For fans of The Wire

During the past few weeks, I took the little breaks in work that I had to re-watch certain seasons of--why, yes--The Wire (hey, how'd you guess?) I watched most of Seasons 2, 3 and 5. I think re-watching The Wire is maybe just as important as an initial viewing, if not more so. It is only upon repeat viewings that you truly get an appreciation for the masterpiece that has been created by David Simon, et al (raise your hand if you get the "et al" reference).

More than any other series in the history of television, The Wire was laid out from the beginning to be a televised novel so it lends itself to much better viewing as something that can be watched multiple episodes at a time rather than in a weekly serialized format. This was especially true for me in watching Seasons 2 and 5 because it was the first time I had actually re-watched them. That allowed me a chance to get a better grasp on characters and their motives, as well as observe how intricately the stories were planned by the writing staff. It amazes me how a comment or action that might have seemed like a throwaway in an early season episode develops ramifications toward the end of the series.

Also more than any other show, The Wire creates in its fans a need to seek out other fans of the show for discussion. This is not the same thing as the watercooler talk about how Jack and Sawyer are fighting over Kate, or how Agent Bauer rescued yet another President. When fans of this show discuss, it deals more with the social issues that we have been forced to ponder throughout the run of the show. One critic I have heard says that years from now people will look back and regard The Wire the same way that we look back and regard the novels of Charles Dickens (which is just another reason why the show never attained mass popularity--how many people today can actually have a discussion about David Copperfield or A Tale of Two Cities?). Re-watching the show has only caused me to more strongly believe that.

Anyway, because of my need to find out other people's thoughts on The Greatest Television Show to Ever Air, I took to the web to quench my thirst and found a lot of great stuff. I decided to post links in case anyone else might also be interested. Be warned: most of these links assume that the reader or listener has already watched the entire series so there are spoilers galore.

Alan Sepinwall's wrapup of the series

Alan Sepinwall's interview with creator David Simon
Has some really good stuff from the mind of the man who brought us the series, including why he does not think that he will ever revisit the world of The Wire, although he does not completely dismiss the idea.

Maureen Ryan's final thoughts

What real thugs thought about The Wire
Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociology professor at Columbia, watched the final season with some actual leaders of drug gangs (Venkatesh had built up street cred by spending seven years observing and living with drug gangs in Chicago for his PhD program) to get their take on the show. I was actually introduced to this blog by my friend Jason during the original run of Season 5. It is probably more effective to read these posts right after you have watched the concurrent episode but it is entertaining nonetheless.

/Film podcast goes in depth
/Film brought together some critics to discuss The Wire in general, and then each season in depth. It's over three hours long but you can either listen to it at this page or download the mp3.

Harvard University panel discussion
Harvard University's Institute of Politics brought together a panel of speakers, including David Simon and Professor Venkatesh, to discuss the decay of the American city, with The Wire serving as the catalyst for discussion. This is the video of that discussion, which is about an hour and a half long.

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Most of these sites allow comments from readers/listeners/viewers. Of course, anytime that anyone wants to discuss The Wire, I am definitely interested.