someone who watched only the first 2 episodes of the screeners (he actually says at one point that at the end of the second episode he couldn't see where they were going with the newsroom plot and wondered if it would get better... maybe he should pop in the next disk to find out??) and hadn't actually seen the first four seasons. He mentions some of the plot from the past seasons, but it's all rewritten from the press package.
Actually, I'm glad I can't link to it, because it's a waste of your time.
Watching The Wire, however, isn't, and I urge everyone to check it out. In Canada, The Wire airs Sundays at 8 p.m. PT on Movie Central and 9 p.m. ET on The Movie Network, beginning January 6th. The Wire airs on HBO in the U.S.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
The Wire Season 5 Preview “The bigger the lie, the more they believe.”
So says Detective Bunk in the opening moments of the fifth season of HBO’s mindblowing series, The Wire, which begins on January 6. And in saying it, he sums up what this season is all about.
I’ve talked about The Wire on here many times before, and have been urging my readers to check it out because it is, without a doubt, the smartest show on television. And definitely one of the greatest shows ever made. I can say that without hyperbole, because I’m not the only one (every time Entertainment Weekly writes up an episode, they call it the best show EVER). To repeat myself, the first season was about the corners and the drug trade in West Baltimore, one of the most dangerous spots in North America, and how the police tried to put a wire tap into one of the drug towers to catch the goons, only to get caught up in bureaucratic red tape. Season 2 relocated to the docks, showing how the drugs get into the country and how, even when the cops are onto the importers, they can’t stop what’s happening. Season 3 moved back to the drug stuff, when a new honcho shows up, and it showed us what happens when the drug traffickers become educated, applying college-level economics to the trade, and making exponentially more sums of money. Season 4 was groundbreaking, and moved back a step to show how the kids who end up slinging the drugs on the corner are pretty much trapped before they’re 10 years old. By focusing on the lousy school system, and how the mayoral, senatorial, and gubernatorial levels are all failing these kids, we watch as bright young minds end up jaded, hardened, and broken. Season 5 takes everything we’ve learned to this point, and shows us that when a couple of people step forward to tell the biggest lies they can come up with, only then can the system appear to work. Sort of.
McNulty is back. He’s drinking again, and is the hateful sonofabitch that he was in the first couple of seasons (i.e. the way we like him). The crimes unit has been disbanded (again), Freamon is trying to get a wiretap going (again), the newly appointed mayor is finding his hands are tied (again) and those kids that we watched grow up last season are back. And what they’ve turned into ain’t pretty. Throughout season 4 we got to know them on a deep level, and watched them struggle against junkie parents, a school system that didn’t care about them, and one by one they began to show us there may be hope for the future. These kids always thought they were destined to end up on the streets, but when Prez, a former cop, shows up as a teacher and tries to show them there are other options, they begin to listen. But no matter how many options they think they might have, and how many streams of light fight their way through the dark clouds of their futures, something’s always there to tear them down. Maybe they need money to feed their younger siblings. Maybe they have parents stealing their school uniforms to sell on the streets for more junk. Maybe the cops have failed them by using them for information, and then letting it get out onto the streets that they’re snitches. One by one, we watch them fall, and now they’re back. (There’s one kid in particular that I became very attached to, and when he finally surfaces in the sixth episode as a very different person, I almost cried.)
Carcetti is the new mayor, and season 4 ended with him declaring it a “new day,” but as season 5 begins, we see it’s the same day, same “shiiiiiiiit,” as Clay Davis would put it. Davis has been exposed, but of course the detectives have yet to put together a tight case against him to make sure he goes down for what he’s been doing all these years.
Marlo is still running the show, after Omar (one of my all-time favourite TV characters) stole a ton of money from him and took off at the end of season 4. (Omar is the Robin Hood of the series – he steals from the drug dealers, and gives to himself.) But when Marlo messes with someone Omar trusted, the man with the giant facial scar returns, and what a return it is.
