TheWireTheWire etc. Season 5

[yesno]

The Slate pieces on the Wire drive me crazy.

All the nits they feel like picking when the story shifts to an area they know well-- journalism?  That's exactly what I feel when journalists write about anything *I* know about.  That's how someone somewhere feels whenever a journalist writes anything about anything.  Their entire profession is based around simplification and caricature.

[Jouster]

A member named kwygibo on another board I'm on posted this about the criticisms of the newsroom storyline, and I feel it's worth quoting him here:

What other dimensions should they have? Klebanow is fleshed out plenty, he's clearly not 100% behind the orders he's giving but to be effective he has to project like he believes his shit, but then again he's not authoritative so it makes it that much easier for subordinate to call him out on it and look good by comparison. Whiting only appears briefly, how much can be said about him. Templeton acts exactly how someone doing what he is doing might be expected to act, and a not insignificant number of people have done what he's done. Would you have me believe there are no Templetons in the real world when I'm sure we've all met dozens?

There's a lot of copy been written on this issue since the season started, and a lot of it reads defensive, or as if the author doesn't want to piss off their own editors. Klebanow and Whiting are no different from a Valchek, they're just more reserved characters who in their little time on screen haven't been so transparent with their motives as a working class polish police captain for example. Which is completely believable to me, I've known more people like them than I have known people like the characters on the street.

Whiting is a boss who cares about glory and lets subordinates worry about the details. What other dimensions should a minor character like that be expected to have clearly illuminated in his 90 odd seconds on screen? What would make him acceptably multi-dimensional to the critics? Leave aside that every single character being a myriad of conflicting emotions and imperatives is not the very definition of verisimilitude as many critics would have us believe. Some individuals are more simple to sum up than others.

Sum up for me the editors Simon and co should have written instead in the time allowed. As they are they may come off as a fuck you to some people Simon is not fond of. So they're unsympathetic and kind of grey, but their lack of affect speaks as many volumes as the more unsympathetic Clay Davis' surplus of affect, and how much more depth has Davis shown in ten times as much screen time? Not a lot.

Frankly, when these criticisms only come now in this context it seems like it can't be anything but it being too close to home that is the big factor. In fact, the comments of so many published critics have made this aspect of the story more believable.

[masterofsparks]

Nicely put by kwygibo. I've had similar thoughts about those criticisms but never strung them together and fleshed them out quite so coherently.

[Omar]

The Slate pieces on the Wire drive me crazy.

All the nits they feel like picking when the story shifts to an area they know well-- journalism?  That's exactly what I feel when journalists write about anything *I* know about.  That's how someone somewhere feels whenever a journalist writes anything about anything.  Their entire profession is based around simplification and caricature.

This guy has been taking the Slate FWDs to task:

http://thefirstannualkrogblog.blogspot.com/

[Topher]

The Slate pieces on the Wire drive me crazy.

All the nits they feel like picking when the story shifts to an area they know well-- journalism?  That's exactly what I feel when journalists write about anything *I* know about.  That's how someone somewhere feels whenever a journalist writes anything about anything.  Their entire profession is based around simplification and caricature.

If journalism is only based on simplification and caricature, then what is David Simon so mad about?  I mean, if that's all it is anyway. . .


I'm not sure how anyone could think that this season isn't a disappointment (admittedly, it's still a very good show, but the fake serial killer/newsroom angle isn't so hot). 

[moonshake]

I too found McNulty's clever little plan unbeleivable. Harder for me to stomach was the way Freamon went along with McNulty's idea. Also, season 5's opening theme music is annoying.

That said, I still can't wait to see how it all ends. This season might not be as hot as the previous ones, but it's still pretty good.

[yesno]

If journalism is only based on simplification and caricature, then what is David Simon so mad about?  I mean, if that's all it is anyway. . .

Even he realizes that journalism is over-simplified and doesn't tell the whole story when, for instance, Omar and Prop Joe's deaths aren't seen for the big deals they really are.  There is no finger-pointed with those angles, it's just how it is.

What I mean is the way that the Slate guys are picking tiny little nits and making a big deal out of them.  But any time a journalist writes about something I happen to know a lot about (law, technology, whatever) there are tons of little things wrong.  The wrong terms are used.  Similar, but different, categories are conflated.  One recurring example is the average journalist's inability to distinguish between different categories of intellectual property.  It drives me nuts, but I don't really expect journalists to even have to be up on these things.  There are too many details in the world for a generalist to get everything right all the time.  That's fine.

The level of nit-picking undertaken by the Slate guys, though ("No one would say that" "That character isn't believable enough" "No one would wear that t-shirt in that situation") is the level of nit-picking that could be unleashed against what they write all the time.  Hell, they even get points about the show they are supposed to be talking about wrong.

