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?
The critically acclaimed HBO drama The Wire returns in two weeks for its fifth and final season and already tongues are wagging in anticipation. The ground-breaking series that tells stories more like a first rate novel than a television show, will cap off its run by focusing in on how the media covers—or doesn’t cover—the issues faced by most major cities.
The Wire uses Baltimore as its backdrop and in season one, it explored the drug trade and the cat and mouse game between dealers and city police. Season two continued the tale using the city’s waterfront to illustrate the disappearance of good paying jobs for dock workers and working class people in general and the struggle just to survive. City Hall, government indifference and the need for political reform was tackled in season three, while the educational system and how neglect of our young people breeds the next generation of desperate survivors was the focus last season, in what some consider the best one of all.
Feeling he has told all the stories he has to tell, producer David Simon has rejected offers to prolong the series just for the sake of keeping it on the air, and in so doing, has kept standards high. Familiar faces from the first four seasons will return along with several new characters in the role of newspaper reporters. Season five begins January 6.
While network television is mired in rerun and reality show hell as film and television producers unwisely choose not to negotiate and settle their differences with striking members of the Writers Guild, there is worthwhile viewing to be found on some public television stations.
The Freedom Files is a nine-part series returning for its second season this fall with a slate of new programs examining the legal inequities around the death penalty, same-sex marriage, gay parenting, voting rights, immigrants’ rights, surveillance, sex education, the school-to-prison pipeline, and unlawful imprisonment and torture.
These half-hour documentaries feature the firsthand accounts of real people who have taken on the powers that be, often at great risk to themselves, in order to preserve their precious constitutional rights. They draw on the power of true stories to highlight vital civil liberties issues of our time and inspire viewers to take action.
This excerpt from an episode called, “Freedom to Marry” follows the lives of three Maryland couples seeking to overturn state law that bars same-sex couples from marriage. Takia Foskey and Jo Rabb had a commitment ceremony four years ago but despite being in a committed relationship, they lack the hundreds of legal protections afforded to heterosexual married couples, and must worry about how to protect their family without these protections.
Filmmaker and political activist Robert Greenwald, whose ground-breaking films include Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers and Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, continues as executive producer of the series.
The episodes will be distributed nationwide to public television stations, and sneak previews will air in the fall on Peabody award-winning Link TV. The programs also will be made available on Web sites such as YouTube.com.
Meanwhile, Newark, NJ-based public radio station 88.3 WBGO-FM will shed light on an overlooked and neglected segment of that city’s population, its LGBT community. Thursday night at 8 pm ET, on Newark Today first-term Newark Mayor Cory Booker will answer questions and field listener calls and emails on some of the harsh conditions facing the city’s gays and lesbians. Those conditions recently came to light in a New York Times article that contrasted the progressive social legislation happening across the rest of New Jersey with the often blatant homophobia that exists in its largest city.
Listeners outside the area can tune in via the internet at www.wbgo.org.
A year ago I wrote these twoarticles about one of my favorite tv shows, The Wire. I was put out over the fact that the industry award givers seemed to overlook the glaringly obvious high quality of the show in favor of lesser quality formulaic offerings. Well, it’s going to happen again and apparently the injury is self-inflicted.
This year I am on the nominating committee for the 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards that will be held next year. I will vote on nominees in the television category. After those votes are tabulated, the final five in each performance category will be put forth to the full SAG membership for final voting.
This past week, I received the booklet containing all of the actors and shows put in first round nomination and no one from The Wire is even listed. The oddity is that actors and their representatives are the ones who must submit themselves, so it seems the show’s cast members did not wish to seek recognition for their work. That’s sad, because they are head and shoulders above so many of the other dramas and actors who commonly get attention, yet none will be forthcoming.
As the show is set to begin it’s fifth and final season in January, let’s hope the cast won’t be so modest next year. Toot your own horn because in this business if you don’t, no one else will either.
It has been an exciting week in show business with labor action affecting both the television and theatrical communities.
Last Monday, members of the Writers Guild of America walked off the set, shutting down production on the late night talk shows, sitcoms and any dramas that hadn’t put enough episodes in the can. The issue is over compensation for internet and DVD usage of produced product. Writers want a piece of the pie, greedy producers want to keep it all for themselves.
As all of us realize, the future of all media is on the internet. No one buys CDs any more, we all download. Networks increasingly release their first run programming on YouTube or other websites, or put out DVDs of entire seasons so viewers can watch the reruns at their own discretion. Currently, writers, actors and directors–the creative people without whom there would be no television–get little if any of the revenue generated from these non-broadcast means of distribution.Writer/comedian and Writers Guild member Tim Kazurinsky, appeared recently on Chicago television station WGN and broke it all down.
Next June, contracts between producers and members of the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America expire and the same issues are on the table. Everyone is watching how this negotiating plays out to see if producers will come to their senses and share the revenue, or if they will remain the selfish idiots we’ve always known them to be, and force a walkout by actors and directors.
(In 2000, while still a working actor, I spent five months on the picket line when SAG and AFTRA struck commercial producers, over the very same issue of residuals and internet airing of advertising. I learned first hand how soulless producers are.)
While most performers stand behind their union brothers on the writing side, not everyone is. Apparently, comedian and talk show host Ellen Degeneres has chosen to go on with her show despite the strike. She will come to New York November 19th and 20th to tape her show. Members of the Writers Guild of America East plan a frosty reception.
On the theatrical front, when talks between Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) broke down in their negotiations with the League of American Theatres and Producers, that union representing stagehands authorized a strike. At 11am on Saturday, November 10th members of Local One set up picket lines shutting down nearly all of Broadway.
A total of 35 shows are currently running, with the majority of them affected by the strike. The non-profit houses and a handful of others operate under separate contracts and will remain open. They include: The New Amsterdam (Mary Poppins), Helen Hayes Theatre (Xanadu), Hilton Theatre (Young Frankenstein), Circle in the Square (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), American Airlines Theatre (Pygmalion), Studio 54 (The Ritz) and Biltmore Theatre (Mauritius) and Vivian Beaumont (Cymbeline).
Explaining their situation to confused ticket-holders, the union issued the following statement:
Theatre owners and producers are demanding a 38 % cut in our jobs and wages. They have built a $20 million fund to be used against us from the sale of theatre tickets to the public.
Broadway is a billion dollar a year industry and has never been more profitable than now.Cuts in our jobs and wages will never result in a cut in ticket prices to benefit the public, but only an increase in the profits for producers.Unlike the producers, we are not fighting for our second or third homes; we are fighting to keep the one that we have.
We ask for your understanding in our efforts to defend ourselves and protect our families.
The strike will not effect off Broadway or off off Broadway plays however, which in my opinion, usually offer more interesting shows anyway. Attendance was up by about 30% over the weekend at off-Broadway houses and at least 57 non-Broadways shows are running.
Writers Guild of America, East statement concerning Ellen Degeneres LINK Writers Guild of America, WestLINK International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local One LINK