Murders continue to happen throughout the city. Chris and Snoop’s trail of blood, lye, and nails from the previous season that left dozens of dead bodies in the boarded-up houses, has yet to be solved. The cops are working overtime and all they have to show for it are slips of paper that say they’ve been working the overtime. The mayor’s office is promising them the money, the lieutenants are telling them to continue working and they’ll see the money, and the cops are trying to turn them in at the bars for 50 cents on the dollar. But even the bartenders know those slips of paper are worthless. Meanwhile, Freamon knows he was this close to nabbing Marlo, but his crimes unit has been disbanded. The cops’ hands are tied, and the people have no idea that these murders are happening.
So… McNulty has a plan. He’s going to create a serial killer. He begins to put a few cases together, throws in some fake evidence that links the cases together, and voila – there’s a serial killer stalking the homeless.
We’ve seen how the drug business is affected – for better or worse – by the police, by the mayor’s office, by the schools, by the longshoremen, and by the higher-ups in government, but this season we’re introduced to the level that we, as civilians, are most used to: the newspapers. The Baltimore Sun comes in as a major character (Wire creator David Simon is a former Sun reporter ). My husband is a newspaper reporter, and was working at one of the national newspapers here at the height of the hirings (of junior, cheap reporters) and firings (of the seasoned, contact-heavy, senior, more expensive reporters). He says he's never seen a show portray the newspaper business so accurately. There are moments where someone says something in this newsroom and he can name the reporter who said it in his.
Augustus is the editor in the city section, reporting on crimes that are never solved, and watching as day after day his city seems to be sinking into a mire of hellishness that is going nowhere. Circulation numbers are down, and the papers are all being run by white, upper-class publishers who want sensational news on the front, and want to bury the real stories of the streets that we've been watching for the first four seasons. When a triple-homicide happens in the slums, the story is buried. When a white woman is mugged in the parking lot of a middle-class area grocery store, it makes headlines. Templeton, a junior reporter, comes in during cutbacks (one of the best examples of the current state of newspapering is when Templeton doesn't have a clue who anyone is, and the senior reporter who's just been sacked calls in to city hall and sweet-talks his way into the real story, since he's the guy with all the contacts) and when the stories run dry and Templeton has no idea what he’s doing when asked to do the “man on the street” portion of the features, decides he’s going to Stephen Glass his way to the top.
Unwittingly, he plays into McNulty’s plan, and the result is a brilliant glimpse at how the various levels of officialdom are useless to solve a REAL case, but when a phony one comes their way – and the media are raising the fake case’s profile to create a public outcry – all levels band together to form a crime unit with unlimited amounts of cash to bring in the serial killer. No one seems to care whether or not the guy exists anymore. It's all about the story.
The first half of the season is genius, and if you adore this show as much as I do, I can guarantee you there’s been no decline in the quality of writing, acting, or direction. For four years we’ve watched the kids get roped into the drug trade, the drug dealers warring against each other, the detectives trying to bring down the kingpins while only being able to put away the occasional dealer, the mayor trapped between people who want change and a corrupt government that wants to maintain the status quo for their own greedy means. Now it looks like things might change.
But as with every season, we’re always shown the glimmer of hope, and in the end it all comes back around, and begins again.
Will Marlo finally get caught? Will Snoop and Chris have to pay for everything they did? Will Duquie manage to escape this life? Will Omar find his revenge? Will McNulty get caught?
And most of all, who will be the new drug kingpin who will be the target of the next generation of wiretapping?
I’ve said it before, but forgive my broken recordness – buy or rent the first 4 seasons of this show, and tune in to season 5. If you’re not watching The Wire, you’re missing out on the best example of what television should be. I’ve bitched before about the season finale of Heroes, and Tim Kring shot back that we were asking for too much, and that television has its limits. He should have been watching The Wire, because if he had, he’d see that the writing, acting, and directing on this series would make movie producers jealous. This is the finest storytelling around.
For a preview of the season and some previews of how they'll be handling the journalism angle, go here and click on "The Wire: The Last Word" for a half-hour documentary.
