Best Show Ever?

I'd make a couple of points here.

Point One: "Best Show Ever" is an incomplete category. Was it the most entertaining show you've ever seen? Was it the most touching? Did it make you laugh hardest? Cry hardest? Did you learn something?

That last one is why people point to "The Wire" as being in a class of its own, because it is entertaining, it is touching, it does make you laugh and cry, but on top of all of that, it might open your mind up a little bit about how corrupt almost every aspect of "the straight world" actually is, how there may not be that much difference between being a lawyer or a criminal who robs drug dealers, how the system doesn't care about you and will eventually chew you up should you make the mistake of giving a *beep* when it ain't your turn to do so.

For some people, they don't want that type of "lesson" in their TV shows, they want pure entertainment, which is why some might feel that 24 or The Shield or How I Met Your Mother is the "best show ever".

The Wire is among the best, without a doubt. The only other show that I would say comes anywhere near covering as many bases as it does would be The West Wing, another show that actually taught you some realities about how government and society work while entertaining you. Not as realistic, though, it's set in a fantasy land where the government actually works sometimes, and accomplishes things.


Point Two: Every season of The Wire was in a way like starting over with a new show. Yes, you still had mostly the same characters as far as the cops went, but the other players could change radically, with new additions every season. The most jarring of these changes was of course when Season 2 came along, and suddenly we were looking at these dockworkers, mostly of Polish descent, and we spent far less time with Avon, Stringer, Bodie, etc. They were still there, but they were no longer the primary focus. And we had to learn to care about a whole new group of people. A lot of people didn't like that, and S2 is often cited as if not being the "worst" season, at least featuring the most characters that you you were not happy to see appear on the screen (poor Ziggy).

Season 3 is often thought of as being the "best season", and it's pretty obvious why that is. We went largely back to following the same guys that we'd followed in S1. Avon was back out of prison, and we finally got to dig a little deeper into him, and into String. Now, Season 3 also introduced or went deeper on a lot of new characters as well, mainly the Eastside players. But since they were an extended part of a world we already knew (the Barksdale/Bell Empire), we were far more accepting of them.

We get to Season 4 and it's time to talk about how little McNulty gets talked about when discussing various seasons, or the show as a whole. This is, after all, the STAR of the show, the man whose name comes first, the first character we see on the screen in S1ep01, the guy listed at the top in the IMDb acting credits for the show. So much of what happens on the show is pushed forward because of McNulty. But he isn't actually all that dynamic himself, he's somewhat of a trite character (although of course Dominic West does an outstanding job playing the guy), the too smart for his own good cop who has a problem with controlling his drinking and his dick. This is nothing new, and that's part of why he's the center of the show, the glue. He's a place we recognize to start out from, he's our guide to many different lifestyles and cultural values as portrayed in the show.

And by the end of Season 3, he was worn out. He asked to be given a greatly reduced role in Season 4, and he was. The character changes, he becomes domesticated, living with Beattie and the kids, his ex-wife can't believe how well he's matured, his relationship with his sons is good. And of course it's completely boring (though very sweet). He is in S4 far less than any other season of the show, and it probably is why we have a post in here talking about how the show "lost focus" in S4. It didn't lose focus, not in the slightest, but it lost the character of Jimmy McNulty that we'd come to know over 3 seasons, the viewing audience lost its familiar guide.

Additionally, S4 really isn't David Simon's season. The season belongs largely to Ed Burns, and the character of Prez (in this season) is based in no small part on Ed Burns' personal experiences. He worked as a Baltimore City police detective for 20 years, then he worked as a Baltimore public school teacher for 7 years before retiring. He knew David Simon from when Simon was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, and the two worked together on everything Simon had created for television at this point, The Corner, The Wire, and Generation Kill.

Burns has far more writing credits for S4 than Simon does. It was his season. And compared to the other four season, S4 is by far the most hopeful of any of the seasons. McNulty might turn out to have a happy life after all. Bubs is clean. Bunny's trying to do something to change the mindset of the Corner Kids. Naimond realizes he doesn't have it in him. Michael seems like he's going to figure out a way to get a better life. Dukie even has some hope! Carchetti seems like he's actually growing to care about people and accomplishing real change. Cutty has found some purpose.

I think all of this hopefulness is why I find S4 to be my personal favorite, and a lot of folks agree, but usually it's not until they've watched it 2 or 3 times. Gotta get used to the different feel, and to the changes from the previous season.

And all of that hopefulness gets sucked right out of the room in Season 5. Every single last bit of it. And that's part of why people usually find S5 to be the weakest (although the final episodes was definitely very good).

Another strike against S5 is that McNulty's creation of a "homeless killer" overshadowed the point the storytellers were trying to make about how the priorities of the police department (reflecting society overall) are pretty messed up. The only way to get approval to solve the murders of a bunch of people who were dead where it didn't matter was to make up an outrageous lie that wrenched at people's hearts - oh, lord, they're killing the poor homeless now! - and public outcry drives the Mayor to approve funds for the Police.

I think the final strike against S5 is one that I actually just realized the last time I re-watched the Series a few months ago (probably my 4th time watching the entire thing). If you were to take all of the scenes in S5 that actually had to do with the Major Crimes Unit working on the Marlo Stanfield case, I don't think you'd have much more than 35-40 minutes. And a lot of that would be just people in the Major Crimes office having conversations.

There was no feeling at all that they had actually accomplished something when they finally caught Marlo. And they didn't, again, that was part of the point of the storytellers. Because they illegally wiretapped the phones and picture messages, and Levy figured it out (thanks, Herc), Marlo basically got a slap on the wrist. A light one.

But we could have made that point while still feeling like the folks in Major Crimes were being clever in their attempts to apprehend Marlo. We felt that in Seasons 1, 2, and 3. We didn't feel it much in S4, but that's because they didn't really have a true target in that season, they were being pushed aside and undermined, unable to go after Marlo because there weren't yet any bodies they could put on him.

After that season of frustration, the whole thing that leads them to successfully nabbing Marlo (at least temporarily) is because Sydnor didn't know where a particular street was, so he turned to his map book, and suddenly realized what the clock code was in the picture texts. It was extremely anti-climactic.

They could have at least had "Ring of Fire" playing in the background on his radio when he figured it out.

So, in short (too late), Season 5 was the weakest, and no matter how many times Simon claims they told the story they wanted to tell in 10.5 episodes, maybe if it had been 12 (or 13!), it would have played out better and felt more satisfying. Having McNulty be back in the MCU and actually working with them to bust Marlo would have been more satisfying, but perhaps they didn't want to repeat themselves.