This blog writer thought she yielded to no one in her admiration for The Wire. But I have found a post on the onetoein blog that is well more enthusiastic than anything I’ve said.
To say The Wire is the best show on television doesn’t do it justice. It narrows the playing field, especially for those who see television as a ghetto. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to call The Wire one of the best and most important pieces of American art of the early 21st Century, and even that narrows it down.
I have to agree except I think it’s probably the major work of art that’s ever been presented on television.
In the year’s gap before the next series appears, I have found a potential substitute in the HBO mini-series that gave birth to The Wire. It’s called The Corner and is a set of 6 hour-long programmes, each based on a separate story. It won lots of awards and made it possible for the Wire to be created. I’ve only just glanced at the intro episode – in preparation of aserious 6 hour session) but it looks a lot like The Wire, though obviously it was made on a much lower budget .
So far it loooks promising. Even the first few minutes are shaping up as pretty funny and shrewd (once you get past the double set of serious intro talks – one is from a man who grew up on the corners and another is a mock interview with the man whose story provides the first episode.)