In Canada, The Wire airs Sundays at 8 p.m. PT on Movie Central and 9 p.m. ET on The Movie Network, beginning January 6th. The Wire airs on HBO in the U.S.
Friday, November 23, 2007
The Wire Starting Soon!! I was seriously going to end on the Heroes post, and I just got this bit of information: The Wire is scheduled to begin January 6th! I am SO EXCITED. I know I'm becoming a broken record, but I cannot stress enough that this is the smartest show on television (yes, smarter than Lost, I'm afraid) and you MUST watch the previous 4 seasons to really get season five.
Season 1 was about the cops dealing with the kids selling drugs. Season 2 was about the longshoremen and how the drugs get into the country. Season 3 was about the actual heads of the crime, showing one of them rising above the others, getting an education in economics, and using that knowledge to build a better drug business. Season 4 (the best, in my opinion) was about the kids in the school system, and how the drugrunners catch them early so they really don't stand a chance at finding a better life. Season 5 will move to the Baltimore Sun and show how the media works with the cops and the politicos (or against them) and how the drug trade flourishes despite it all.
If you're a fan of The Wire, check out this AWESOME long piece in the New Yorker. I loved it.
Season 5 of The Wire premieres in Canada on Sunday, January 6 on The Movie Network (eastern Canada) at 9 p.m. ET and on Movie Central (western Canada) at 8 p.m. PT .
Friday, November 09, 2007
Writer's Strike Several people have been asking me what my thoughts are on the writer's strike, and I've had a few newspaper columnists emailing me asking for a quote or two on it. So I thought I'd finally blog on it, if for no other reason than to get more answers from you on my comments board.
Before the writers walked on Monday (when the original date was set for midnight on Halloween) I'd read a lot about it, and several points kept popping up. If the writers walked, the following would happen: *late night talk shows would cease immediately, since a lot of their subject matter is based on things that happened that day *daytime talk shows would probably have 3 or 4 eps in the can, and then they, too, would stop *soap operas have sketchy story lines that would get them through November, but by December they'd be doing clip shows or reruns (of soaps?! I don't think I've ever seen a soap rerun in my life, but wouldn't it be cool to go through the vaults and show people old episodes from 20 years ago?) But seriously, I thought this was kind of funny... I mean, don't soaps usually write themselves? I speak as someone who hasn't watched a North American soap opera since about 1988... *network shows would have a few episodes finished, so they could continue probably until the end of November, and then they, too, would be on indefinite hiatus *reality television would invade our sets in droves. They do have writers, but they don't belong to the writer's guild because they, well, suck *shows like SNL would go into immediate reruns because they're filmed, well, live
And one show just kept coming up in all the discussions: Lost. And the basic rumour was this: Since Lost has 7 or 8 episodes in the can, scheduled to run in February and March, they're WAY ahead of the game on this one. If the strike went until January and then the writers were back on the job, other network shows would be scrambling to write and film episodes for March, while Lost would be coasting through on their finished ones and would be writing for April, giving them a lot of extra time. As a result, Lost would become the blockbuster show it was in the first season, because other shows would continue to be off the air while Lost was showing super-awesome new episodes.
The best news for me (yes, even better than Lost) was that the final season of The Wire (aka the smartest television series EVER) is completely finished and in the can, and scheduled to run in January, so while the rest of television would be a vast wasteland of reality scum, The Wire would be the one shining light, and there's a chance viewers would tune in in droves, making The Wire a well-watched show. And if ANY show deserves that, it's The Wire (by the way, major Wire plug here: THERE IS NO LONGER ANY EXCUSE NOT TO WATCH THIS SHOW. I was in Costco the other day and all seasons are there for $38.99... seriously. For an HBO show... not $80, not $100, but $38.99. Please buy this, watch it, and be blown away. I cannot stress this enough).
And then... the writers went on strike. And suddenly there's a WHOLE new tune being played.
