Letters to the Editor
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i care
All of which precisely 99.99 percent of all viewers will ever know or remotely care about.
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Oh, Jimmy..
Shakes head..
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The Sun newsroom and cliches
I like the newsroom scenes so far. All this griping about the newsroom scenes being cliche just strikes me as inside baseball on the part of Salon staff. It might not sound cliche to those not in the media. Some of us haven't heard the statuesque blonde joke before. The good thing is that Gus seems a character that could hold my interest for the season.
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So far so good
I am not a reporter or a media critic. I have never worked at a newspaper or in a newsroom. For me, The Wire's depiction of the workings at the Baltimore "Sun" don't seem pedestrian, unoriginal or stock. Yes, I saw Shattered Glass and I remember Jason Blair, but I am willing to go along with David Simon and his depiction of how failures at the "Sun" are another part of what went/is going wrong in Baltimore.
I thought there were some interesting parallels in this episode, Snoop and Chris describing the importance of a stake out before their "drive by" and Lester's stake out of the alley; McNulty's substance and sexual addictions and the share by the young woman at the NA meeting; maybe even Clay Davis pleading for help and being turned away and Marlo coming to Avon and being endorsed. The Wire has been about showing that there really is not much of a line between the good guys and the bad guys ("a man's got to have a code") but it seems like this season Simon wants us to understand that there will be no heroes.
I don't know what to think yet about what McNulty is up to. Does it make a difference that he seems to believe this is the way to bring attention to the problem? I need to see the episode again. And is it too soon to hope that Michael is starting to realize the limitations of his new crew and their violence and pettiness?
Also I love, love, love Clark Johnson and I am thrilled that he is back on TV.
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The Wire is great original television...
....so they need to stop recycling bits from past glory days. Last week it was the photocopier as lie detector, from Homicide:Life on the Streets, this week it was McNulty trying his key in every car in the garage, also covered in Homicide. If you're running out of time to tell the story, why not spend it telling a new story?
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Hum...
I almost feel asleep.
Did the Wire get so successful that it decided to take on a liberalesque issue like the demise of newspapers, which is a real snooze to most people? It seems off to a slow, preachy start. They probably could have worked it in without the the showcase, crusade feeling. Plot: Everybody is complaining like a little bitch over the economics of their world.
And the acting seems bad. I just didn't believe a lot of the characters. Even some of the old timers. It's like all of a sudden they got self-conscious. At one point I couldn't understand some street talk--but I just didn't care!
And they threw in too many 'bitches' here and there. That's too stale for a cutting edge show. Are they trying to rival Deadwood with its 'Cocksucker' bit?
The new version of the song sucks.
John of Cincinati is haunting the Wire.
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Great callbacks to Bodie
McNulty saying "The game is rigged," and then a few beats later kicking the side of the patrol car... hi, Bodie! Hope you're watching! (sniff)
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Oh, Ms. Havrilesky
You are so wrong about this: "Look, Gus, I know the problems. My wife volunteers in the city schools!" Amazing, that a white guy could craft such spot-on street dialogue, but make other white guys sound so awkward and unnatural.
That is precisely how a rich white guy from another city would sound when trying to prove that he really knows what's up. It's so dismissive that it's banal, which is precisely the point.
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White Guys
I'm another who thinks they don't get the white guys right--McNulty, try. I just watched the turgid 16 Blocks, and saw literally no difference between the two characters. Or the newsguys; I feel like I'm watching the Big Carnival. Surely management working for large corporations don't yell at women over the cubicles, 'get your ass over here'. Hardboil as much as you like, but there are still some pretty banter-stifling laws out there. Would if editors were as single-mindedly veracity obsessed, as well, but anyone who reads the paper--a white house source, insiders say, etc--knows better. I can't imagine that a beltway paper is more stringent about sourcing than others...
Lastly, enough with the 'real people' actors. Actors are good at acting, 'real people' aren't good at acting, or they would be actors, not 'real people'. The last season was nearly unwatcheable due to all the unbelievable acting...
All that being said, this is still one of the best shows on television, and the great actors in the show, minus the ones mentioned here, are just amazing...
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Keep your voice down, dammit
omooex hit the sourest note in the newsroom scenes so far: The yelling at a young reporter across the room and upbraiding her within earshot of her colleagues. There may still be a few sadistic bastards stinking up newsrooms here and there, but this character otherwise doesn't fit the type. I've worked in newsrooms at papers of various sizes, including one larger than the Sun, and I've never seen such a boneheaded act.
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Just a bystander
Can readers join in the discussion - too late, I'm in. Let's see - don't hate Steve Earle's version but sure do miss Tom Waits. Where he at?
It looks pretty ominous so far - but I read somewhere that one person finds redemption and my guess after tonight is that it's gonna be Bubbles, of all the characters, Bubs has suffered the most - in my mind at least - and you can tell that underneath all that tragedy is a huge heart - maybe Simon will reward that.
McNulty's happiness was never gonna last, but I'd like at least to know what precipitated this latest fall from grace. Yeah, he's going overboard but I'm on the boat - what a great death spiral - and who's going to take with him? McNulty doesn't care what happens to himself anymore - caution to the wind wheeeeee.
I've worked in a newsroom - and agree - too stiff, not real, artificial caricatures on everyone but Clark and the two other old guys. The punk-assed guy obviously made up his story about the wheel-chair kid and is that really an arc we need? A forgery scandal to take down the current stick-up-the-wazoo editor?
I wouldn't want to be Carcetti for all the governorships in the land.
On the Marlo arc - oh how I hate him - the homicide team will find a way to get on it - by hopping on McNulty's back probably - and will get their evidence, but Michael will be the one to take him down. If Marlo gets Omar first, I'll kill my TV.
It was fun to see Avon and the Russians back in the loop. Yeah, never thougt I'd see the day that Avon looked like the good guy.