1. "Goodbye to Cynicism": On the eve of its final episode, Culture Snob delves into The Wire. Related: Matthew Yglesias' commentary in The Atlantic.
["For all its strengths — and the claims of some that it’s the best thing ever broadcast on American television — The Wire is far from perfect. It is conceptually awkward, in the sense that the expansion of the narrative and sociological scope has rarely felt natural. Season two’s labor-union plot remains an entertaining but incongruous trifle and is perhaps best seen as a preemptive response to inevitable charges of racism. (See, here are some dumb-ass white folks that make these drug dealers look damned smart.) The deus ex machina that drove Prez — and consequently the show — into the schools wouldn’t have leaped out on a lesser series, but on The Wire it’s a sore thumb. And Simon and company didn’t even bother in season five with an elegant segue into the media; the reporters and editors just show up independent of existing storylines. They’re minor complaints, but significant because they suggest a lack of rigor in the show’s architecture. Outside of being about Baltimore’s inner city, the show has no consistent focus. It expands and contracts with its creator’s wandering aim, and as a result it’s more than a touch messy."]
2. "Announcement From The Founders": The creators of Television Without Pity bid a fond farewell.
["It is with no small amount of sadness that we make this announcement, but...here it is: the TWoP founders are leaving the site. Our last day will be March 11, 2008. We really can't express how much we've enjoyed working here with, and for, all of you over the years, and how much we've always appreciated your encouragement and support. Television Without Pity is what it is because of its fantastic users, and you guys kept us going through some tough times (emotionally as well as fiscally). You've made the job fun -- and crazy, but, you know, in a fun way."]
3. "Hell's Kitchen": House contributor Lauren Wissot reviews Frownland.
["Would Frownland have garnered those SXSW and Gotham accolades if it were shot on video? I can’t see how since its nostalgic look, and believable acting by the cast of nonprofessionals, is its only allure. What’s missing is the story. Keith Sontag drifts aimlessly from his dead end job to his dead end life, sputtering and stuttering and pretty much driving everyone he encounters crazy. That’s about it. That Dore Mann is so fascinating – and not the least bit annoying – to watch in this otherwise boring film is a testament to his own calibration of character and natural talent (much like Marion Cotillard in the underwhelming La Vie En Rose)."]
4. "Hollywood Values: The Sympathetic Child Molester": From the conservative site Libertas; with a withering rebuttal at Cinematical.
["I heard Dennis Prager once say that if liberals hated terrorists as much as they do cigarette smokers the world would be a much better place. I would add that you could say the same for child molesters and drug dealers."]
5. "Downside of Obama Strategy": From the Washington Post. Related: "Obama adviser quits campaign over comments".
["If Obama becomes the Democratic nominee but cannot win support from working-class whites and Hispanics, they argue, then Democrats will not retake the White House in November. "If you can't win in the Southwest, if you don't win Ohio, if you don't win Pennsylvania, you've got problems in November," said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a Clinton supporter."]
Quote of the Day: Henry Miller
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): The thought-to-be-extinct Beck's petrel, not seen for 80 years, and the subject of the MSNBC article "Elusive bird spotted near Papua New Guinea".
Clip of the Day: Tired of those boring white urinals?
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Links for the Day (March 8th, 2008)
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13 comments:
Appreciate the link, Keith – and love the Quote of the Day from my man Henry Miller. Last night I decided I would finish reading “Tropic of Capricorn” once and for all:
“The Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western had been electrified, the Seaboard Air Line had been electrified, but the soul of man was still in the covered wagon stage.”
(And the Clip of the Day is fabulous! I think I’ve just found my housewarming gift for Fire Island this summer.)
Another good David Simon interview at TV Barn.
Culture snob does make some valid points, especially in regards to season 5. I don't think though that the introductions of the new "institutions" are abrupt. Each season (save for perhaps the last one) builds up slowly and lets us get a feel of all the characters before delving into the heavy stuff.
I should also add that the duck incident was real. More info about the guy who Ziggy was based on can be found in the book "The Wire: Truth Be Told". Omar's jump was also based on reality, though obviously something like the fake serial killer and Hamsterdam weren't.
There's a whole strain of thought among certain "Wire" fans that holds that Season One was the purest and best season, and all subsequent seasons were attempts to graft significance and explicit statements onto a cops-and-robbers series that was already making socially significant observations anyway.
I don't agree with this -- it seems to me a variation on the "Dylan was better before he went electric" argument -- but I'm throwing it out there for what it's worth.
IMHO, The Wire has improved with each season.
To me this is because each season has added a new layer to the the city and you are able to take everything you learned from the previous seasons and apply going forward.
SJ also brought up some great points, I don't think very many of the people who have been critical of S5 or S2 have done very much research at all.