For, it seems that those writers? Well, they plan on being out for a VERY LONG TIME. As in, rest of the television season long. Which means Lost has 8 episodes of 16, and no more. Word came out at the beginning of this week that Team Darlton was looking to pull the show completely, and that season 4 would start in February 2009, not 2008. I think that spells DISASTER. Fans are already grumbling about waiting almost a year, do they honestly think they'll wait TWO? Especially when the time between the DVD and the show will be about 15 months? Uh uh... won't happen.
Today ABC announced that regardless of what happens, they will run the first 8 episodes starting in February. This has Darlton a little worried, because they now believe that running 6 episodes of season 3 in the fall of 2006 before a 3-month hiatus was a huge mistake, and they think if it's done again... bigger mistake.
So what will happen? Will Lost go off the air indefinitely, probably spelling the end of the series? Will they run the first 8 episodes and then disappear, ruining the momentum of the season?
Man, this is worse than if Nikki and Paulo were resurrected... oh wait... what am I saying...
And I'm not even talking about the rest of our shows. The Office may be going into hiatus effective immediately, and they'll either show reruns of the American version, or there's talk of airing the UK original version with Ricky Gervais (which I love, but I've already seen -- several times -- so I don't need to see it again). 30 Rock, Ugly Betty (which is REALLY GOOD this season!), Heroes (which, um... isn't, but I'd still miss it terribly), Friday Night Lights (Nooooooo!), etc.
And what about the new shows? Pushing Daisies just got a full season order, will it ever make it to a season 2 if season 1 isn't allowed to finish? (WAAAAAAAAAHH!) I also adore Chuck, Journeyman, Reaper, Gossip Girl, Dirty Sexy Money... what will happen to them?
And think of the DVD sales (or lack thereof). How do you sell a season when you only have about 6 episodes, and yet the show hasn't even been cancelled?
That's another trend that's been apparent this season -- nothing's being cancelled. It's like the networks needed to hold onto every last show in the hopes that they might be able to stagger them through the season or something.
One thing that's showing through as a major strength in all of this is the cable programming. As I said, The Wire is already in the can. Dexter is finished, and is running right now and will continue to run to the end of the season. The final season of The Shield is also finished, and scheduled to begin in the new year. Maybe other series need to look to this model as the one to follow. Get an entire season written and shot before airing the first episode. But that takes big bucks, and the networks can't pony up for that the way HBO can.
But HBO will be the clear (and only) winner in all of this, I think. Next year's Emmy Awards will go to HBO because it was the only one with complete seasons. But what about this time next year? If HBO has to work a year in advance, then a year from now they won't have any shows, because none were written. So this will affect the cable networks much later, whereas the big networks will be affected immediately.
Or... they could just admit the writers are the most important people on a tv show, give in to their demands, and get their damn shows back on the air. Because the alternative seems to spell disaster.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
MORE Casting News -- Lost I talk about the fabulousness of The Wire on here all the time, and now two of my favourite worlds are about to collide. Lieutenant Daniels (I know he's eventually a Col., but he'll always be The Lieutenant to me) has been cast in an unknown role on Lost. Zap2it reported the story by saying he joins Harold Perrineau as also having been on Oz, and they seem to have forgotten that Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje (Eko) was also on Oz, as was Zeljko Ivanek, who played the governor on Oz and Juliet's evil husband Edward on Lost. There's definitely something going on about those two shows.
