And the prize for the Worst Character goes to...

In a universe populated by gangs, drug barons, murderous cops and corrupt politicians, it is perhaps strange that the character I hate the most in The Shield is a nurse!

But it is true. The character that aggrieves me the most is Vic’s estranged wife, Corrine, an emergency room nurse. It isn’t so much that she is a despicable person, but that this is the worst written part in direly written show (a show that I’m still watching though).

If there is ever a scene in the hospital, you can guarantee that Corrine will be the nurse on duty. This is a mother of three children, yet she is always on duty whatever the emergency. Is Farmington’s hospital so bad that they can only employ one nurse?

This is what separates The Shield from something like The Wire. The Wire across its 5 seasons must have close to a hundred characters and even small parts are fully formed. The Shield may have a high body count, but beyond that it doesn’t seem to pay for extras and every plot involves the same few characters. So if there is any nursing to be done, Corrine Mackay is going to do it.

Last night though her character annoyed me beyond the omnipresent nursing. Last night she had a dream. It was a dream about Lem and burgers. She gathered together the Strike Team (her estranged hardman husband and two hardmen cops) to tell them about her dream. It was supposed to be symbolic, but it was the symbolism of the worst teenage poetry.

They would have been justified to have laughed in her face. I would have. In fact I did. Another night of laughing at The Shield (except for the bit were someone was whipped with chains - nobody laughed at that.)

Obama loves The Wire

The final series of The Wire is starting in the UK, but we have already seen it on DVD obtained over the internet. I'm envious of people who still haven't finished watching it and whilst there is still joy to be had from re-watching it, nothing beats that first thrill of discovery.

As part of a feature on The Wire in the London Paper yesterday, they had a quote from Barack Obama, as The Wire is apparently his favourite television show. The quote was about his favourite character being Omar Little, the gay stick-up artist.

That’s not an endorsement. He’s not my favorite person, but he’s a fascinating
character

I can't imagine David Cameron watching The Wire, although I could imagine him claiming to watch Hollyoaks or Skins to appear to be "down with the kids".

I found this interesting feature about it here.

Song of the Week: Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris "Streets of Baltimore"

Since I've watched nothing but Homicide and The Wire this week, it seems only fitting that I pick a Baltimore song.

It isn't anything to do with detectives, but like The Wire and Homicide Life on the Streets, it is about the streets of Baltimore.

And its by Gram Parsons, the acceptable face of country music, the grandfather of alt-country, the pioneer of country/rock fusions etc etc etc. Actually the older I get the more country music I like, but Gram Parsons was one of the first country-ish artists that I liked.

Theories on The Wire Part 3

There are plenty of theories as to why The Wire hasn't been more popular - white audiences struggle with a mainly black cast (it doesn't bother me), in the UK it was tucked away on a channel no one watches, and audiences are too stupid. My own take on this is:



The Wire is not suited to television. It is the first ever DVD series



It isn't so much that audiences are too thick to understand the show. It really just doesn't work very well being viewed episode at a time once a week. There are too many characters to remember viewed like that. It needs to be watched a few episodes at a time at least. This makes it ideally suited to the DVD format.



I preferred watching The Sopranos on DVD too, but if there was no choice, you could still watch it on a weekly basis without losing too much. But not The Wire. You need to spend time with it, absorbing it to fully appreciate it. You also can't miss an episode. Its predecessor, Homicde, you could watch like a regular cop show, dipping into it occasionally, but this is where The Wire was a marked departure.



It has to be watched on DVD. But we haven't reached the stage yet where series are released straight onto DVD. Poor films often go straight there, but that is out of necessity, not choice. Series need to be shown on television first, even if that isn't the right place for them, so hopefully the show will gain more popularity now in its rightful format.

Theories on The Wire Part 2

Despite my notion that Bunny Colin does the most good, he is not the hero of The Wire, which brings me onto theory number 2.

Detective Carver is the real hero of The Wire

As much as such an ensemble show can have a main character, this was probably McNulty. But as the series go on McNulty becomes less and less likeable and in the final season something is even said about realising that you aren't the hero.

For me, a real hero is someone who goes on a journey, who develops and learns. McNulty doesn't do this. He doesn't really change. It may look as if he has matured at one point in his relationship with Beadie, but this doesn't last. Colvin isn't in the show enough to be the hero. Instead I think that is Carver.

