The Wire is an American television drama series set and produced in and around
Baltimore, Maryland. Created and primarily written by author and former police reporter
David Simon, the series was broadcast by the premium cable network
HBO in the United States.
The Wire premiered on June 2, 2002 and ended on March 9, 2008, comprising sixty
episodes over five seasons.
Each season of The Wire focuses on a different facet of the city of Baltimore. They are, in order: the illegal drug trade, the port system, the city government and bureaucracy, the school system, and the print news media. The large cast consists mainly of character actors who are little known for their other roles. Simon has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is "really about the American city, and about how we live together. It's about how institutions have an effect on individuals. Whether one is a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, all are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution they are committed to."
Despite never seeing a large commercial success or winning major television awards, The Wire has been described by many critics as the greatest television series ever made and one of the most accomplished works of fiction of the 2000s. The show is recognized for its realistic portrayal of urban life, its literary ambitions, and its uncommonly deep exploration of sociopolitical themes.
Production
Conception
, creator of
The Wire]]
Simon has stated that he originally set out to create a police drama loosely based on the experiences of his writing partner
Ed Burns, a former
homicide detective. Burns, when working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using
surveillance technology, had often been frustrated by the bureaucracy of the Baltimore police department; Simon saw similarities with his own ordeals as a police reporter for
The Baltimore Sun.
Simon chose to set the show in Baltimore because of his intimate familiarity with the city. During his time as a writer and producer for the NBC program , based on his book and also set in Baltimore, Simon had come into conflict with NBC network executives who were displeased by the show's pessimism. Simon wanted to avoid a repeat of these conflicts. He chose to take The Wire to HBO because of their existing working relationship from the 2000 miniseries The Corner. Owing to its reputation for exploring new areas, HBO was initially doubtful about including a police drama in its lineup, but eventually agreed to produce the pilot episode. He approached the mayor of Baltimore, telling him that he wanted to give a bleak portrayal of certain aspects of the city; he was welcomed to work there again. Simon hoped that the show would change the opinions of some viewers but said that it was unlikely to have an impact on the issues it portrays. The looks of the cast as a whole have been described as defying TV expectations by presenting a true range of humanity on screen.
The initial cast was assembled through a process of auditions and readings. Lance Reddick received the role of Cedric Daniels after auditioning for several other parts. Michael K. Williams got the part of Omar Little after only a single audition.
Several prominent real-life Baltimore figures, including former Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.; Rev. Frank M. Reid III; former police chief, convicted felon, and radio personality Ed Norris; Virginia Delegate Rob Bell; Howard County Executive Ken Ulman; and former mayor Kurt Schmoke have appeared in minor roles despite not being professional actors. "Little Melvin" Williams, a Baltimore drug lord arrested in the 1980s by an investigation that Ed Burns had been part of, had a recurring role as a deacon beginning in the third season. Jay Landsman, a longtime police officer who inspired the character of the same name, played Lieutenant Dennis Mello. Baltimore police commander Gary D'Addario served as the series technical advisor for the first two seasons and has a recurring role as prosecutor Gary DiPasquale. Simon shadowed D'Addario's shift when researching his book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and both D'Addario and Landsman are subjects of the book.
More than a dozen cast members previously appeared on HBO's first hour long drama, Oz. J. D. Williams, Seth Gilliam, Lance Reddick, and Reg E. Cathey were featured in very prominent roles in Oz, while a number of other notable stars of The Wire, including Wood Harris, Frankie Faison, John Doman, Clarke Peters, Domenick Lombardozzi, Michael Hyatt and Method Man appeared in at least one episode of Oz. Cast members Erik Dellums, Peter Gerety, Clark Johnson, Toni Lewis and Callie Thorne also appeared on Homicide: Life on the Street; Lewis appeared on Oz as well. A number of cast members, as well as crew members, also appeared in the preceding HBO mini-series The Corner including Clarke Peters, Reg E. Cathey, Lance Reddick, Corey Parker Robinson, Robert F. Chew and Delaney Williams.
Crew
Alongside Simon, the show's creator,
head writer,
showrunner and
executive producer, much of the creative team behind
The Wire are alumni of
and
Emmy-winning miniseries
The Corner.
