Yeah, muthafucka; this shit's muthafuckin' good! Where the fuck you been? You some muthafuckin' Phillistine, muthafucka?
It's the end of the year, and every critic vying for a Best Week Ever Pundit Spot is tallying their own Big in '06 list. Peter Traverse is doing it. Matt Rousch is doing it. Shit, I'm sure some white chick in flannel PJ's in Ames, IA with a dog named Paul Anka is doing it on her very own web log right now.
Despite the numerous perspectives and impassioned testimonials for shows that lost their oxen while trying to ford the mainstream, somehow all these litanies of taste have way more in common than the inherent individuality of personal preference should allow. Number 9 - let me guess, um, Heroes? Number 6 - Battlestar Galactica? No shit. Number 2 - The Office. Number 4 - Weeds. Word. And number 1? Who gets to unanimously claim the sweet, satisfying, sprawling, superior, smart, smug Number 1 Spot? Yeah, muthafucka, The muthafuckin' Wire.
No other show this season has garnered as much pretentious critical acclaim as HBO's serialized drama about the city of Baltimore and the cops, hustlers, corner kids and hatchet men that make the city's streets teem more seamy than Ann Petry's The Narrows.
And there, my readers, lay the problem. Is it possible, I ask you, to critique The Wire as just a television show and not a modern literary masterpiece? What is it about David Simon's "searing indictment" of "race, class, poverty and power" in a "contemporary urban landscape" that gives critics the license to wax poetic like the obsequious interns of Stanley Edgar Hyman.
Examples of overwrought literary similes:
This is TV as great modern literature, a shattering and heartbreaking urban epic about a city (Baltimore) rotting from within.
- Matt Rousch, TV Guide
…an astonishing display of writing, acting and storytelling that must be considered alongside the best literature and filmmaking in the modern era.
- Tim Goodman, San Francisco Chronicle
A vibrant, masterful work of art, HBO’s novelistic urban saga The Wire is the best show on television.
- Robert Abele, LA Weekly
"The Wire" is as complex a picaresque as one is likely to find this side of Dickens.
- Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Oh, and how about gratuitous references to Charles Dickens that wear off as effective descriptions when overused as adjectives like "Dickensian?"
"...sprawling and justifiably lauded Dickensian crawl through its web of stories centering on the inner Baltimore drug trade"
- Filmcritic.com
"[The Wire] is constructed like a great novel … so far, we’ve had 50 chapters … with lots of characters (it’s Dickensian that way), with lots of plot threads."
- Some dude named Stephen
"each 12- or 13-episode season attains a breadth and attention to detail like one of those Dickensian social realist novels championed by Tom Wolfe."
- Curt Holman, Creative Loafing.com
So there you have it. Apparently The Wire is not only the best show on TV, but it's also literary, Dickensian and downright, motherfucking awesome.
3 comments:
Who cares if people overreact when praising "The Wire"? That doesn't make the show bad. How's this for eloquence: It shits on all other TV shows. Merry Christmas.
I feel you, man. It's a great show and this was a great season. All I'm saying is a show with this much strength deserves more than hackneyed reviews by critics who are too busy smelling their own farts to realize they're writing the exact same thing as the butt heads in the cubicles next to them.
You'll want to add a facebook button to your blog. I just bookmarked this article, although I had to complete it manually. Simply my $.02 :)
- Robson
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