Entries Tagged 'Television' ↓

If you are a fan of The Wire as I am, then perhaps you are still in mourning over the end of this great series. I watched the re-airing of the final episode on Monday night and will probably catch it at least once more before saying my final good-byes. That is until I purchase the DVD.

Producers of the program know what an impact it has had not just on the television industry but on our social consciousness. So show creator David Simon has posted a thank you letter to fans on the HBO website. You can also leave your own comments about the show, the characters and the actors who played them, on a site they’ve created called The Wire: The Public Record.

Now, if there was one thing Detective Lester Freamon always preached on that show, it was “Follow the money.” Apparently the federal government was watching because that’s exactly what they did in tracking New York Governor Eliot Spitzer to the Emporer’s Club VIP escort service where he spent some $10,000 on prostitutes over the last year.

As of this writing, the Governor has yet to officially resign from office, although politicians on both sides of the aisle are calling for him to do so. But just this evening, I received an email from an organization identified only as “democrats.com” asking for people to sign a petition in support of Spitzer and claiming the whole episode is a witch hunt by the Bush Administration.

Sign the petition: http://savespitzer.com

Dear Governor Spitzer,

Don’t let the Republicans and the rightwing media drive you out of office!

You made a lot of powerful enemies in your career because you took on the most powerful crooks on Wall Street. Now your enemies are trying to get even by destroying your career and your life. Don’t let them!

The whole investigation by the Bush Administration stinks to high heaven. This isn’t a case of “structuring” or “money laundering.” The FBI never investigates johns - so why are they investigating you?

The answer is obvious. George Bush and Karl Rove turned the Justice Department into the political destruction arm of the Republican Party. They’ve prosecuted 5.6 Democrats for every Republican.

That’s why former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is rotting in jail, and that’s what they want to do to you.

As Americans, we are outraged by Bush’s endless abuses of justice. If anyone should be removed from office, it’s George Bush!

Governor Spitzer, please stand and fight against this outrageous and naked partisan Republican assault. We support you!

Sign the petition: http://savespitzer.com.

Stay tuned. This may drag on.

It was a little like watching an old friend move out of the neighborhood. Oh, you’ll try to stay in touch, but deep down, you know you’ll never see them again.

After five seasons—five superbly written, well-acted, finely crafted seasons of the best television series I’ve ever watched in my life—HBO’s The Wire aired its last program Sunday night. I must admit I got teary-eyed towards the end.

That a television show got to produce a final episode is an accomplishment in itself, in a rapidly changing television landscape where viewers have so many options and programmers compete against newer on-demand alternatives. Most network tv shows just get cancelled during summer hiatus. Then again, most network television shows follow a tired old episodic format, telling one complete story each week, beginning to end, in one hour. Few of them have been as memorable.

The Wire was allowed to end its run the way its producer David Simon intended, allowing some measure of resolution to storylines that stretched out over the entire five years. In many ways the show ended exactly the way it began, and perhaps that was the whole point of the story. People change but the circumstances stay the same, especially when no one is serious or principled enough to deal with tough issues head-on. It was about corruption, malfeasance, incompetence or indifference across the board, be it city hall, the police and criminal justice system, a labor union, the school system or the news media, all contributing factors to community decay, the rise in crime and drug activity and the loss of hope.

We came full circle in many ways. Bubbles, no Reginald, got the monkey off his back and literally climbed up the stairs to reclaim his humanity, but young Dukie, whose parents were junkies, fell through the cracks and will likely take Bubble’s old place on the streets.

Marlo got off on a technicality, but still doesn’t know how to do anything more than sell drugs. Prop Joe said he was a hard one to try to civilize. He looked a little over-dressed for that street corner. Chris joined Wee-Bey in the lifers club. Little Kennard may join them in the juvenile division.

His victim Omar may be gone but the dealers now have to fear Michael. And who was that with him? Slim Charles did what needed to be done a long time ago to Cheese and united the co-op the way Prop Joe envisioned. The Greeks hardly care so long as they move product.

Det. Sydnor will stay up on the wire after learning his lessons well from Lester, who has retired to marital and miniature toy-making bliss. Lt. Carver is rising up the chain of command and will no doubt try to do the right thing, but with new Commissioner Valchek as Mayor Nerese Campbell’s lap dog, he’ll get stonewalled for sure.

Reporter Scott Templeton got what he wanted, a prize built on lies, as did Governor Carcetti and State Police Superintendant Rawls. Judge Pearlman and attorney Daniels will now fight their battles on a new front. And life in Baltimore continues as we were first introduced to it.

The show said so many things about society but what stuck out most was how interconnected all major issues are. The drug problem exists because police and politicians are looking for easy solutions and quick media hits by going after street-level dealers. They lack both the will and the resources because no one is committed to taking a comprehensive approach to addressing the underlying factors.

When good-paying, middle class jobs disappear, like on the docks, it affects the very fabric of the community. It isn’t just Black people who were forced into a life of crime. Whites too struggled to survive. Knowing this helps explain that Black drug dealers weren’t born that way, they were made by a lack of other options. Stringer Bell could have easily been a legitimate business executive, given opportunity.

Self-serving incumbent politicians trying to hold onto their base by juking crime stats are easy prey for equally ambitious upstarts who call for change. But winning office and making real change are easier said than done.