The Corner veteran,
Robert F. Colesberry, was executive producer for the first two seasons and directed the season 2 finale before dying from complications from heart surgery in 2004. He is credited by the rest of the creative team as having a large creative role for a producer, and Simon credits him for achieving the show's realistic visual feel. Colesberry's wife
Karen L. Thorson joined him on the production staff. A third producer on
The Corner,
Nina Kostroff Noble also stayed with the production staff for
The Wire rounding out the initial four-person team.
Stories for the show were often co-written by Ed Burns, a former Baltimore homicide detective and public school teacher who had worked with Simon on other projects including The Corner. Burns also became a producer on The Wire in the show's fourth season. Other writers for The Wire include three acclaimed crime fiction writers from outside of Baltimore: George Pelecanos from Washington, Richard Price from the Bronx and Dennis Lehane from Boston. In addition to writing, Pelecanos served as a producer for the third season. Pelecanos has commented that he was attracted to the project because of the opportunity to work with Simon. Another city native and independent filmmaker, Joy Lusco, also wrote for the show in each of its first three seasons. Baltimore Sun writer and political journalist William F. Zorzi joined the writing staff in the third season and brought a wealth of experience to the show's examination of Baltimore politics. Emmy-award winner, Homicide and The Corner writer and college friend of Simon David Mills also joined the writing staff in the fourth season. who directed several acclaimed episodes of The Shield,
Episode structure
When broadcast on HBO and on some international networks, the episodes are preceded by a recap of events that have a bearing upon the upcoming
narrative, using clips from previous episodes. Each episode begins with a
cold open that seldom contains a dramatic juncture. The screen then fades or cuts to black while the intro music fades in. The show's opening title sequence then plays; a series of shots, mainly close-ups, concerning the show's subject matter that changes from season to season, separated by
fast cutting (a technique rarely used in the show itself). The opening credits are
superimposed on the sequence, and consist only of actors' names without identifying which actors play which roles. In addition, actors' faces are rarely seen in the title sequence. At the end of the sequence, a quotation is shown on-screen that is spoken by a character during the episode. The two exceptions were the
fourth season's finale which uses words written on boarded up vacant homes attributed to "Baltimore, traditional" and the
series finale, which started with a quote from
H. L. Mencken that is shown on a wall at
The Baltimore Sun in one scene, neither quote being spoken by a character. Progressive story arcs often unfold in different locations at the same time. Episodes rarely end with a
cliffhanger, and close with a fade or cut to black with the closing music fading in.
Music
The Wire primarily utilizes
source cues rather than overlaying songs on the soundtrack, or employing a score. Source cues are pieces of music that emanate from an element within the scene, such as a jukebox or car radio. This practice is rarely but occasionally breached, notably for the end of season montages and occasionally with a brief overlap of the closing theme and the final shot.
The opening theme is "Way Down in the Hole", a gospel- and blues-inspired song originally written by Tom Waits for his 1987 album Franks Wild Years. Each season uses a different recording of it against a different opening sequence, with the theme being performed, in order, by The Blind Boys of Alabama, Waits himself, The Neville Brothers, DoMaJe and Steve Earle. Season four's version of "Way Down in the Hole" was arranged and recorded specifically for the show, and is performed by five Baltimore teenagers: Ivan Ashford, Markel Steele, Cameron Brown, Tariq Al-Sabir, and Avery Bargasse. Earle, who performed the fifth season's version, is also a member of the cast, playing the recovering drug addict Walon. The closing theme is "The Fall", composed by Blake Leyh, who is also the show's music supervisor.
During season finales, a song is played before the closing scene in a montage showing the major characters' lives continuing in the aftermath of the narrative. The first season montage is played over "Step by Step" by Jesse Winchester, the second "I Feel Alright" by Steve Earle, the third "Fast Train" written by Van Morrison and performed by Solomon Burke, the fourth "I Walk on Gilded Splinters" written by Dr. John and performed by Paul Weller, and the fifth uses an extended version of "Way Down In The Hole" by the Blind Boys of Alabama, the same version of the song used as the opening theme for the first season. While the songs reflect the mood of the sequence, their lyrics are usually only loosely tied to the visual shots. In the commentary track to episode 37, "Mission Accomplished", executive producer David Simon said: "I hate it when somebody purposely tries to have the lyrics match the visual. It brutalizes the visual in a way to have the lyrics dead on point. ... Yet at the same time it can't be totally off point. It has to glance at what you're trying to say." The former features music from all five seasons of the series and the latter includes local Baltimore artists exclusively. The show often casts non-professional actors in minor roles, distinguishing itself from other television series by showing the "faces and voices of the real city" it depicts. The writing also uses contemporary slang to enhance the immersive viewing experience. The fifth season portrays a working newsroom and has been hailed as the most realistic portrayal of the media in film and television.
