It Would Be Impossible to Overstate the Excellence of the HBO Series The Wire. . . .

     I'm in the middle of watching Season One of the HBO series The Wire.  I don't know where to start, except to say that this show is at least on par with The Sopranos when it comes to intense, realistic drama.

     The show centers on the struggle between Baltimore police and the powerful and violent drug dealers in the projects.  There's the elusive drug kingpin, his righthand man, his mid-level nephew dealer, several low-level teenage dealers, a team of special narcotics detectives, a judge, politicians, heroin addicts, and a host of other characters that weave in and out of the story.

     First of all, you can't believe these guys are acting.  Couldn't be better.  Most of all, for the first time EVER on the screen, I feel like I know what life is like for these guys in the real world.  There are scenes that are so realistic (thankfully without the popular, annoying, over-used, shaky-camera routine) that you get as freaked out as you would by watching the events unfold in real life.

     I guarantee you that if William Shakespeare were alive today, he would name The Wire as perhaps the best dramatic writing and production anywhere in the film and television universe.  If you group it together with The Sopranos, it's not even close.

     The show does a superb job of unpacking the essence of the characters in a realistic, empathetic fashion without falling into the trap of excusing particular actions.  What I mean is that you really, really get to see that the mid-level drug dealer who commits murder or the rock-bottom heroin addict who has abandoned his wife and children to slowly kill himself in the alleyways of the projects are both as human as you or I.  These are human beings who make horrible and evil choices, and they shouldn't be surprised by the often violent fates that befall them, but they are as human as the next guy.

     Last night I watched a scene in which an undercover drug buy goes bad and a cop gets shot, and it was hands-down the most intense scene I've ever seen in film or TV.  The portrayal of the fear and panic that grips the fellow officers of the female undercover cop as the action turns sour is shockingly real.

     The creator and main writer of the show was a Baltimore police detective for twenty years.

       I've attached here a link to a very cool scene in which one of the main characters, the mid-level dealer, explains the game of chess to two of his underlings.  Very cool scene indeed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1HUlTKvDUI

.

     Enjoy!