School systems more focused on state mandated tests than educating students, are ill-equipped to assist students who come with great needs beyond academics. When school offers the only relief from an otherwise hostile home environment, but no one takes the time to care, young ones are left with few alternatives.

If an informed public is the cornerstone of democracy, and the media’s job is to inform, what happens when they miss the major stories or deliberately misinform to satisfy individual agendas? Chasing the homeless murders, they completely missed the Stanfield case.

Sixty chapters of a great novel read over five years. I hated to put it down.

Other reviews:

New York Times So Many Characters, Yet So Little Resolution
Los Angeles Times ’The Wire’
Chicago Tribune ‘The Wire’ comes full circle in its gripping finale

The quote above, attributed to Bunk Moreland, typifies Season Five of The Wire and describes this week’s episode succinctly. Episode Five marks the halfway point to the final season of this epic television series and we’ve been witness to enough lying to fill a newspaper and several police reports.

That just happens to be where most of the falsehoods are going down too. Detective Jimmy McNulty’s convoluted scheme to convert phantom homeless murders into a case worthy of more department resources to go after their real target, Marlo Stanfield, is falling on deaf ears until he feeds the story to the Baltimore Sun. Marginally talented and overly ambitious reporter Scott Templeton is just the man to cover this bogus story and he sets out to write it like he’s got a Pulitzer Prize in sight.

The scene where McNulty and Templeton are in the same room talking about a telephone call the newspaper received from the serial killer is simply priceless. Oh what a tangled web they’ve both woven.

Senator Clay Davis is caught in a web of his own doing and may finally learn it is better to give than to receive. When State’s Attorney Rupert Bond announces the indictment against him, Davis threatens to take everyone with him, until Council President Nerese Campbell and former Mayor Clarence Royce smack some sense into his head. Royce’s public stance is markedly different than his private conversations, another example of the art of lying gracefully.

Marlo may have created his own web of intrigue whether he realizes it or not. Having removed Prop Joe as head of the cartel, there is no place to go but down. Attorney Levy can certainly see what’s coming and his new investigator, former officer Herc, may speed the process along. Meanwhile the trap he’s set for Omar may only serve to make Omar madder.

The street is proving to be a tough road to navigate for young Dukie. His cozy little domestic arrangment with Michael has the block boys questioning his manhood. When he tries to work on his street cred, he gets some valuable advice from both Michael and Cutty. “The world is bigger than that [the street],” says Cutty. “How do you get from here to the rest of the world,” asks Dukie.

After a failed pistol practice, “Can’t shoot, can’t fight,” says a dejected Dukie. “You got other skills,” Michael replies, pointing to his head. Before he gets too caught up in the cauldron of deceit and violence, perhaps he’ll get another chance to prove it.

Finally a clean and sober life has Bubbles in disbelief that he’s come out unscathed.

Since movie and television producers refuse to go back to the bargaining table with members of the striking Writers Guild it continues to be difficult to find anything worth watching on the tube. But this weekend, as the nation officially celebrates the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., two networks will air programs honoring his legacy and chronicling the Black experience in America.

On Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 8:00 PM ET/PT, the gay cable network LOGO presents the award-winning film Brother Outsider: The Life Of Bayard Rustin, kicking off Season Five of their “Real Momentum” documentary series. Brother Outsider illuminates the life and work of Bayard Rustin, the “unknown hero” of the civil rights movement. A mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. and the architect of the legendary 1963 March on Washington, Rustin dared to live as an openly gay man during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. The documentary reveals the price that Rustin paid for this openness, showing both the triumphs and setbacks of his remarkable 60-year career.

Then on Monday, Turner Classic Movies spotlights the work of filmmaker Charles Burnett, a man the New York Times once called “the nation’s least-known great filmmaker and most gifted Black director.” Perhaps best known for To Sleep With Anger and The Glass Shield, TCM will show five of Burnett’s earlier works, including his critically acclaimed 1977 film Killer of Sheep. This will be the first time a mass audience will have had an opportunity to see these films giving Burnett attention that is long overdue.

There are no deliberate spoilers in this entry but if you haven’t seen the season five debut episode, you will need to in order to weigh in on these questions.

As has been his style throughout the run of this series, Executive Producer David Simon has foreshadowed the entire season for us in one show. However it is up to us to spot the clues and devine the meanings behind them in order to speculate on the direction the storyline will take.

With that in mind, here are some plot points that jumped out at me:

The city is so broke they can’t pay police overtime. Is a corruption scandal looming on the horizon? And since former officer Herc now works for Attorney Levy, will he open that door?

Dukie is playing house with Michael because he’s too soft for the streets. Since both boys have been left to raise themselves, will he take drastic steps to prove his manhood?

How long will Mayor Carcetti keep putting partisan politics ahead of the needs of the city? Who will he have to let dangle to get help from the statehouse? Council President Campbell?

Now that Marlo sits at the table with the rest of the cartel, does he have designs on Prop Joe’s seat at the head of the table? Or do Joe, Slim Charles and Cheese plan to vote him out altogether?

Will Colonel Daniels and State’s Attorney Pearlman ever get any closer to locating that mass murderer than they did in the courthouse lobby?

Who will be more frustrated by the tight fisted management, political double dealing and the ambitious social climbers, City Editor Gus Haynes or the cops in the special investigative unit?

Can Bubbles stay clean?

What do you think? Will these develop into major stories this season?