When the show starts, he is inept, indistinguishable from his partner Herc. Then it is revealed that he has been a spy for the management in return for career progression, but he realises he was wrong. In the third season, he learns about community policing. By the end of the whole show, he has progressed up the ladder, but is responsible, has a strong sense of what is right. He has grown and is, for me, the unsung hero.

Theories on The Wire, Part 1

Having now watched all five series of The Wire, I've been reflecting upon it and thought I would share some thoughts here.

My first theory is this:

Bunny Colvin has had the most positive impact

Drug dealers may have been locked up, murders may have been solved, but at the end of the show, the cycle is shown as continuing. One addict may recover, but there is always someone else succombing to it. And where one drug lord is dethroned, there is always another one coming up behind to take over. The war on drugs has not been won.

I therefore contend that perhaps the only person who has done any real lasting good is Bunny Colvin.

This has nothing to do with his career in the police force or his radical approach to drug crime. It is because he took Namond Brice from the street corner, gave him a stable home and education. This is one true success of the whole show. Its only a small thing in the grand scheme of things but the life of one young man has been saved. None of the police can lay claim to having done that - things ended badly for all of the kids they tried to help (D'Angelo, Wallace, Randy, Bodie)

Glossary of Terms: Red Ball

Definition: A high profile case that needs as much resources as possible thrown at it
Usage: Homicide, The Wire

Game Over

I returned from San Francisco on Friday. I’m sorry to report that I failed to solve the Zodiac killer mystery. Actually, I was having far too good a time to remember to investigate and I went pretty much a whole week without any detectives. (I did doze through a Law & Order).

When we returned, there was a DVD of the fifth season of The Wire waiting for us, which made post-holiday blues a bit easier to deal with. Until of course, it was replaced by the post-The Wire blues, which are especially hard since this was the final ever season.

The fifth season was good one. I won’t go into too much detail as it hasn’t been shown in the UK yet, but it was as good as previous series. The plot mainly revolves around an audacious plan by McNulty and Freamon that could only end in disaster. A new layer was added with the addition of the press to the already complex story.

But now it is all over. In a way I’m glad it has ended while it was still brilliant, but I doubt we’ll see anything as good as that again for some time. The final session worked well in tying up some loose ends (nearly all of the main characters across all previous seasons at least had cameos here) but of course it wasn’t a neat happy ending because these things continue, “because the game is always the game”.

Vision of Things to Come: Homicide and The Wire

The last episodes of the fourth season of Homicide Life on the Street were marvellous In fact the whole season was sublime. (Actually its been sold as the fourth season in the UK but in the US for some reason it was 5th season).

What struck me most about this season of Homicide, you could almost see the seeds of the ideas forming that were to evolve into The Wire. The on-going plot with drug-dealer Luther Mahoney is very much a taste of what is to come with The Wire. As he corner him in the season finale, Lewis says he can live with the drug dealing, but not the killing – similar sentiments are expressed by D’Angelo in The Wire.

The other thing that developed further in this series was the character of Mike Kellerman. While Munch will always be my idol, I have a slight crush on Kellerman. Looks-wise he’s not my usual type (too blonde, too boy-next-door looking and I’ve not forgotten the jeans with smart jacket crime), but he’s developed in this series. Actually, he has crumbled mentally (at least twice) and embarked on a doomed, drink-fuelled relationship, but he has come a fully formed character and looked quite cute while doing it! In fact, he may well be a precursor to The Wire's McNulty.

I was disappointed that we got to the end of it so quickly and I may have to go back to re-watch it soon. I have to wait until May for the next instalment but I’m also concerned that we are running out of Homicides to watch. It feels like sacrilege to say it, but I’m actually starting to think that Homicide might be inching ahead of The Wire to become my all time favourite show. Just a couple more seasons left, plus just one more season of The Wire. What will we do afterwards? A huge hole will be left in my viewing as nothing else is as good.

Style File: Baltimore Homicide Police

A new detective, Kellerman, joins the Homicide division from the Arson unit at the start of Homicide Life on the Street. He seems a natural for the job, but Giardello reprimands him for wearing jeans. ‘Homicide police do not wear jeans. We were slacks, chinos, not jeans’ he chided.