In December 2006, The Washington Post carried an article in which local African-American students stated that the show had "hit a nerve" with the black community, and that they themselves knew real-life counterparts of many of the characters. The article expressed great sadness at the toll drugs and violence are taking on the black community.
Institutional dysfunction
Simon has identified the organizations featured in the show — the
Baltimore Police Department, City Hall, the
Baltimore public school system, the
Barksdale drug trafficking operation,
The Baltimore Sun, and the
stevedores' union — as comparable institutions. All are dysfunctional in some way, and the characters are typically betrayed by the institutions that they accept in their lives. Simon has discussed the use of camera shots of surveillance equipment, or shots that appear to be taken from the equipment itself, to emphasize the volume of surveillance in modern life and the characters' need to sift through this information. describing each episode as a chapter, and has also commented that this allows a fuller exploration of the show's themes in time not spent on plot development. This is portrayed by Major Colvin, imparting to Carver his view that policing has been allowed to become a war and thus will never succeed in its aims.
Writer Ed Burns, who worked as a public school teacher after retiring from the Baltimore police force shortly before going to work with Simon, has called education the theme of the fourth season. Rather than focusing solely on the school system, the fourth season looks at schools as a porous part of the community that are affected by problems outside of their boundaries. Burns states that education comes from many sources other than schools and that children can be educated by other means, including contact with the drug dealers they work for. Burns and Simon see the theme as an opportunity to explore how individuals end up like the show's criminal characters, and to dramatize the notion that hard work is not always justly rewarded.
Cast and characters
The Wire employs a broad ensemble cast, supplemented by many recurring guest stars who populate the institutions featured in the show. The majority of the cast is African American, which accurately reflects the
demographics of Baltimore. However, this is a rarity in American television drama. On February 3, 2008, with the airing of its 55th episode,
The Wire became the second-longest running dramatic series with a predominantly African-American cast in the history of American prime-time television. Only
Soul Food has aired more episodes.
The show's creators are also willing to kill off major characters, so that viewers cannot assume that a given character will survive simply because of a starring role or popularity among fans. In response to a question on why a certain character had to die, David Simon said,
We are not selling hope, or audience gratification, or cheap victories with this show. The Wire is making an argument about what institutions—bureaucracies, criminal enterprises, the cultures of addiction, raw capitalism even—do to individuals. It is not designed purely as an entertainment. It is, I'm afraid, a somewhat angry show.
Principal cast
The major characters of the
first season were divided between those on the side of the law and those involved in drug-related crime. The investigating detail was launched by the actions of Detective
Jimmy McNulty (
Dominic West), whose insubordinate tendencies and personal problems played counterpoint to his ability. The detail was led by Lieutenant
Cedric Daniels (
Lance Reddick) who faced challenges balancing his career aspirations with his desire to produce a good case.
Kima Greggs (
Sonja Sohn) was a capable lead detective who faced jealousy from colleagues and worry about the dangers of her job from her domestic partner. Her investigative work was greatly helped by her
criminal informant, a drug addict known as
Bubbles (
Andre Royo). Like Greggs, partners
Thomas "Herc" Hauk (
Domenick Lombardozzi) and
Ellis Carver (
Seth Gilliam) were reassigned to the detail from the narcotics unit. The duo's initially violent nature was eventually subdued as they proved useful in grunt work, and sometimes served as
comic relief for the audience. The show depicts the newspaper
The Baltimore Sun, and in fact elements of the plot are taken from accounts of real-life events (such as the
Jayson Blair NY Times scandal) and people at the
Sun. The season, according to
David Simon, deals with "what stories get told and what don't and why it is that things stay the same." some even calling it superior to HBO's better-known "
flagship" drama series such as
The Sopranos and
Six Feet Under. One reviewer felt that the show was partially a retread of themes from HBO and
David Simon's earlier works but still valuable viewing and described the series as particularly resonant because it parallels the war on terror through the chronicling of the war on drugs. Another review postulated that the series might suffer because of its reliance on profanity and slowly drawn-out plot, but was largely positive about the show's characters and intrigue. Critics felt the show was testing the attention span of its audience and felt that it was mistimed in the wake of the launch of the successful crime drama
The Shield on
FX.