I tried posting this this morning, but Blogger was down for some reason. I was reading Ken Tucker's column on EW about all of the awesome DVDs coming out this week, and he was talking about his latest obsession, which has been around forever, but he's just mentioning it now. Well, I'm further behind than he is, because I hadn't heard about it until reading his column. Full disclosure: In 1984, when I was 11 years old, I was a HUGE Michael Jackson fan. HUGE. I went and saw him on the Victory tour (and was nearly trampled to death), I owned every biography of him, I had the little action figure (complete with tiny sparkly glove), could do the Moonwalk, and had even subjected myself to The Wiz. Two years later, I couldn't have cared less about him. But for one brief shining year, he was everything to me. So when Tucker pointed to a penitentiary in the Philippines where the hundreds of inmates have recreated the choreography of Jackson's "Thriller" video, I HAD to click. I've probably seen this video 437 times now, and watching this video just put a huge stupid grin on my face. I especially love the guy playing the woman, who has every over-the-top pose down pat. This is seriously awesome. Enjoy.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Why the Emmys SUCK Yes, I'm writing this before the Emmy nominations have been released, but it's because I just read an article on EW.com that explained the new nomination process, and it makes me angry. As Mark Harris explains in the piece, voters had to vote on their top 10 shows -- so these are not shows they've necessarily been forced to watch, but the usual pap that sits at the top of the Nielsen ratings -- and The Wire is officially out of the running, because it didn't make the cut? Why is the best season of the best show on television -- bar none -- not nominated for best dramatic series? Because no one watched it. This season was superb. I watch a LOT of television, and have for years, and I have never seen ANYTHING like this season of The Wire. Nothing. Lost, Buffy, Six Feet Under, Angel -- no other show had a season that dropped my jaw, made me think, made me want to cry, made me want to change the world, more than this season of The Wire.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, The Wire is a show you MUST watch from the beginning, see the slow build, watch these characters live, breathe, suffer, and die, and you can't just jump in. But the Emmys only allow one episode to be submitted. One must be chosen to submit for best drama, one must be chosen for any best actor/actress category, one must be chosen for best writing? Could I choose one episode over all the others from this season? Hell no. It's about the arc, but the stupid Emmy voters want one episode. Preferably a 10-second clip if you've got one.
In addition to The Wire being shut out, Battlestar Galactica and The Shield -- two more of my all-time favourite shows -- are also not in the running. As Harris writes:
The Wire was doomed because voters had already decided that it wasn't even one of the year's 10 best dramas. The shows that did make that list include 24, for a season so implausible that even Chloe couldn't keep a straight face, and Boston Legal. That's right: Presented with a staggeringly powerful piece of work that wove politics, drugs, race, violence, and poverty into a crushing examination of the way inner-city public schools betray kids, the Emmy membership decided it just wasn't quite as incisive as William Shatner yelling, ''Denny Crane!''
There's still hope: nowhere in his article did he mention Lost, so it might be in the running. But considering what it's NOT up against, does it matter? Wouldn't it be best for all of us if the Emmys just maintained its current stature as the Battle of the Mediocre TV and left the good shows for us to watch, awardless but with great writing?
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
What I Loved this past Fall Season: THE WIRE To borrow a question Entertainment Weekly often asks when referring to The Wire, “Why aren’t you watching this show yet?!” I kept saying in December that I’d blog on it, but then I couldn’t come up with enough adjectives for AWESOME. So I’ll try now. My other posts on The Wirehere and here were to entice new viewers. This one’s for the people who watched season 4.
The most recent season of The Wire was the best yet. We watched mayoral candidate Tommy Carcetti move from being the long shot to winning the primary, despite being a minority in a city that is predominantly African-American. With his wide-eyed idealism, Carcetti sought to bring money to the schools, clean up the streets (literally, by sending garbage trucks out to clean up the corners), institute programs that would entice young kids moving into the drug trade to perhaps reconsider… and then he won. And it’s not like he was making this stuff up just to win, but when faced with his new colleagues, he discovered a multimillion dollar deficit in the school budget, one that would require drastic cuts to fix. He could no longer give the bonuses and salary hikes to the cops that he’d promised. He couldn’t force the city to go out collecting garbage off street corners when the city didn’t have the money for it. At the government level, the buck stops when the city’s poverty becomes a reality to you. And now we begin to see how the other mayors became so corrupt.
In the police department, the special crimes unit is disbanded (again) and the wire taken down (again) and Kima is off to homicide, where she’s treated like a newbie (they don’t know just what a brilliant detective they have working for them in her). Cedric Daniels was promoted to Major at the end of season 3, and through Carcetti, suddenly becomes Colonel. The sudden promotion of people – and the political reasons behind it – becomes a major eye-opening part of the season.
