Stranger Than Paradise

Addicted to "The Wire"



Physical State: hunchy
Mental State: felty
Music: Futureheads - s/t
Fashion sense: black sweatshirt, jeans

I am now officially hooked on HBO's The Wire, the Peabody-winning series (now into it's third season). After watching the pilot debut for Season One, I ended up (much like Six Feet Under) watching the entire first season in a span of a few days. The show follows in each episode a team of Baltimore police detectives (including Detective Jimmy McNulty, above) who are fighting against the out of control drug trade in West Baltimore. We see two sides of the story, the cops and the drug traders (I think if you combine Traffic, New Jack City and Homicide, you'd have an idea where this series kind of fits). Much like that other Baltimore cop show, Homicide: Life On The Streets, The Wire has a similar feel and grittiness, the character development making the stories incredible (often like modern Greek tragedies). This ensemble is more "street" than Homicide though. The series comes from the mind of David Simon who wrote the Edgar-award winning book Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets, his account of life as a Baltimore cop after working as a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun. This book eventually became the film and subsequent basis for the Homcide tv show that is still one of my all-time favourites. The basis for the title comes from the police wiretapping the phone lines of the drug trade community and monitoring them (while building their case as outsiders in the police department). But the show is much more than just this and you should just go rent it.