The Wire

Oops, now I’ve got another HBO series that will lure me away from the film archive, trading movies for tv. I was leery of committing to another program like The Sopranos or Six Feet Under, submitting to a long, slow pleasure something like a Victorian novel -- a big, baggy monster of a serial, a river of commingling narrative. But I’m into the flow now. The drug war on the streets of Baltimore has dragged me in, microcosm enough to hold my attention through the 13-chapter length of a season, and then make me eager for the next season’s volume. So now I’ve started on the first disk of season one, episodes 1-3. Also listened to David Simon’s commentary on the pilot, which confirms he’s got a lot on his mind besides the old game of cops and cons, using a time-honored genre to delve into the institutions of American life. Jeez, and after this I’ll have to see if it’s true what they say about Deadwood. You don’t have to buy the whole argument of Steven Johnson’s widely-reviewed Everything Bad Is Good for You to agree that tv can become a whole other kettle of fish, cognitively speaking. (2002-to date, dvd, n.)