Who Cares About The HD Remaster Of The Wire?

I have a friend who once told me that he knew a guy who had every "conspiracy" episode of The X-Files recorded on a VHS tapes. My pal suggested this would be an ideal way to watch the show as watching "a guy's" recorded TV broadcasts from over 20 years ago complete with commercials and such would be in spirit with the vaguely creepy story of the show.  But the real appeal to this was the story, the characters, the conspiracy. I'm always more intrigued by THE STORY or if we want to get heady - THE SOURCE - than any other aspect of a piece of media.

Story or Source depending what you want to call always takes a back seat in conversations about film vs digital, 4:3 ratio to 16:19, and re-mastered vs original. This conversation is roaring again now that it has been announced that The Wire is returning in a HD, remastered, 16:9 format, which is amazing news not because it will look all pretty but because more people will watch the most important visual story of the modern era. Yeah that's right, I'm a "Wire" cultist, while not as deep as some other people I know - I am one of those people who consider David Simon's Baltimore saga pretty much THE GREATEST AND MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF MEDIA OF ALL TIME.

Am I being a little hyperbolic above, yeah probably, gawd knows I love me some "Bad Boys II", "Robin Hood Prince of Thieves," and some "LOST," but there isn't a single piece of media that I think about more than "The Wire." It has everything you'd want from a story: astounding characters who go on amazing journeys, a multi-layered plot, striking visual imagery, deep cultural commentary, highly quotable scenes, and well - the list goes on and on. 

I know there are many people out there to whom this announcement about the HD remaster is a huge deal, and that's OK. Let them come for the pretty visuals and have their souls shaken by the masterpiece, but seriously, the real headline here should be "More People Will Know Watch The Wire And That Is Good News." That's a blunt way to put it, so here's another more poetic way to put, straight from the show's creator himself:

We are always in it to tell people a story, first and foremost. If a new format brings a few more thirsty critters to the water’s edge, then so be it.

High Class Trash - Is Game of Thrones Really As Good As We Think It Is?

"Game of Thrones" has it's finale this Sunday and I can't wait. If you've been following my recaps* over the course of the past two seasons, you've probably noticed I'm kind of a Thrones' junkie. I even snatched up the books so I can be more in the know. Yet as we approach the end of the season and the unbearably long wait until season 3 sometime in Spring 2013 (!!!) I find myself just wondering how "great" the show really is.

For me a "great" show needs to transcends the boundaries of the space it exists in. Yeah, I know that sounds incredibly TV watcher pretentious, but stick with me here folks. The great TV dramas including "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad," "The Wire," and are both gripping narratives and also statements about something**. "Mad Men" so far seems to be about the passage of time between generations, how history both personal and national shapes us, and how the media forms our sense of self. "Breaking Bad" is a study in self control, power, and the shifting nature of evil. "The Wire" is about all the little interconnected pieces in a city. If you encounter fans of any of these shows they'll be able to talk about what makes it good, but they'll also be able to talk about what it's "about" (it's about tha game, life, power yo!)

There is no doubt that "Thrones" kills it on almost every level. Incredible production design (and budget), great acting, interesting characters, loads of sex and violence, magic, dragons, teleporting cloning warlocks you get the idea, but I struggle to figure out the deeper meaning behind the whole thing, because so far I don't think there is one. This partially due to the immense cast of characters the show has. "Breaking Bad' and "Mad Men" both have super strong protagonists that cary thematic weight, and "Thrones," shit, I don't even know who the central protagonist is? Robb? Arya? Jon Snow?

It's also excessively pulpy and trashy. It revels in excessive violence, gratuitous nudity, and a fantastic genre. A show like "Breaking Bad" is violent as hell, but it doles it out in small doses and each kill has a weight. In "Thrones," just last week we got people chopped in half, chopped diagonally, leg chopped, head crushed, and eye arrowed. Let's not forget last seasons excessive horse killing. If that's not all pulpy I don't know what is.

This desire to satisfy the audiences need in place of story makes it weaker in more line with gore fests like "True Blood" and "The Walking Dead," which aren't "bad shows, they're just not on the same level as the great shows they're "second tier." Other shows in this group that I've put "Thrones in include "Sons of Anarchy," "Homeland***" and even though it pains me to say it "Spartacus." Tune in at the bottom for a TPG power rankings of my favorite shows on the air.