The Guardian described the second season as even more powerful than the first and praised it for deconstructing the show's central foundations with a willingness to explore new areas. One reviewer with the Boston Phoenix felt that the subculture of the docks was not as absorbing as that of the housing projects. However, the review continued to praise the writers for creating a realistic world and populating it with an array of interesting characters.
The critical response to the third season remained positive. Entertainment Weekly named The Wire the best show of 2004, describing it as "the smartest, deepest and most resonant drama on TV." They credited the complexity of the show for its poor ratings. The Baltimore City Paper was so concerned that the show might be cancelled that it published a list of ten reasons to keep it on the air, including strong characterization, Omar Little, an unabashedly honest representation of real world problems, and its unique status as "broadcast literature." It also worried that the loss of the show would have a negative impact on Baltimore's economy.
At the close of the third season, The Wire still struggled to maintain its ratings and the show faced possible cancellation. Creator David Simon blamed the show's low ratings in part on its competition against Desperate Housewives and worried that expectations for HBO dramas had changed following the success of The Sopranos.
As the fourth season was poised to begin, almost two years after the previous season's end, Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that The Wire "has tackled the drug war in this country as it simultaneously explores race, poverty and 'the death of the American working class,' the failure of political systems to help the people they serve and the tyranny of lost hope. Few series in the history of television have explored the plight of inner-city African Americans and none—not one—has done it as well." The New York Times called the fourth season of The Wire "its best season yet." Doug Elfman of the Chicago Sun-Times was more reserved in his praise, calling it the "most ambitious" show on television, but faulting it for its complexity and the slow development of the plotline. The Los Angeles Times took the rare step of devoting an editorial to the show, stating that "even in what is generally acknowledged to be something of a golden era for thoughtful and entertaining dramas—both on cable channels and on network TV—The Wire stands out." TIME magazine especially praised the fourth season, stating that "no other TV show has ever loved a city so well, damned it so passionately, or sung it so searingly." Entertainment Weekly, Slate, the Philadelphia Daily News and the British newspaper The Guardian also collected in a book, The Wire Re-up. Charlie Brooker, a columnist for The Guardian, has been particularly copious in his praise of the show, in both his column "Screen Burn" and his BBC Four television series Screenwipe, in which he often speaks highly of it, calling it possibly the greatest show of the last 20 years.
'The Wire Files', an online collection of articles published in darkmatter Journal critically analyzes The Wire's racialized politics and aesthetics of representation. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "The deft writing—which used the cop-genre format to give shape to creator David Simon's scathing social critiques—was matched by one of the deepest benches of acting talent in TV history."
President of the United States Barack Obama has said that The Wire is his favorite television series.
Awards
Academia
In the years following the end of the series' run, several colleges and universities such as
Johns Hopkins,
Tufts,
Bates,
Duke and
UC Berkeley have begun offering classes on
The Wire in disciplines ranging from
law to
sociology to
film studies. In an article published in
The Washington Post, Anmol Chaddha and
William Julius Wilson explain why
Harvard has chosen
The Wire as curriculum material for their course on urban inequality, "Though scholars know that deindustrialization, crime and prison, and the education system are deeply intertwined, they must often give focused attention to just one subject in relative isolation, at the expense of others. With the freedom of artistic expression, "The Wire" can be more creative. It can weave together the range of forces that shape the lives of the urban poor."
University of York's Head of Sociology, Roger Burrows, said in the
The Independent that the show "makes a fantastic contribution to their understanding of contemporary urbanism", and is "a contrast to dry, dull, hugely expensive studies that people carry out on the same issues".