I was pleased Giardello pulled him up on this, because earlier in the episode I had commented to the OH that the new guy was dressed in a way I hate – smart jacket, shirt, tie and jeans. I suppose it is a very literal interpretation of ‘smart casual’ but I hate it. If you’ve gone to the effort of putting on a tie, is it really too much to put on proper trousers?

I hadn’t really paid much attention to the detective’s dress sense up until this episode and with over 200 murders a year, I doubt its high on their list of priorities, but it did remind me of one of my favourite lines from The Wire which also involved the homicide division of Baltimore’s finest. Beatrice Russell has joined the unit for one case which means she doesn’t have to wear uniform and the slug-like Sgt Jay Landsman offers the following sartorial advice and critique of the other officers clothing.

“For you I would suggest some pantsuits, perhaps muted in color, something to offset Detective Moreland's pinstripe lawyerly affectations and the brash tweedy impertinence of Detective Freamon.”

Detective Bunk Moreland’s besuited lawyer look is a good one – miles preferable to his off-duty outfit that involved a Lacrosse top.

Song of the Week: Public Enemy "911's Joke in Your Town'

I've really no business liking Public Enemy. What do they really have to say about my life - a white middle-class woman from northern England? Not alot. But still I love a few of their songs, including this one. The less said about the Duran Duran cover version the better - although I suspect a group of middle-aged millionaire ex-New Romantics from the Midlands know as little as I do about the problems of getting the cops to answer your calls in the ghetto.





The reason I love this song is undoubtedly for the beats behind the lyrics, but its being featured here for its lyrics - in particular it makes me think American shows like The Shield and The Wire where often the police have lost control or are out of control.

Old Friends in New Places

Yesterday’s viewing was full of familiar faces popping up in new places and I’m not just talking about Tom Bosley/Mr Cunningham from Happy Days in Murder She Wrote!

I finally got the OH to see the resemblance between the character Lechero in Prison Break with The Wire’s Bunny Colvin. And it turns out, its little surprise there was a resemblance as both are played by Robert Wisdom.

Next up as Law & Order: Criminal Intent. One of the suspects is played by Brad Renfro who we last saw in Larry Clark’s film Bully. But the more familiar faces were those of the new pair of detectives. Detective Carolyn Barek is none other than Annabella Sciorra who I recognised immediately as Gloria Trillo, Tony’s obsessive girlfriend in The Sopranos. The OH was sceptical at first, before concurring. He then expressed the sentiment that her voice was too seductive to be a cop, only to contradict himself minutes later by saying she made a good cop. Not sure what she did in the between times to change his mind.

But the big return was that of Chris Noth, back playing Detective Mike Logan who he played for several years in the original Law & Order. Of course, most women the world over know him as Mr Big from Sex & the City but I must be the only woman alive who didn’t like that show much and barely noticed him in it. To me he will always be Mike Logan, although he still has some way to go before he equals Richard Belzer’s record for the number of series he’s played John Munch.

So at first I was pleased to see him back fighting crime on the streets of New York but as the show progressed I became disappointed. First of all, what has happened to his voice? The pitch of it was so low, I could barely make out what he was saying most of the time. The other thing is that he seems to have had a makeover. We regularly used to mock his tartan ties when he was in L&O – he had quite a collection, all of them horrid. But they have gone, replaced with an almost stylish dark grey number last night. Its just not the same.

I’m also not convinced by his new found role as one of the elite detectives. I don’t see how he can match Goran’s vast knowledge and I don’t recall intuition being his strong point. Also I thought he left under a cloud having punch a city official or something similar so not sure how he’s ended up in this position.

Song of the Week: "Down in the Hole" (theme from The Wire)

You can tell alot about a show from its theme music. The Sopranos has a great theme song, The Shield has some awful noise. The Wire has brilliant opening credits, the visuals and the music, in all its versions.

There is some debate on various sites about which version of the song "Down in the Hole" is superior, and I'm not sure I've mind up my mind yet. Purists often hate cover versions, so would prefer the Tom Waits' version (used in Season 2) as it is his song. The Waits version is the one I've got on my ipod but just because it was the only one in itunes.