But there’s an idealism, a feeling that maybe, just maybe, we can make a difference. Carver believed the difference wasn’t in making the arrests, it was in getting to know the kids on the streets and learning the ins and outs of the drug trade, so you could start to see it from their point of view. Unfortunately, he also has an unfailing loyalty to his pissant former partner, Herc, who is the screwup of all screwups. In thinking he’s helping Herc out of a serious situation, he turns over one of the corner kids in his case, and Herc uses the kid, puts the word out on the street that the kid is a snitch, and puts the kid’s life in serious danger, all to save his own ass from being demoted for doing something stupid. Then there’s Jimmy McNulty, the main character of the first couple of seasons, with almost no scenes in this one. He's moved in with another officer and her two kids (and steals office binders for the kids to use in school, one of the funnier scenes in the season). He’s watched some of these corner kids grow from naïve tykes to seasoned dealers, and by the end of the season tries to help out Bodie. But he quickly realizes that trying to help a corner kid is akin to picking up a baby bird that’s fallen out of the nest: the mother bird will smell the intruder on its young, and will quickly dispose of the baby.
On the street level, you’ve got Marlo Stanfield, who’s running the show with an iron fist, care of Snoop and Chris, two nasty pieces of work who kill people, pour lye on them to speed up the decomposition, and leave them in vacant buildings by nailing up the doors behind them. He realizes that children are our future and doles out cash to the kids getting ready to go back to school, telling them they can use it to buy new clothes, when in fact he’s buying their undying loyalty. Only one – Michael Lee – refuses the cash, knowing the others are selling their souls to the devil. Marlo's faithful soldiers stand on all of the West Baltimore corners, shouting, "Pandemic!" constantly in the background. Pandemic is the hot drug of the moment, and has been aptly named.
But Marlo’s a smart guy. Because he’s figured out the thing that becomes the main theme of season 4: the children. Season 4 moved its focus to a group of youngsters who seem destined for a life on the corner. Pryzbylewski (or Prez) started off as one of the most incompetent cops on the force, largely there because his father-in-law was a major in the police force. In this season he starts off as one of the most incompetent teachers you could imagine, but he gets better. He never becomes a Michelle Pfeiffer character, helping these kids find their way outta the gangsta’s paradise they’ve grown up in, but he does learn to reach them on a certain level, even if he’s still bumbling through class exercises by the end.
The season focuses on four kids: Michael Lee, Randy Wagstaff, Dukie Weems, and Namond Brice. Through these kids, we see the real darkness of the Baltimore drug trade. Michael takes care of his little brother, always walking him home, helping him with his homework. His mother is literally a crack whore, often passed out on the couch, occasionally wandering into the kitchen to ask Michael for money (he carries the family's welfare card) and freaking out if he doesn’t give it to her, but she usually crawls back to her hole, itching her neck and shaking. In one scene, he asks his mom where the Rice-a-Roni is so he can give it to his little brother for dinner, and the cupboard is bare. She tells him she already gave it to the kid, and Michael realizes she just gave the kid the box, forcing him to eat it raw. He’s the one who doesn’t take Marlo’s money, but when his little brother’s deadbeat dad comes back from prison, Michael begins to panic. It’s never clear what the guy ever did to Michael, or if he did anything at all – maybe Michael just thinks he might, or maybe he doesn’t like the fact that someone else would be taking over as the man of the house – but he ultimately goes to Marlo to help him out on the little matter of his dad, and becomes far more indebted to Marlo than any of the kids who took the back-to-school money.