Writing off a show because some little details about some tiny corner of the world aren't just so is the wrong kind of persnickety. 

I'm not sure how anyone could think that this season isn't a disappointment (admittedly, it's still a very good show, but the fake serial killer/newsroom angle isn't so hot). 

Sorry, but I just don't agree.  I think the newsroom story is great, and the fake serial killer angle is no more far-fetched than any number of fictional contrivances, including ones that have happened in the Wire in past seasons.  I like the focus on the crazy, horrible unintended consequences of the lies.

[TremblingEagle]

If journalism is only based on simplification and caricature, then what is David Simon so mad about?  I mean, if that's all it is anyway. . .

Even he realizes that journalism is over-simplified and doesn't tell the whole story when, for instance, Omar and Prop Joe's deaths aren't seen for the big deals they really are.  There is no finger-pointed with those angles, it's just how it is.

What I mean is the way that the Slate guys are picking tiny little nits and making a big deal out of them.  But any time a journalist writes about something I happen to know a lot about (law, technology, whatever) there are tons of little things wrong.  The wrong terms are used.  Similar, but different, categories are conflated.  One recurring example is the average journalist's inability to distinguish between different categories of intellectual property.  It drives me nuts, but I don't really expect journalists to even have to be up on these things.  There are too many details in the world for a generalist to get everything right all the time.  That's fine.

The level of nit-picking undertaken by the Slate guys, though ("No one would say that" "That character isn't believable enough" "No one would wear that t-shirt in that situation") is the level of nit-picking that could be unleashed against what they write all the time.  Hell, they even get points about the show they are supposed to be talking about wrong.

Writing off a show because some little details about some tiny corner of the world aren't just so is the wrong kind of persnickety. 

I've noticed this too about things I'm passionate about that make mainstream news
in a lot of ways that's why I don't use mainstream news that much anymore.

[dvdv]

Season 5: Episode 59 Spoilers







There are spoilers coming up, ya'll.





Another downer of an episode.  I think I said this before but you understand why they made so many of the previous episodes so "broad" when you see how everything and everyone is collapsing in on itself/themselves.

Snoop's death was pretty easily foreseen and lacked the sense of shock and loss when compared to Omar's.

The newspaper stuff continues to fascinate me.  Clark Johnson is really doing some fantastic acting in this. 

I think a few of the characters' fates are pretty clear (Dukie's in particular) but I have a feeling the episode will be pretty gut-wrenching.

[Topher]

I'm not sure how anyone could think that this season isn't a disappointment (admittedly, it's still a very good show, but the fake serial killer/newsroom angle isn't so hot). 

Sorry, but I just don't agree.  I think the newsroom story is great, and the fake serial killer angle is no more far-fetched than any number of fictional contrivances, including ones that have happened in the Wire in past seasons.  I like the focus on the crazy, horrible unintended consequences of the lies.

I don't have a problem with it being contrived (the Hamsterdam scenario is just as unrealistic).  My problem is that the angle seems to against what I, and a lot of other fans of the show, think is something McNulty would do.  You're taking arguably the main character in the show and making him call reporters, put on a wacky accent, use fake teeth to bite "victims."  This doesn't seem like something, knowing all we do about him, that McNulty would do. 

In other words, it's not the contrivance or the invention of the plot line, it's the fact that it feels so false. 

I don't have a problem with the Newsroom at all, except that it's too tied in to the serial killer story.  The acting is, as usual, top notch.  Again, it's a great show. 

[bruce]

you know what I'm going to love is that the finale won't be on demand till after it airs. So you will all have to wait.

Which by the way will be 90 minutes.

Perdictions:

I think its pretty obvious now who blows the whistle on the serial killer case.

Also the reporter will finally gets what is coming to him, with some huge fallout namely the editors who have been codling him.

[Chris L]

Episode 59 talk

As last night's Best Actress winner might say, Price, Lehane and Pelecanos have rocked my life w/ their writing these past 3 weeks.  After only one late night viewing, 59 might be the best episode of the series, with only Stringer's death really rivaling it.  Despite kwygibo's well-reasoned argument, I stand by my earlier criticisms (some plot elements just were not introduced as deftly as they needed to be for me), but the final stretch has been so great I barely remember what they were. 

And can everyone (including me) who quibbled about McNulty and Lester's actions at least acknowledge how true to character Kima's were?

[Jouster]

I cried (that never happens).

[buffcoat]

WARNING!  Cheap spoiler joke below.

I cried (that never happens).

For Snoop?

[masterofsparks]

Yeah, I had my problems with some stuff early in the season, but this home stretch is nothing short of magnificent. That final shot of Dukie watching the guy tie himself off was almost too grim for words.