Wiretappin'

BBC 2 in an act of either selfless generosity, or crippling doubt, have elected to show an episode of The Wire season 1 every night this week. Did it get the 10pm slot? Did it heck. Instead you'll have to be up concentrating until early the next day if you want to tie off those procedural loose-ends. If it helps, The Wire's in great company. BBC2 famously gave Seinfeld the scheduling short shrift, and that was only the most popular American TV show ever. Oh well. At least it's finally on terrestrial telly. It was touch and go there. I thought perhaps it might eventually pop up on Channel 5, although it doesn't quite fit their flashy forensics remit. Not enough jump-cuts. A decade or so ago, it might have showed up on Channel 4. Remember when they used to be known for quality imports? In the late 90s they screened Wire's prototype show Homicide: Life on the Street, although that slipped so late in the scheduling I had to cluster-tape the flipping Late Zone into extinction. I don't think they even bothered with the last series. Anyway, Channel 4 eh? Used to be great. Now they're treading water as the official Heat magazine channel. All lurid documentaries and vapid kids presenters.

Enough complaining. Although this bulletin would have been better posted 24 hours ago before you potentially missed the opening episode (and I know you all flock here everyday for spiritual nourishment and creative direction, who can blame you?), here it is. In short, watch The Wire. It's very good indeed. If you've even glanced at The Guardian in the last twelve months you'll have had that beaten into you. Just watch it. It's very good indeed. I'm sure if you haven't dabbled you imagine The Wire to be a dull policer full of impenetrable twist-turning. Or a worthy yelp about inner-city poverty. Or a regular cop show heaving under the weight of endless gobbledygook in-talk and slanging. It's all of that. It's all of that with a twist of street-level superheroics, gangland black ops, stand-up worthy natter, blank man promises, and the rawest examination of childhood I can think of.

Where The Wire really excels though is the politics. I don't mean system double-dealing, just the unspoken bureaucratic rule making that snares itself around everything. The grey area consideration that infects every level of life in Baltimore; be it hanging out a family member in a dead-end drugs barrow for a homicidal mishap, or arranging career suicide apparatus for a chain-of-command-flouting detective. Normal serial TV dramatic consideration doesn't apply. Arcs are not tied off in a few double episode specials, they yawn over the entire length of the show. Stories advance at a clogged, methodical pace. No steps are missed, and everybody has be accounted for. By the end of series 5, the net has widened from law enforcement and dealers to include the entire social political infrastructure of Baltimore. Schools. Government officials. Eroding Middle Class. Media. It's ruthlessly incisive. Let us hope BBC2 takes us there.