Randy Wagstaff lives with a foster mother, “Miss Anna,” who is strict, but loving. She keeps him on the straight and narrow, and he’ll do ANYTHING to avoid getting into Miss Anna’s bad books. Because he’s small for his age, he keeps the shirts from various grades (the grades are colour-coded, with maroon being the grade 8s, and other grades wearing other colours) and steals a stack of hall passes that allows him to jump from one room to another at lunch, selling chips and snacks to the other little kids and making a profit. When he’s caught, he begins to spill the beans on a murder that happened at the beginning of the first episode when Lex is killed by Snoop and Chris, and Randy witnesses part of it. Carver takes him under his wing, as mentioned earlier, but allows Herc to get his dirty mitts on him, and before long it’s common knowledge on the streets that Randy is a snitch.
Duquan (Dukie) is the poorest of the bunch. Other kids make fun of him for smelling bad at school. He loses his uniforms all the time because his parents are such hardcore drug addicts they will steal everything – including, literally, the clothes off their child’s back – for drug money. Namond and Randy are his closest friends, but even they always have looks on their faces like they wish he'd go away, and walking to school he tends to hang back behind them. He’s a sad character who keeps a smile on his face, puts up with the other kids pretending he doesn’t exist half the time, and endures beatings from the other kids. He’s the smartest of the bunch books-wise, and can repair electronics (we watch him working on a handheld electric fan for a while). Prez realizes what is going on at home, and gives him a teacher's locker to keep his clothes away from his parents, and allows him to use the showers. He teaches Dukie how to use a computer, surf the Internet (where he and Randy find candy in bulk, suddenly making Randy’s profits go up), and for the first time in his life, Dukie actually has some self-esteem.
Namond is the polar opposite. His dad was a drug kingpin, now serving time, and his piece of dirt mother is living large on his father’s money, spending like the money will never dry up, and urging her son to be like his daddy and go out to that corner and make a man of himself. He's got the clothes, the money, the videogames, and the bling, unlike Dukie. His mother is possibly the most infuriating character, because while Dukie’s parents are too strung out and impoverished to even be parents, Namond’s mother has the chance to help her son break out of the vicious cycle, and her greed far outweighs any loyalties to her son. Namond becomes so disruptive in class that he’s moved to the Special Class, set up by former police chief Bunny Colvin. As an experiment, they watch these kids that the system considers to be lost to them as they sit around, fight with each other and the teachers, and eventually start to see correlations between drug dealing and other aspects of life and school. They begin with the basics – teaching these kids manners and how to act in public places – in order to “turn them into” human beings. Both Colvin and Prez learn to reach out to these kids by addressing them on their level. Prez teaches his class about probabilities through games of dice (which Randy uses on the street with a profitable outcome).
There’s hope in this show. So much hope. The politicians hope they can make a difference; the police hope the politicians will follow through on their promises, and that by getting to know the people on the streets, they might be better police and make a difference themselves. The teachers try to make a difference, but because they’re so close to the kids and understand the reality of their situations, they don’t have a rose-coloured view of things. Sure, they’d like to see a handful of these kids rise above their situations and find jobs somewhere other than the corners. Some, like Prez and Colvin, actually do something with one of the kids to help them on a personal level. The kids, more than anyone, are the pessimists. The glass isn’t half empty to them – it’s empty. Why bother going to school? they wonder. A middle-class child who’s never been exposed to the world of The Wire goes to school to learn how to be something when they grow up.
And therein lies the problem: these kids don’t plan on growing up. Most of their friends never lived to see 20, and they all ended up slinging drugs, so why bother going to school? If you only have 16 years on this earth, why waste it sitting in a classroom while some adult teaches you fractions and ways to conjugate verbs? Even if you do somehow manage to get a decent job, you’ll probably be paying off your parents’ drug habits and supporting them, and there’s just no way you’ll ever get ahead.
But then there’s that light again. That hope. Prez shows Dukie there can be another way, and Dukie flourishes in class, becoming a good student. Colvin takes Namond and a few others to a restaurant to show them how the other half live. Randy begins to like being at school.
