WIRE, THE (TV SHOW): THE COMPLETE SERIES (5 SEASONS) - DVD review

Note: In the following joint review, Hock provides his thoughts on the series proper, with Jason writing up the Video, Audio, Extras, and Parting Thoughts.

For the most realistic depiction of drug addiction in America´s inner cities and its devastating effects on one West Baltimore family, one should catch the HBO Emmy-winning miniseries, "The Corner". For the most realistic depiction of life on the streets of Baltimore from both sides of the fence (the cops on one side and the drug dealers on the other), look no further than the new HBO crime series, "The Wire". It is therefore not a big surprise to me when I found out that the same screenwriter, David Simon, created both programs. In 1988, Simon, then a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun, spent that year accompanying Baltimore´s homicide squads as they investigated various murders around the city. From his experiences, Simon wrote an Edgar Award-winning book, "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets" which went on to inspire the critically acclaimed 1993 television series "Homicide: Life on the Street", another Baltimore-based television police drama.

See all the David Simon connections?

Good, because now you know where all three television programs get their reality check from. Apart from the now-canceled NBC series "Homicide: Life on the Street", FX´s "The Shield" is as gritty and edgy as you will ever get on regular cable television. I love the show´s filming style using handheld cameras, which gives "The Shield" a documentary and almost reality show-like look. However, it sorely missed the one thing that would have made the show ultimately more realistic--swearing. It is an absolute downer when you consider a show that is as potent as "The Shield" goes on the air without the obligatory curse word uttered at least once. That, unfortunately, is the reality of regular cable television programming, which, although not as scrutinized as the major networks, still have to conform to certain decency standards. Nevertheless, the rules completely change when you step up to a pay cable channel like HBO where profanities and nudity are permissible, which gives the channel a huge advantage when trying to attract an increasingly numb television audience looking for better programs to watch. Not only that, the original shows on HBO are darker, better scripted and edgier when compared to other channels. As a result, HBO consistently leads the television community in garnering major awards for its original series, mini-series and movies.

"The Wire" is one of the very few HBO series that has yet to be recognized by the industry but I am pretty sure that will change in the near future. The first season runs for a total of thirteen episodes and unlike most television cop dramas, "The Wire" consists of one single continuous story that runs the entire length of the season. Think of the entire season as a book and each episode as one chapter of that book. This format is reminiscent of another acclaimed television courtroom drama from 1995 called "Murder One", which follows a single case for the entire season. The serialized nature of "The Wire", like Fox´s "24", demands full weekly commitments from a television audience that is increasingly harder to please. In that scenario, we should all be thankful for the release of entire seasons of a television show on DVD as one can watch the episodes at any pace one likes.

Unlike "24", which almost always ends with a cliffhanger on every episode, "The Wire" does not employ such a tactic to hook the audience. Instead, the show moves at its own deliberate pace and grabs the audience´s attention by delving deeply into rich character growth and careful plot development. Never have I seen a more diverse set of characters coupled with an intricate plot on a single show than on "The Wire". It opens with the murder trial of D´Angelo Barksdale (Larry Gilliard, Jr.), an up and coming mid-level drug dealer who is also the nephew of the city´s biggest and more importantly, most low-profile drug kingpin, Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris). After D´Angelo gets off because a witness, clearly intimidated by Barksdale´s hoods, recants her testimony, the judge in the case, Judge Phelan (Peter Gerety) calls in Detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), wondering why McNulty is attending the Barksdale trial that he has no involvement in. McNulty, a very competent and ultimately also a very frustrated homicide detective, launches into a rant about how the Barksdale gang now controls most of the city´s drug trade at the Towers and the low-rise projects and has been also suspected of many homicides in the past few years. The problem is, according to McNulty, no one in the police force is working on bringing the gang down. Thinking nothing of his conversation with the Judge, McNulty goes back to work.

Soon enough, the shit hits the fan. Apparently the Judge made a call to Deputy Commissioner Burrell (Frankie R. Faison) inquiring about Barksdale and why no action has been taken against his gang. Apparently, none of the higher-ups have any inkling about whom Barksdale is and get completely blindsided by the Judge. Obviously, Burrell brings his wrath down on McNulty´s superior, Major Rawls (John Doman), who in turn, comes down hard on McNulty for starting all this trouble by mouthing off to the Judge. So, to please the Judge, Lieutenant Daniels (Lance Reddick) from Narcotics is ordered to put together a detail to bring down Barksdale. To accurately reflect how much importance the police department place on this investigation, Daniels´ ragtag team is shoved down into the basement to use as a temporary office. Apart from tapping his own people from the Narcotics division, led by Detective Shakima Greggs (Sonja Sohn), Daniels is stuck with McNulty and a bunch of other rejects that none of the other departments wanted. Obviously, someone wanted to send a message about the priority of the Barksdale investigation.

After this set-up in the first episode, the next twelve revolves around the team´s efforts, despite all the obstacles, in bringing Barksdale to justice. For me, the entire series is an amazing journey because the scenarios are so authentic and it does not gloss over the crummy and tedious details of police work. In a revealing and quite frankly, a darkly funny scene, we get to see McNulty and his partner Detective Bunk Moreland (Wendell Pierce) work a 6-month old murder scene like it was less than a day old. These two detectives obviously know what they are doing. Without uttering any word other than various versions of the f*** expletive, the duo is able to identify where the shooter was, how the victim was shot and even find the missing bullet lodged in the refrigerator and the spent shell. And to think that no one else in the department could come up with anything for six months.