Broadcasters
HBO aired the five seasons of the show in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2008, respectively. New episodes were shown once a week, occasionally skipping one or two weeks in favor of other programming. Starting with the fourth season, subscribers to the HBO
On Demand service were able to see each episode of the season six days earlier. American basic cable network
BET also airs the show. BET adds commercial breaks, blurs some nudity, and
mutes some profanity. Much of the waterfront storyline from the second season is edited out from the BET broadcasts.
On April 13, 2010, American cable provider DirecTV announced that it would air all five seasons of The Wire in high-definition beginning July 18, 2010. This would be the first time the show has ever been shown in high-definition format. Although controversially it was broadcast at 23:20 and had no BBC iPlayer catchup available. In a world first, British newspaper The Guardian made the first episode of the first season available to stream on its website for a brief period. In Ireland, all episodes were aired on public service channel TG4 approximately 6 months after the original air dates on HBO. Season 1 was aired on 3e in late 2008 but there are no plans to show any further seasons. In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has purchased the rights to show the entire series on its digital station, ABC2. It commenced screening on September 1, 2009. In France it airs under the title Sur écoute ("wiretapped") on the pay channel Jimmy. The Polish channel TVN shows the series under the name Prawo ulicy ("law of the street").
The Swedish public service network SVT has shown the first four seasons of the series. In Norway, NRK aired the first season of the show in the autumn of 2007. In Israel, the show is broadcast on the Xtra Hot channel, under the name HaSmuya (הסמויה – The Covert Unit). The show airs in Canada on The Movie Network and Movie Central. In Finland the series is shown on Subtv and MTV3 channels under the name Langalla ("On the wire"). The show has been broadcast in Hungary on Duna TV since March 2007 under the name Drót ("Wire"). Since September 2008 the series is broadcast in Germany (Foxchannel, Pay-TV) under its original name, but dubbed into German. The show is also broadcast in Asia on Cinemax since May 2009. In the Netherlands and Belgium the show has started its first run on June 1, 2009 on the NBC Universal cable channel 13th Street. In the Middle East, MBC Max airs the show routinely.
DVD releases
The DVD sets have been favorably received, though some critics have faulted them for a lack of special features.
References
External links
Gang and Drug-Related Homicide: Baltimore's Successful Enforcement Strategy — Ed Burns discusses some of the investigations and individuals which inspired The Wire.
The New Yorker Profiles David Simon — A long profile article about David Simon with info about season five as well as his next project.
A collection of interviews with Wire cast members — Interviews include Michael K. Williams, Lance Reddick, Robert Wisdom, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and more.
Play or Get Played — Exclusive interviews with David Simon and cast members.
Reason Magazine Interview with Ed Burns — The Wire co-creator talks about how Baltimore inspires and informs The Wire, and opinions on the "War on Drugs" from his and other co-creators experiences.
Ten Thousand Bullets — An interview with George Pelecanos.
George Pelecanos on The Wire and D.C. pulp fiction — A supplement to "Ten Thousand Bullets."
The Wire Files – darkmatter Journal Special Issue – A collection of articles critically examining the politics of race of The Wire.
The Faroe Islands Podcast — A podcast featuring an interview with Chad Coleman.
The Wire re-up — An episode-by-episode review of the series by guardian.co.uk writers.
"The Rhetoric of The Wire" Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, No.1, 2010
Category:2000s American television series
Category:2002 American television series debuts
Category:2008 American television series endings
Category:American drama television series
Category:Fictional portrayals of the Baltimore Police Department
Category:Black television drama series
Category:Culture of Baltimore, Maryland
Category:Crime television series
Category:English-language television series
Category:HBO network shows
Category:Peabody Award winners
Category:Television shows set in Maryland
Category:Political television series
Category:Serial drama television series
Category:African-American culture
![The Wire - Farewell to Baltimore (Season 5 Ending Montage) [HQ]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110524053649im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MT-7LCRpPVQ/0.jpg "The Wire - Farewell to Baltimore (Season 5 Ending Montage) [HQ]")
![Indicator for a wire switch[4]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110524053649im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/aa/6e/87cc97b35fdea29ad0ae02250665_grande.jpg "Indicator for a wire switch[4]")
![Indicator for a wire switch[4]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110524053649im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/aa/6e/87cc97b35fdea29ad0ae02250665_thumb.jpg "Indicator for a wire switch[4]")