And then, just like that, it’s gone. By the end of the season, McNulty’s offers of help to Bodie force a bullet into Bodie’s head. Dukie graduates to another school, and knowing his friends won’t be able to help keep him from being beaten up every day, and knowing that he doesn’t have the luxury of the teacher’s lounge showers and lockers, he drops out. Randy, now known as the snitch, becomes Enemy #1 to the kids on the streets, and they firebomb his house. He’s not home, but Miss Anna is, and she nearly dies in the fire. And Michael, the kid who was his little brother’s only real guardian, the kid who refused Marlo’s money, becomes the most ruthless of them all. He orders his stepfather’s execution. He becomes Snoop and Chris’s pupil (and no, while it looked like he was the one who put the bullet in Bodie’s head, it wasn’t actually him). He moves out and starts living the life of a gangster. He allows Dukie to come and live with him, but as Dukie listens to Michael having sex with some girl in the next room, while he tries to reassure Michael’s little brother, he knows he’s caught in a vicious cycle, and will never be happy. The finale ended with Michael becoming a part of Marlo’s gang, Randy going to a foster home where his snitch rep has preceded him, and Dukie – sweet Dukie – standing on a corner, slinging drugs.
Is this possibly the darkest show on television? Maybe. But it’s not the sort of show where you’re sitting there with your head in your hands going “oh GOD, there is no hope… none.” It’s very funny at times. Omar, whom I mentioned in a previous post, continues to be awesome. In his warped Robin Hood ways he steals from the drug dealers, and gives to himself. The police respect him, but when bodies start falling, clamp down on his activities. Bubbles has hit his low point, but there’s only one way to go from there. Could he be rehabilitated? And what about Carcetti; will he be able to make any sort of positive difference? The end of the season saw the reinstitution of the Major Crimes Unit, with McNulty rejoining the group, so that's setting us up for an exciting final season.
And then there’s Namond. Of the four kids, he was the lost cause. His father is a drug dealer, his mother a waste of space, and he had a temper that was out of control. His mom puts him on a corner under Bodie’s watchful eye, but Namond is just a screwup. When faced with any sort of threat, he begins to cry. This is not the fierce man that his dad Wee-Bay was, and his mother knows it. But Namond has something the other kids don’t: Colvin. By the end of the season, Colvin appeals to Wee-Bay to let him save just this one kid, and Wee-Bay gives in. The final scene of the season is Namond sitting on Colvin’s front porch, just on the edge of the West Baltimore corners. Will he find peace, or will season 5 bring him right back to the lifestyle he believed he was destined for?
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now am found But only temporarily.
Mostly, I write about television, and with this being the home of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011, a lot of that television is Joss Whedon-related (when it's not about Lost). Stick around if you love Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Sherlock, Lost, BtVS, Doctor Who, or anything on HBO.
I've published companion guides to Xena, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, and Lost through ECW Press, and my latest book is "Finding Lost — Season Six: The Unofficial Guide." Currently, I love Revenge, Community, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead... actually, pretty much everything on HBO or AMC.
Welcome to the home of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011, where every Tuesday night we convened to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer from season 1 to the end. I was joined by over 25 guest commentators and Buffy scholars who helped me lead you through the watch, offering non-spoilery discussion for the new watchers as well as spoiler-filled discussions for the rewatchers. The entire Rewatch can be found in the archives here, listed by week and contributor. Go here for the full 2011 schedule, and here to see the list of amazing contributors. And be sure to pick up my book, Bite Me, a complete episode by episode guide to the series!
One of my favourite things these days is spotting actors who starred in The Wire now popping up on other shows. I'm about 6 episodes into Heroes (and so far... meh) and two of the best things about it have been Marlo Stanfield as a badass bank robber, and Bubbles creating a vortex with his hand and sending people and things into it when he's upset. Bubs (okay, Andre Royo) gave one of the best performances I've seen on that show all season. I tried to watch 90210 because of Tristan Wilds, but couldn't handle it. The suckage was sadly far too great for my head to take. I loved Amy Ryan on The Office when she played Holly, who was a VERY different character than the one she played on The Wire. But despite enjoying all of these performances, all these characters were secondary to my Wire faves: Omar, Stringer, and Snoop. 
