I had a free weekend and just caught up on the fourth season of The Wire (HBO). I've got to say that this last season has been one of the best. In part, because after a year in Baltimore I'm getting to know the city a bit better and they really have captured it well.
Woven through the third and fourth season is the struggle of a white city councilman to become mayor of a predominantly black city. All the way, fighting the corruption and inefficiency of city bureaucracy - trying to make a concrete difference. The fourth season follows a number of "corner kids" trying to eke out a living selling heroin and crack on contested turf.
This city has one of the highest murder counts in the country and has two out of the last five years won the unenviable title of "Murder Capital, USA". Add in an astonishingly high percentage of the city are addicts (some say the figure approaches 20%) and one would think the city is a cesspool. I think the series goes a long way to showing that there are decent people in the system, unwilling to let it continue to slide.
It follows local politics very well, and the figures of the mayor and city council president are very recognizable as being drawn from real life. It is, frankly, a flattering portrait of the mayor - and the new governor of our state. One can only hope that it's true.
I highly recommend the series to anyone who likes serious drama. It's full of violence, and bad language, but it's also great script writing and re-sets my standards for TV drama.
Really, it puts shows like the Sopranos (which I very much enjoyed) in the shade.
Posted by artandscience at February 17, 2007 02:17 PM