"The Wire"

A good article summarizing "The Wire," one of the best TV shows. More than about the Baltimore police dept. and the drug dealers they're trying to catch, it's telling the story differently. As Laura Miller argues in her article:

In a way, it doesn't make sense to talk of "The Wire" as the best American television show because it's not very American. The characters in American popular culture are rarely shown to be subject to forces completely beyond their control. American culture is fundamentally Romantic, individualistic and Christian; when it's not exhorting you to "follow your dream" it's reassuring us that in the eleventh hour, we will be saved. American culture is a perpetual pep talk, trafficking in tales of personal redemption and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. We don't do doom. "The Wire" is not Romantic but classical; what matters most in its universe is fulfilling your duty and facing the inexorable with dignity.

It's an unbelievably good show not because it only has fascinating complex characters or is able to mix humor and drama but because it tells the story differently. Everything doesn't end up alright, ppl you're rooting for die, some kids trying to change don't make it. It's not only a happy ending. And ties to my post below about things being out of our control, how un-American it is. It's like she read my mind this morning.

More from the article:

The rest of the characters in "The Wire" are trapped, and depending upon their intelligence and insight, they are more or less at peace with that fact. When thinking about the mood, the ethos of "The Wire," what comes to mind (rather than "War and Peace" or "For Whom the Bell Tolls") is a moment in the last book of "The Iliad" when old Priam, the king of Troy, sneaks into the camp of the Greeks to plead with the Greek warrior Achilles to return the body of his son, Hektor. Priam implores Achilles to remember his own father, who hopes to see his son again someday, and who (both men realize) never will.

"A single, all-untimely child he had," Achilles replies, relenting, "and I give him no care as he grows old, since far from the land of my fathers I sit here in Troy and bring nothing but sorrow to you and your children." From the hotheaded Achilles, this comes as a weary sigh. He is far from the father he loves, embroiled in a pointless war, mourning the death of his best friend and facing a grieving man whose son's corpse he has desecrated in a fit of misdirected rage. Someday he, too, will be similarly bereft. Yet how could it be otherwise? These men are warriors, born to fight; this is what the gods who control their destinies decree.

*And good to know that TV shows should be put in quotation marks - thanks for the grammar reminder Ms. Miller!