Why The Wire Is Bad For Television

I am addicted to a television show. Not just any television show, but a show that not many people watch, even fewer have heard of, and those that have, are simply underwhelmed by its promotional material or too apprehensive to take the show on. The show I am talking about is HBO's The Wire.

The Wire is a Baltimore-based crime drama that follows the stories of all participants in America's War on Drugs. From the top level street dealers to the mayors office down to the strung-out street junkies, the writers of the show hold nothing back in what at times seems more like a documentary than it does a piece fictional work of art. And let me state that last word again, art, because that is what this show is: a piece of artwork framed in the city landscape that is the modern urban environment.

For four seasons now, every Sunday night (and numerous re-watches during the week) at 9 or 10 p.m. I am transfixed to my television as I tune out the rest of the world. Don’t dare speak, call, burp, cough, snore, laugh, shift around, or ask questions while The Wire is on. Even with the pause and rewind options of today's service providers, I need to see it go down as it was meant to go down. The Wire isn't a group of hit singles, it's an album best listened to in it's entirety. In other words, you won't get the show if you only catch one episode. You might get a glimpse of its appeal, but you can’t truly appreciate the arcs of the story line or development of its characters unless you view entire seasons in a short time span.

The Wire is a challenging show to watch. It does not contain any quick fixes or high paced action sequences. Things don't get worked out in 40 minutes like that other classic crime drama on TV. The cops aren't always the good guys (nothing new there) and the bad guys aren't always without morals (nothing new there either). But what The Wire does so amazingly compared to other television crime shows is its broad range of focus on all of the characters involved within the context of a story line. There are no throwaway lines or even characters. The Chief of Police gets just as much camera time as do the detectives working the case, the street junkies shooting the junk, and the dealers running the game. The Wire shows you the drug "game" from all sides of the field and never lets you feel as if its rooting for one team or the other

So why is this show bad for television? Besides the fact that near ever TV critic in the country proclaimed season four "one of the finest pieces of television ever created," the show still has, at best, a loyal cult following. I don't have numbers, but I would imagine there are quite a few more people watching this show on the East Coast and near major urban centers such as Chicago, LA, and Detroit, than there are watching in Deadwood, South Dakota (another incredibly written HBO show in itself). This is bad for television because it is shows such as The Wire that can really open the eyes of Americans that might not live near a major city or know much about the problems with crime and drugs that persist in most, if not all of them.

But the real reason The Wire is bad for television is because it makes every other show on television look bad because of its obvious superiority in writing and acting. I see shows like Lost (which I do enjoy sans the current X-File mess it has gotten itself into), Desperate Housewives, Greys Anatomy, and more recently, Heroes, getting most of the golden globe and emmy hype. And while they are probably deserving of some of these awards, how can someone like me not look at the lack of nods from these groups to The Wire as just blatant ignorance or avoidance? Is The Wire "too real" for them? Is it too "gritty"? I really hope it's not because 80% of the cast is African-American or that "white America" does not have the time to figure out slang terms such as "re up" and "hopper."

The American Television Watching Public is obsessed with high drama, hot actors, and happy endings. And while some of the ladies adore McNulty and Stringer, the show has very little sex or sex appeal to it. There are no made up happy endings, just endings that are realistic to the storylines and characters themselves. There is no glorification of being a crime lord, just as there is no hero worshipping of the men in blue. There are good cops and bad ones on the show just as there are good dealers that you root for and those that you despise. The show is not scared to kill off its main characters—but unlike other network television shows—it is seldom done with excessive build ups or western style shoot outs. Characters die like they would in real life. And for this, The Wire is rewarded with having to essentially beg its way into a fourth (and amazing) season, and very little viewership.

But while The Wire is bad for television because it is leaps and bounds above its peers in almost every category, it is good for something: my faith in the American Television Watching Public. Just as I get excited knowing that such anti-pop-and-fame bands such as TOOL and Radiohead sell millions of records with no hit singles, it gives me great hope knowing that there are a few million peeps out there watching this show and feeling the same way that I do. Maybe it's best that The Wire doesn't reach mainstream popularity. Maybe that is what makes it so special, that the show feels like its "ours" and rewards its viewers with amazing and intellectually challenging storylines and characters. Not sure I'm ready to see Prop Joe on the cover of People and my mom whistling "Farmer in The Dell."