I’m depressed. Season Four of HBO’s “The Wire” ended Sunday night. I will now count down the days until the beginning of Season Five like a 7-year-old counts down to Christmas. I’m even thinking of making my own advent calendar.
If you watched this past season, you’d understand. “The Wire” went from being the best show on television to being the best show ever. Not only is it the best thing to ever air on television, but it has raised the bar so high that 50 years from now, it will be considered revolutionary in television writing and filmmaking.
It is that good.
“The Wire” is about the “other America.”
The America that John Edwards ran his presidential campaign on and the America the rest of the country was forced to pay attention to, albiet for about two weeks, when the levees broke in New Orleans.
It is about the money-making drug kingpins, frustrated cops, the power hungry politicians and the deserted children that make up Baltimore.
Along with the endless game between the cops and the criminals, Season Four’s theme was about the educational system in the inner city. The 13 hours of episodes followed four middle school boys as they tried to live their lives in the most challenging of circumstances.
In less than one school year, the viewer watches them turn from ordinary kids, to in one case, a murderer. It made for addicting, riveting, disturbing and brilliant television.
Although the show is fictional, it is much more realistic than “The Real World” or “American Idol” will ever be.
“The Wire” isn’t made by a long time Hollywood producer, or an up-and-coming USC grad student, but by people who actually understand the other America.
According to the HBO Web site, creator and writer David Simon was a police beat reporter in the late ’80s and early ’90s for the Baltimore Sun before starting his first Baltimore television series, “Homicide: Life on the Streets.” Simon has worked with Ed Burns, who was a police officer in Baltimore for 20 years, before becoming a teacher in the city.
The two have written a show so smart and beyond the typical stereotypes of inner city life, that has opened up a world the white suburbia has never seen before. “The Wire” is ugly, ruthless and unfair. “The Wire” is America.
The show is so good that it should be studied throughout Cal State Long Beach.
In the political science department, professors should talk about how the series shows how politicians, and more importantly institutions, have failed the people of the poor inner-city.
In the criminal justice department, professors should talk about how the series raises serious questions about illegalization of drugs and the affect it is having on the criminal justice system.
In the College of Education, professors should talk about how the series shows the difficulty teachers have in the inner city and discuss outside-the-box ideas on how to fix the problem.
On Dec. 1, Slate.com published a Q &A with Simon. When asked what Season Five is going to be about, Simon responded: “The last theme is basically asking the question, why aren’t we paying attention? If we got everything right in the last four seasons in depicting this city-state, how is it that these problems – which have been attendant problems regardless of who is in power – how is it that they endure? That brings into mind one last institution, which is the media.”
So journalism professors, listen up. Stop assigning the archaic “library assignment,” and as soon as it starts, replace it with Season Five of “The Wire.”
Trust me, the show is that good.
Patrick Creaven is a senior journalism major and the sports editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.