"The Wire" Wrap-Up

When I first started watching "The Wire," it was with one question in mind. Is this really the best dramatic series that has ever been made, as claimed by so many of its fans? After sixty episodes, I'm inclined to say yes. And I'm also inclined to point out that the show is a total fluke that we may never see the likes of again.

I've been reading up on "The Wire" since I finished the series, and what strikes me about most of the coverage is how far under the radar it was for most of its run. It never won a single Emmy, and its only major nominations were for writing. Most of the cast is still working regularly, but there were no breakout stars. A possible exception is Idris Elba, and that was really only due to his follow-up roles in his native UK. The ratings were dismal throughout the entire run of "The Wire," even for a premium service like HBO. The critics always liked it, but nobody pays attention to TV critics, and probably never will. The only reason the fourth and fifth seasons exist at all is because the HBO executives liked the storylines enough to take a major risk on their success. That risk wouldn't pay off until years later, after the show became a cult hit.

And it has become a hit. References to "The Wire" have crept into the mainstream culture. Omar Little and Stringer Bell have quietly become minor icons. Audiences continue to hear about "The Wire" mostly through word-of-mouth and watch it through the DVD sets. All sixty episodes ran on BBC2 in the UK a few years ago, eventually attracting an audience several times the size of its original audience in the US, despite a smaller overall population. It actually became the source of some mild handwringing in 2009 by the British media, who held it up as a prime example of quality American drama, and wondered in multiple editorials why their television industry couldn't come up with anything in the same vein. Of course, "The Wire" could not have existed anywhere else but HBO, a premium subscription channel that has the luxury of not worrying too much about ratings and cost overruns. The serialized story, difficult material, and unusual level of realism - the major elements that "The Wire" has won so much praise for - would have made it a difficult sell even to basic cable audiences. It wouldn't have lasted beyond a season on the major broadcast networks, or even half a season the way things have been going lately.

HBO and other content producers are still responsible for plenty of innovative and socially relevant and challenging shows, but rarely do all of these qualities converge in a single program quite the same way as they did in "The Wire," and it was really the combination of all these factors that made the show one of the greats. "Game of Thrones" is a complicated serial told on a huge scale, and "Veep" has plenty of social critique, and "Girls" pushes lots of social boundaries, but only "The Wire" did all of these things at once. The impact of the series has also proven to be fairly limited. While "The Sopranos" created a genre of anti-hero centered dramas including "Breaking Bad" and "Boardwalk Empire," there hasn't been much eagerness to follow in the footsteps of "The Wire." We still see plenty of police and lawyer shows, but nobody is interested in looking at the bigger picture the way David Simon and crew did.

The potential for creating shows on the same level as "The Wire" is still there, which I find encouraging, but I don't see much desire to try. After all, even HBO has to pay attention to the bottom line. During the run of "The Wire," two other little watched, but much beloved series were cancelled before their time: "Deadwood" and "Carnivale." Meanwhile, David Simon's "Treme," considered the spiritual successor to "The Wire," will be ending this year after a truncated fourth season. While I enjoy "Game of Thrones," I worry that HBO and its imitators are going to look toward more genre shows in the future, leaving more interesting dramatic experiments on the shelf. "The Wire" proved that a show about difficult social issues with unusual characters could be compelling entertainment, but the longer it remains the only one of its kind, the more it becomes an exception to the rule.

I'm glad "The Wire" exists, that the right conditions were there and all the stars were aligned to allow for its creation. However, at the same time this looks like a once-in-a-generation media event that largely came about thanks to luck and good timing. Instead of comparing "The Wire" to "Oz" or "The Sopranos," the one piece of television I see the most similarities to is the 1977 "Roots" miniseries, which was also a total fluke, and never truly matched in its category by anything that followed.
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