Dublin Opinion

One of the best TV series in the last number of years has been The Wire, which used to be aired rather erratically on TG4, with the fifth and final season going out late last year. So erratically was the airing, in fact, that I never managed to follow the series in succession, inevitably missing more episodes than I caught. And it is perhaps the best example of a series that you have to catch in sequence. Much like Sopranos to which it is often compared in terms of quality, you have to get to know all the characters, both major and minor and follow each twist and turn of the various plot strands, listen carefully to the dialogue and keep an eye out for the detail if you are going to claim that you appreciate it.

But in our Web 2.0 broadband existence you can’t get away with blaming how a TV program is broadcast for missing it. The net, either through streaming or download provides the means to get the programs you need to watch. I know that Conor has been keeping up with Battlestar Galactica this way, and I intend to make up for missing out on The Wire by watching all of Generation Kill, The Wire’s co-creator David Simon’s new TV show about the first 40 days of the Iraq War, through a stream of some sort.

However, if you are interested in The Wire – or have heard about it but have yet to be convinced - you really should read Seanachie’s article on it which we’ve just put up on ILR. Seanachie goes into great detail, so there are plenty of spoilers if you plan to watch the series on DVD, but I think even if you haven’t seen it there is still plenty to enjoy. Being written for a political mag of course, the article does focus on the political aspect by suggesting that the show provides a bridge between the Bush and Obama eras:

Though the political commentary in The Wire is usually implicit, the show can be read as a text that bridges the Bush and Obama eras. David Simon said that he was initially prompted to make a show whose scope far outreaches the crime series he had previously been involved in after witnessing the institutional corruption and failure of American corporations such as Enron and WorldCom, both of which happened in the months following 9/11, and which, one would imagine ought to have served as a warning sign for the much greater collapse seven years later.

While lengthy articles on the web do tend to turn people off I would strongly recommend you to read the whole thing. You could print it off and read it at your leisure. It’s a Friday after all.

My own small contribution was to add the following youtube clips. The first is all five seasons in five minutes with a rap narrative and the second is an excerpt to give you a flavour of the show if you’ve missed it.

Excerpt from Season 5