Sheeeeeeit!
The Emmy Panel are a bunch of assholes. Why? The best, most innovative, show on television, EVER, was shut out of the “best drama” category. What show? The Wire. HBO’s critically acclaimed crime drama just wrapped up its fifth and final season and many fans, like myself, and many critics, including Salon.com, The Washington Post, The New York Times, LA Weekly, The New York Post, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, The San Francisco Chronicle, among many others, thought this show is the best that TV can produce:
· Entertainment Weekly - Gillian Flyn - “The best series on TV, period.” [15 Sep 2006, p.63]
· New York Post - Adam Buckman - “One of the finest TV shows ever made.”
· Philadelphia Daily News - Ellen Gray -“The best show on television.”
· Chicago Tribune - Maureen Ryan - “If you have only one hour a week for television, give it to “The Wire.””
· San Francisco Chronicle - Tim Goodman - “The breadth and ambition of “The Wire” are unrivaled and that taken cumulatively over the course of a season — any season — it’s an astonishing display of writing, acting and storytelling that must be considered alongside the best literature and filmmaking in the modern era.”
Fans and critics have been upset for years over the snubs The Wire received. I thought it would get recognized this year in the same way that The Lord of the Rings movies were recognized; The Return of the King earned “Best Picture” for the whole trilogy.
Why the snub? Maybe Emmy voters can’t relate to the urban decay The Wire brilliantly portrayed. Maybe they can’t relate to deterioration of urban schools, the never ending crime, and the overall feeling that we’re all fighting a losing battle when it comes to American city life. The Emmy voters obviously can’t relate to the inner city experience.
The Wire took the average police drama and gave it life. They gave it soul. The show told a story. The story of the city of Baltimore, and in a way, all cities. In the five seasons it aired, the show examined bureaucracy in the police, city hall, the inner-city school system, the media, hell; it even examined the bureaucracy in street gangs. And the show connected it all, because it IS “ALL CONNECTED!” The Wire brought you inside the world of overworked homicide detectives in a broke police department; of a drug kingpin protecting his assets; of a street junkie trying to get his next fix, and then trying to get clean; and of inner city school children dealing with a world that, while mostly unrelatable to suburban viewers, absolutely exists. It shows what is happening right now, in Baltimore, in Rochester, and in cities across the US.
The Wire also gave us one of the best characters of all-time, Omar Little, a gay, fearless, drug-dealer robbing stick-up man who lived by his own code. Here is a clip of Omar being stuck-up himself as he deals with a guy looking for information.
The Wire’s catchprase:
July 21st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Agreed 200% The Wire will hold itself for a long time as the best of it’s genre. It was a little bit of everything, because it showed a real portion of the world that not a lot of people will ever experience or understand. Gansta-politicians, roughneck-cops. Good cops working inside a broken system and kids with half a chance lost because there is no way to help them. Modern Ethics, embodied in Omar, ” I ain’t done nobody who ain’t in the game.” McNulty, “I think I can stay out of my own way this time.” Bunk, “You got to be real police to understand.” It’s all connected and The Wire broke it down over 5 years. Awesome show and the Emmy snub is nothing but true proof of it’s greatness.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
My favorite quote was from Omar when he stuck up the poker game with Marlo: “Money ain’t got no owners, only spenders”