Maybe I should listen to David Simon and judge "Thrones" on it's weightier themes after it's aired in it's entirety. Perhaps then it will work better thematically.  If each season is based on book, maybe I should judge each season as one story, kind of like the "Harry Potter" films. But for now, I'm going off what I'm seeing, and what I'm seeing is an awesomely trashy fantasy pulp epic. I'm fine with it, but wish it was something more.

TPG POWER RANKINGS (On Air)

Tier One

1. Breaking Bad

2. Mad Men

Tier Two:

1. Game of Thrones

2. Spartacus

3. Homeland

4. Boardwalk Empire

4. True Blood

5. Walking Dead

*If you're looking for a recap for last week's episode "Blackwater" - here it is: people got chopped up.
** I still haven't seen "The Sopranos," yeah I know, I gotta get on it.
*** "Homeland" is just "24" in a different package.

TPG WIRED: The Show As A Cop Story

I have finished watching "The Wire" and simply put, it is the best TV show I have ever seen*. I enjoyed the show on so many different levels, I've decided to share my various perspectives on it with you guys here. So, if you haven't seen the masterpiece I will be talking about the ot as a whole, which is complicated way of saying SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS! That being said if you have seen it, please tell your friends about these series of posts, and if you haven't gazed about the power of epic TV, allow me to say that the hype is real.


Throughout each of the 5 seasons of "The Wire," there are cops and everybody else. Supporting characters shift between dock workers, teachers, and newspaper reporters, but the police officers remain the same for each season. Characters and personalities may change, but at the end of the day, the cops are at the center. The shows creator, David Simon, who was a reporter in the 80's spent a year shadowing the Baltimore police department and his deep knowledge of how a city's boys makes all the differences. He knows how police departments work and he knows about the value of "the case."

Ahhh yes, "the case," the focal point of every season. Most cop shows are procedural with a "case a week" structure, but "The Wire" is different because it follows as "case a season" or maybe arguably a "case a series" structure. This focus on the larger narrative makes it feel kind of like super mythology heavy shows like "Lost" and "Game of Thrones," and that's a good thing. The cops are investigating the dealers, but the dealers are connected to the Greeks, who are working with the dock workers, who's union is tied to the politicians, who may or may deal with the drug kingpins. In the words of the show, "all the pieces matter." This is detective work on a gigantic scale, something which you rarely ever see on TV and it's totally fantastic. I mean someone like Clay Davis, who is just a side character in season one, turns out to be a huge character in later seasons. Everything is connected.

But even as a procedural the show works extremely well. Each episode shows how the police use technology, smarts, and just plain police work to solve the case. On the show you have the "Major Crimes Unit," which is kind of the police super team that does all the super cool surveillance stuff. It's a thrill seeing the unit in action and the lengths they to go to get the titular "wire" up on the bad guys, but that's just part of it. There are drug dealer codes to be cracked, favors needed to be called in to the FBI, warrants that need to be issued by judges, undercover missions, police tails on cars, interrogations, you know all that awesome cop shit that is fun to watch but you don't want to have happen to you! It's all in there!

Like any good police narrative, you got your colorful cast of characters. Everybody from Da Bunk with his suits and cigars, Greggs with her strict moral code, and Lester with his wood shaping hobby and almost superhuman knowledge of surveillance technology are just a part of a the perfectly written police department. You have hyper aggressive cops who just want to kick down doors and bust faces, you have smart detectives like McNulty who want to work the case, and you have some guys that fall somewhere in the middle. During the series, you can see how each police officer's experience working the beat changes them. Some people like Carver (my fave character) go from being a cop who might snag a little drug money during a raid on a stash house to being cops who do the right thing aka "good poolice," and he's just one of the many cops who go on this journey.

And that's what the show really is, a journey both into the heart of a police force and it's characters, but also a journey with police on a badass solving cases saving the day way as well. It's also dope that it's on HBO so there is plenty of gritty language and violence, but that's just part of the game, it's the characters and the journey of the police that count!

Stay Tuned for the next installment where I focus on the drug dealers


*I've never seen The Sopranos

Why I Haven't Been Posting (It's All In The Game)

I know, I know, I haven't posted in a hot minute. The reason for this is because I'm super deep into "The Wire" and have been prepping almost a full week of posts about this epic masterpiece of a show. Stay tuned.