The Wire -- Season 1, Episode 1 (The Target)

As mentioned in last Friday's post, I bought The Wire season 1 on DVD a few weeks -- months? These days my memory is as swiss cheesed as Dr. Sam Beckett's -- ago. I saw it for sale at The Big Gay E-Mart, and was prompted to purchase it for reasons threefold: first, I recalled the (I ain't Mad no more) Skillz song "04 Rap Up" and its verse "Hottest show on TV? Hands down, that would have to be The Wire"; second, the best b-ball blog on Le Internet, Free Darko, had an article last summer praising it similarly, though in greater detail; and third, Bill Simmons bigged it up a month or two ago in one of his (increasingly, exponentially disappointing) columns. Like Jack Horner, The Sports Guy sucks now anyways, but I still tend to find myself agreeing with him on matters roundball and media, and that basically sealed the deal. Word to Monty Hall.

So here's the plan: from time to time I'm going to post some thoughts on HBO's gritty series about law enforcement and drug dealers in crime-infested Baltimore, give you my take on whether The Wire truly is an outstanding (cable) TV drama. Then I'm going to go to the mall and pick up the new Wilco album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I hear it's terrific.

Thoughts on episode 1:

Maybe it's because I'm drunk and stupid, but the first ep was confusing like a gorgeous lesbian. Mostly because it took me a while to figure out exactly which level of law enforcement each cop character represented, and when they became all "Avengers assemble!" at the episode's conclusion I was still unsure how, exactly, everything came together. Maybe that's my fault, but I don't think so. I think the show's writers are to blame. (But it did make the story seem more real. It's definitely not dumbed down. You know, for stupid people such as myself.)

I'd probably be a lot less in the dark were I to watch the first episode again, but who wants to do that with episodic television? I want to get through the first season and then determine whether or not it's worth it to check out season 2.

Still, for a pilot it was very good, perhaps even great. Some of my favorite things -- word to Julie Andrews -- about "The Target":

- The opening shot of trails of blood, iridesced blue and red by the flash of police lights, was cool. Like, Hey! That looks like an electric wire! Now it looks like blood! I appreciate shit like that. I like my symbolism spoon-fed.

- Dominic West -- who, in addition to episode 1 of The Wire, was also in another Episode I. Try not to hold that against him -- is a good leading man, even though he appears to have graduated from the post-Robert De Niro school of "touching and wrinkling one's nose as a suitable method of emoting."

- It's always nice to see Leo Fitzpatrick. It's doubly nice when he's playing a junkie who gets the shit kicked out of him three ways from Sunday, though I'll admit that Schadenfreude stems from my inability to not project onto him his character Telly from Larry Clark's Kids when watching any of his other film or TV roles.

- I like the dialogue. I think. Maybe it's trying too hard to sound cool (see: opening scene, "You got to. This is America, man," which, while perhaps alluding to the show's theme, is cookie-cutter ironic for irony's sake*, and makes absolutely no sense at all). But I can't really fault the dialogue too much, because that's how dialogue gets his mack on; that's how dialogue scores chicks. Plus, "shit rolls, piss trickles" are words to fucking live by.

- Figure skating + porn = best idea ever. I realize that's not a commentary on The Wire, but it needs to be said. I can't believe it's taken me 28 years to realize this. (PS - I hope to hell I'm not giving Tonya Harding any ideas.)

To be continued...

* That's a paradox! We now return you to your regularly-scheduled 10th-grade English class.