As I mentioned earlier, all the main characters on this show are very diverse and multi-faceted. There are the hardworking cops like McNulty and Greggs, who genuinely want to put the bad guys behind bars but are almost always met with resistance from the guys at the top due to some internal political struggle. While McNulty cuts the familiar figure of a divorced father who is married to his job, Greggs is not your run-of-the-mill tomboy cop but is instead a lesbian with a live-in lover. Then there are the department misfits, one group who are lazy and just want to take it easy and another who are just too eager and often make things worse. Of course, you also come across the superior officers who will think nothing of jeopardizing an investigation or to just do the minimum required in order to further their own ambitions. Even the bad guys are not one-dimensional criminals. For example, D´Angelo is not a straight-up street punk or a vicious killer but is actually an educated and intelligent young man. The only reason he is caught up in the drug trade is because of his uncle and the family business. And speaking of the kingpin, Avon Barksdale is an ultra-paranoid criminal, who runs his empire like any other business; only he trades in illegal narcotics and has no qualms about eliminating the competition or anyone else who dares cross him by force.

Not content with just focusing on the cat and mouse games played between the cops and the criminals, "The Wire" is also able to work in another aspect that serves to put a serious cringe on the familiar cop drama genre by exposing the stark realities of how internal politics and law enforcement efforts often clash and undermine one another to the detriment of the city´s poor. For example, Lieutenant Daniels, looking to work his way up the ladder, won´t do anything or defend his people unless he knows there is a personal benefit to be gained from it.

"The Wire" also tries to show the clear divisions within the city, where on one side is the affluent suburb while the other lives in poverty and is stricken by drugs and violence. A small but highly symbolic brush between these two sides occur when McNulty brings his street informant, Bubbles (Andre Royo), who is a drug fiend, to his son´s soccer game. McNulty´s wife shuns away from Bubbles, at once acknowledging the fact that a darker side of the city exists in her ex-husband´s line of work, a side that she chooses to ignore even though it is staring right at her.

VIDEO:
As you'll see in a moment, HBO didn't do a whole lot of work in bringing the complete series to disc. The first three seasons look the best of the five, considering these are fullframe transfers as originally intended. There is an older feeling to the first set of episodes, almost a vintage quality to them. Colors are subdued, quality is soft and there is a lack of detail. By the time season three rolls around, the series is firing on all cylinders, video-wise, with the transfers sporting clean and crisp details. Season four hits a brick wall, featuring copious amounts of grain, softness in most shots and even motion blur. The final year isn't much better-but it is better. Does this video treatment ruin the enjoyment of the series? Not necessarily…but it would have been nice if someone put thought into this set.

AUDIO:
The audio portion of the set follows roughly the same trajectory as the video with one notable exception: the last two seasons are infinitely better. There are English 5.1 and 2.0 mixes across all the discs, along with French and Spanish 2.0 versions. Initially, the sound field is spread out across all speakers without any element making the audience take note. The ambient music is relegated to the rear speakers, occasionally walking on the dialogue. Keep going in the series and season three sports a noticeably improvement. Directional effects are featured, along with a more dynamic audio range. Since "The Wire" is dialogue driven, don't expect a lot of work from anything but the front speakers.

EXTRAS:
Ugh. As if the packaging for "Deadwood" wasn't bad enough, with its page-style disc holders, "The Wire: The Complete Series" comes packed inside a gray rectangular box. Remove roughly one quarter of it to find each of the five seasons housed inside a cardboard half page booklet. Each booklet unfolds to reveal a disc table of contents and the discs themselves.

There are no spindles for the discs to be secured to; rather, a semi-circle has been cut out of each disc holder, providing a "pocket" for the disc to slide into. Yes, I said slide. Considering the amount of money these sets go for, I'm sure no one wants to scratch or scuff even one disc. This is a unique, but terribly flawed, package design.

Now then, every supplement from the individual season sets is ported over to this complete series set. Every season, at the very least, includes a commentary or two. The first two years have the most anemic extras (commentaries only). The high point is arguably season four, with a two-part documentary on the production of the series, among other things, called "It's All Connected" and "The Game is Real."

When the fifth season was released earlier this year, fans bemoaned the lack of three commercial-style pieces created for HBO based on the series. These three prequels are included on the fifth season's fourth disc, as is a 13-minute montage of on-set flubs, gaffes and mistakes. The standard HBO material is also included: recap and preview segments, episode summaries and an episode index. "Deadwood" gets an entire disc of extra content while "The Wire" gets under 20 minutes of bonus material? Sure, quality trumps quantity, but let's be honest. This is a disappointment.

PARTING THOUGHTS:
I know, you want me to tell you this 23-disc set is worth the $100+ price tag as some means of justification, right, for plunking down that much money. It may very well be, considering the critical praise "The Wire" received. My only reservation is in the interior packaging and lack of new supplements. If that doesn't bother you-or "The Wire" is your favorite show in the world, go ahead and pick this up.

PS: I've been told the 6 for Film Value is misleading. When factoring in all aspects of the release-shoddy transfers on some seasons, a lack of real exclusive bonus material, sub-standard packaging-the score for the set as a whole turns out to be a 6, even if the content itself is much higher.