Television gets a bad wrap these days.
Out of date.
Out of touch.
No longer good.
But the reality is, we’re kind-of in a golden age of television.
There’s an immense amount of shows out there that are amazing … from documentaries like Netflix’s Schumacher to series like Succession through to mainstream TV channel shows like 24 Hours In Police Custody … even though the first time I watched the show, it was about a drug cartel who had been operating in the village we had just moved to in England.
What made it more amusing is that one of the criminals was called Robert, another was called Campbell and they drove a blue Audi … so when Rob Campbell – ie: me – arrived in Hundson with his family in a Blue Audi, the neighbours looked at me suspiciously.
Or should I say ‘more suspiciously’ than normal.
Now of course there have been a bunch of amazing shows over the years … amazing for their writing, acting and craft. Some went under the radar like Glenn Close’s Damages … some had instant critical acclaim, like The West Wing, The Newsroom and Mad Men.
But some … well, there’s a few that gain instant cult following but over time, get more and more recognised for what they did and how they did it.
The show, The Wire is one of those.
First broadcast in 2002, it’s a show that started small and then just grew in terms of the stories, context and issues it swallowed into its storylines.
It never felt fake, even if you came from a place that was a million lifetimes away from Baltimore, where the stories were based. There’s many reasons for it.
The writing is amazing.
The casting is perfect.
The acting is simply superb.
The craft and attention to detail is insane.
And they wholeheartedly embrace the ugly, inconvenient truths about racism, wealth and systemic racism that most shows – even today – do all they can to ignore or dilute.
And then there’s one more thing.
It has no musical score.
None.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have music. It does. But it is an integral part of what is going on at that moment in that scene rather than some incidental, indirect orchestration designed to inform the viewer how they should feel.
Similar to the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan – all you hear is what you would hear if you were actually in the place they are.
Nothing fake.
Nothing contrived.
All 100% raw and real.
What this does is create a very different experience watching the show.
There’s this conflict between feeling more directly into what you’re seeing while also giving you a sense of uncomfortableness. A nervous edge.
Things are not wrapped up in tidy bows.
Episodes don’t follow classic Hollywood tropes.
Details that can appear to mean nothing suddenly reveal their relevance weeks later.
And it’s for this reason I love the way Charlie Brooker – writer of Black Mirror and ex-TV reviewer for the Guardian – talks about the show in terms of ‘rewarding your attention’. It’s such a perfect articulation.
The Wire demanded you paid attention.
Demanded it.
Not in an academic explanation sort of way, but in terms of committing to it.
Watching everything going on.
Not just in the foreground, but the details all around the environment.
The streets.
The language being used.
The slight nods and movement.
The music being played by others.
The characters in the background..
Details someone from those streets needs to know to survive those streets …which is why viewers who paid real attention, were rewarded with something much bigger than what was just said on the screen.
It was a show that left you feeling you have gone through something.
Not watched, but truly experienced.
Experiences that stick with you. Change you. Question, consider, work-out, hypothosise and – to some degree – feel scared and pressured by.
While there is a lot of shit on the screen these days, TV isn’t dead.
In fact, in some ways, it’s never been more alive.
It’s just the best shows don’t want to give it to you on a plate, it challenges you to see if you’re worthy of watching it … of getting it.
And in our spoon-fed, superficial world, thank fuck for that.
In other news …
It’s a national holiday here on Monday so there’ll be no post on that day. Not because I like you, but because you’re not worth the effort to write one. Hahaha. Have a great weekend.