But I actually don't mind a good cover version, as long as it brings something new to song (see a list of my favourites here). Some people (commenting on YouTube) favour the version used in the fourth series as it involves young people from Baltimore and sounds more like the sort of music listened to on the streets, but I don't hold much sway with this argument as that is taking the show is just being about the dealers (a gross simplification).



In the end, I've picked the Blind Boys of Alabama version because it was used in the first series, so is the original theme from The Wire, if not the original version of the song.

Rooting for the Bad Guy

When looking for the Talking Heads clip, I came across this quote from David Byrne about his inspiration for the song, Psycho Killer:

"Both the Joker and Hannibal Lecter were much more fascinating than the good guys. Everybody sort of roots for the bad guys in movies"

I understand why many actors prefer playing the bad guy, as it is more of a challenge than playing a bland goodie and I've also worried about what it says of me that I enjoy crimes so much - but actually rooting for the bad guy takes this further. So I started to wonder, do I ever root for the bad guy?

Unfortunately I think the answer is 'Yes, sometimes'.


Moral ambiguity is integral to both The Wire and The Sopranos, and are designed to make you identify with what would traditionally be a baddie. There would be no point in watching the Sopranos if you didn't like Tony at all and the same is true of the drug dealers in The Wire. So I don't think these count.


But I have sometimes rooted for the bad guy when they are definitely the all round baddie.

The most recent case was watching 'Dial M for Murder' the other week. Ray Milland was just so charismatic that I really wanted him to get away with it. Grace Kelly, I didn't care about one way or another. Or was that Hitchcock's intention with his love of making his blondes suffer?

Whilst I do love Columbo, it does sometimes get on my nerves that he solves the case so easily, that he immediately instictively knows who the culprit is. So sometimes while he plays his cat-and-mouse games with the murderer, I do want them to get away with it. Just for once. Especially if its an episode I've seen before, I hope that somehow it may have an alternative ending.


Watching Profiler, the main character did get annoy me and I was bored with watching the show and wanted it over with, so often found myself hoping that Jack of All Trades would hurry up and do her in. I kind of got into it towards the end, but then the first series finished, and I was still none the wiser about his identity and haven't seen any more of it. So I still wish he'd have finished the job off.

But then there are some shows where I always want the good guys to win - Morse, Monk and the Law & Order lot, so perhaps there is hope for me yet.

Oh indeed

Last night we watched the remaining two episodes of Season 3 of The Wire.

So it is all over again and now we go back to waiting for the fourth season to air. I wish they'd get a move on with it, although I do prefer to watch this sort of programme on DVD, rather than have to wait a week between episodes. The suspense will just be too much for me.

I'm curious to see who will remain in the fourth series, given that a fair number of characters ended up dead or in prison. And its focus is going to be on education - there must be some crime in there somewhere though and some type of wire tap - otherwise the title is going to be rather meaningless.

When you walk through the garden...

The Wire. It is quite simply the best television programme ever made and I'm not usually one for making such bold sweeping statements.

In the UK, it has just been shown on FX, which means that most people haven't even heard of it. We discovered it (I'm including my OH in this as he loves it too) because there was an article in The Guardian's Guide magazine about it when the first series was released on DVD and being a big Soprano's fan (its an HBO programme), my OH decided to take a chance on buying it.

The first episode didn't really grip me - it was ok, but to be honest, I struggled with the dialogue. I'm a white middle class woman from England - the language of the streets of Baltimore is somewhat alien to me. Also my hearing in general isn't that good - I really struggle with song lyrics. (I was convinced the lyrics to Primal Scream's 'Country Girl' were 'What kind of Pope are you?' - rather than 'What's a poor boy to do?).

Anyway, since we'd bought the set, we had to stick with it, and by the end of the second episode, we were hooked. And my ears began to adapt to the accents and dialects. After we raced through the first series, OH tracked down the second on Ebay (from Hong Kong) as we couldn't wait for it come out here. Then Season 3 from the USA (recorded off the television - probably not legal to resell it, but we were desparate).

So now, we are revisiting Season 3 for I think the third time. It is, as my OH says, like an old friend. Admittedly, that would be a rather violent old friend with no morals and a Class A drug habit, but an old friend nonetheless.