Daily Blogger

With only three episodes remaining in the show’s five season run, I need to make a plug for season #4 of HBO’s The Wire as the single best season of television ever produced. Every season David Simon, a former police reporter for The Baltimore Sun, and Ed Burns, a retired Baltimore police officer, widen the lens to focus on another level of Baltimore’s complex cityscape. Season #1 introduced us to the street level drug dealers, police, informants and drug addicts that act as the players and pawns in the cyclical war on drugs that unfolds out on Baltimore’s innercity streets. Season #2 focused on corruption and murder among Baltimore’s blue collar dock workers. Season #3 exposed the systemic corruption in the Mayor’s office and in the state legislature. But the crowning achievement is season #4 and The Wire’s brutally honest look into a public school system that fails its kids on almost every level. The season introduces four thirteen year olds entering their final year of middle school. The young actors inhabit their roles so naturally, they don’t seem to be acting at all. From an educator’s perspective, this season is particularly impressive as the creators explore educational issues ranging from the politics of No Child Left Behind to differentiated instruction with the same precision and depth with which they handle crime and corruption at the various levels of Baltimore’s social and political hierarchy. In Season #5′s ongoing examination of the mass media and the politics of news coverage, the acting and writing remains as sharp as ever, yet the ratings and buzz around the show has never matched that of its lesser HBO counterparts. That’s right, The Wire is far superior on every level to The Sopranos, yet no one seems to notice.

There has never been a show that deals this honestly with issues of race and poverty in America. Perhaps this explains why The Wire has not gained a wider audience and is ignored year after year by Emmy voters in favor of lightweight fare like CSI.  Most Americans do not want their sacred institutions questioned so objectively, nor do the plights of disenfranchised people interest Joe Average.  Finally, most people prefer  their drama wrapped up neatly with a pretty bow.  You will never get this from The Wire, the show will challenge you on a weekly basis.  Check out the preview of season #4 below then clicketyclick on over to Netflix and Queue it up quick. But be careful, you’ll probably get hooked and have to reup on seasons 1-3.

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Also check out this NPR interview with Ed Burns on Baltimore city schools.

I’m not much for cards but I think these .45′s beat a full house.

–Omar RIP