- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Letters posted here are associated with the following article:
The letters thread is now closed.
A very nice post, thank you. I would like to add/comment on your theme of narrative purity. Your analysis is spot on when it comes to the Wire's writers' unbending loyalty to plot development in in their application of specific devices and story lines, such as sex scenes or a specific character's screen time. That is indeed one of the outstanding components of the show.
What you left out, or rather left as an open-ended question, was how and why the writers made- and were able to stick to- these artistic decisions. You touched on the cause in your distinctions between network shows, and The Wire, which is a Premium Cable network. Therein lies the difference between focus-grouped, market researched, network executive influenced shows, and shows given artistic freedom. While the first- shows carried on networks dependent on ad revenue, which in turn is dependent on the ratings regime- inevitably contain racy sex scenes, audience-dictated character promotion, and other ratings-grabbing add ons, shows carried by subscription-financed networks are immune to the whims of the masses and free to keep their stories pure and dedicated. It is no wonder, then, that the most award-winning, critically acclaimed, DVD-selling shows on television come from those networks whose market interaction is of a far more long term, indirect nature.w2