Prez's arc was very interestingly handled -- often very subtle and mostly offscreen, but I think it's there. Was the shot cop really a deus ex machina? Consider:
In his first appearance, when he blinds the 14-year old kid, Prez tells him, "Move, shitbird." Prez's next outburst is at the end of Season 2, when he punches Valchek -- right before he gets punched, Valchek says to Prez: "Move, shitbird!" (Credit where it's due, I think I first read this on TWOP.)
Prez belongs indoors. He's a stupid fuckup outdoors. When Valchek gets clocked, he's trying to pull Prez off the detail and put him back outdoors -- and he uses that same language that Prez used last time he was outdoors, when Prez did something horrible.
So the next time he ends up in an outdoors situation, he accidentally shoots a cop. Sure, it's chance (he reads a fortune cookie right before it happens). But it's not as simple as "he randomly accidentally shot a cop and decided he'd rather be a teacher" -- the groundwork was there.
Plus, Prez doesn't decide to be a teacher just because he killed a cop. He's doing penance for that kid from the first season. (It's really something to watch him blind that kid in Episode 1.2 now that we've seen him teaching kids of the same age.)
Anyway, "Culture Snob" makes some interesting points, but if he really thinks season 2 "is perhaps best seen as a preemptive response to inevitable charges of racism," then I don't think he understands the show or its creators at all.
I think this season's newsroom scenes have included some very awkward moments, but other than that, I think The Wire has been about as close to perfect as TV drama can get. I think I might need to buy the DVDs, which I don't often do.
I sometimes get the feeling I'm the only person in the world who thinks Season Two of The Wire was terrific. (Only the plot hole in the penultimate episode kept it from being perfect.)
Superb post, Algernon. I always thought Prez's character arc was handled brilliantly.
I've never seen a piece of aesthetic criticism from Matt Yglesias that was worth the coffee I spit out at its stupidity. His claim about Season Two alone is enough to discount everything he's ever written about television, full stop. His dad's a screenwriter - further proof that knowledge of storytelling isn't passed on genetically.
Christ.
hng -
I'm with you. Season Two was deeper than Season One, and the Sobotka story moved in the direction of grand tragedy (a la the fall of Stringer Bell) while sacrificing none of the show's specificity. Seasons 1 and 3 come in for a lot of praise in part because they're the most easily understood - and as the show is in part a running critique of the simplemindedness of the narratives to which we cling (cf. also The Sopranos), don't think Simon doesn't know that.
Viewers hate change; check out the fan reactions to Buffy's marvelous, complex sixth season for a parallel example. The show changed networks and exchanged its supernatural villains for a trio of small-minded local nerds; fans went into an uproar. The joke was (very literally) on them. The anti-S5 backlash among Wire fans is partly that: the show's changes in tone and velocity make viewers uncomfortable.
I've found the newsroom material thin this year - incomplete. Given the production circumstances that's no surprise.
Aah, hell with it. On to the finale thread.
After re-watching Season 2 on DVD, I think it's the best one (I've still got to re-watch Season 4 so my final verdict could change). But its a GREAT story.
I'm interested to know what HNG is referring to in the Season 2 penultimate plot-hole.
j-rod,
In the second-to-last episode, when Frank walks into the MCU to turn state's evidence, Pearlman tells him to go away and come back tomorrow with a lawyer. Daniels just sits there looking bland and blank.
What? Really? The guy you've been investigating for months comes in and offers to spill the beans about a major international criminal conspiracy, a career-making case, and Pearlman doesn't sit him down, give him a cup of coffee and get his lawyer--or any lawyer--down there PRONTO? What if Frank changed his mind...or, God forbid, something happened to him (which it did, of course)? There goes your career-making case.
And Daniels was still haunted by losing another key witness (Wallace) only a year earlier. He's okay with Pearlman telling Frank to go home and come back later?
Now if Pearlman and Daniels had been portrayed as another Herc and Carver, maybe I'd buy it. But they both had been portrayed as highly competent professionals. This bizarre lapse in judgment just seemed so out of character for them.
And I found it hard to believe that Frank could visit Ziggy in jail and stop by the MCU and never once learn that Ziggy had already confessed to killing Glekas. Before the MCU sent him packing, you'd think Lester and/or Bunk would let Frank know that the case against Ziggy was air-tight, complete with Ziggy's signed confession and Ziggy's purchase receipt for the murder weapon--just to let Frank know he had no choice but to co-operate with the police if he wanted to save Ziggy.
But the writers had painted themselves into a corner and needed to get to that tragic ending, so they fudged a little and had several major characters suddenly become uncharacteristically sloppy and stupid.
It's the only lapse in an otherwise brilliant season.
Gotcha. I was afraid there was some major hole that I'd missed. You're right though; I thought it was strange that the cops so often get people talking without a lawyer, so why didn't they do the same with Sobotka. Even getting a statement that could be verified later, etc. I also agree that it was acceptable and made for good story telling.
Thanks for replying; I was afraid that you'd never revisit the comments and I'd wonder forever what I was missing. :-)
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