The Week In The Wire

Episodes 1 to 5

So, I'm sure most if not all of you have heard of The Wire. The critically acclaimed HBO show which seems to have been everywhere for the last few weeks.

The show actually started in 2002 but was never on terrestrial TV which limited it's audience somewhat. But since the show ended last year it's popularity seems to have gone through the roof.

So the BBC, never shy of a bandwagon, had decided to show the whole thing from the beginning on week nights. Which is great for me as I've never seen it before. So, you'll be getting my thoughts as I goes along as I catch up with TV I should have watched years ago.

Thoughts so far:

1) Wouldn't really want to live in Baltimore

2) When they say explicit language, they ain't kidding. One of my favourite scenes so far was with McNulty and his partner re-visiting a crime scene and swearing like pirates. But it wasn't good just for the fruity language, it was the way you saw them figure out what happened without someone standing there explaining it for you like in CSI or something.

3) Speaking of respecting the audience's intelligence, is it just the BBC version that has no "Previously on The Wire" segments?

4) Initially, it does seem to be a more focused version of Traffic as we're dealing primarily with the drug trade in this series. But what makes it better than Traffic is the rich vein of humor that runs through the show.

5) Lesbians?

Overall, it's great so far and we're barely into it yet. Might have to say third favourite show after Lost and Harry Hill.

Boo!

Seriously? Is he the best we can do?

Rubbish!

Awesome!

Hiro's Dad is in the next series of I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!

Wait. That isn't a good thing.

Nevermind. At least it'll stop the Shatner/Takei blood feud for a while.

Proof Japan makes the best TV shows

Goddamnit!

Boo!

They still proper freak me out

Anyone watch Fonejacker last night?

Basically, there were these adverts around the show:



Appears to be some kind of Zombie Big Brother and it proper freaked me out.

Then I went to the website and clicked the big red eye to get the trailer and was a bit disappointed: here was me thinking the whole thing was going to be like watching an episode of BB only with zombies and instead it's all filmy. I would have been much more interested in the just being done with the usual BB cameras as the atmosphere it created in the little trailers proper freaked me out.

Then I looked into it a bit more and found out Charlie Brooker wrote it so everything might be okay.

The next big thing?

J J Abrams's new TV show, Fringe, will debut later in the year with a pilot episode costing $10 million.

$10 million? For a pilot?!

Tina Turner was wrong: we DO need another hero.

Just finished watching the first season of Heroes thanks to certain avenues *ahem*. I've got to say, my top 3 is now as follows:

3. Lost
2. 24
1. Heroes.

It is just an awesome show. But the great thing is, here is a gigantic validation of all the time and money and tears I've put into comics. The fact that something can be so influenced by American Superhero comics can be one of the highest rated TV shows in the US is, frankly, almost unbelievable.

How can this happen when comics themselves have been struggling for years in the face of crashes and bankrupcies? My wife lapped up this series, stating it was one of her favourite TV shows ever (ever!) yet won't read any of the comics I recommend for her. Is it just the format?

Taking a hard look at it, Heroes takes a lot of it's story cues from the classic comic book stories. Not that this is a bad thing: for someone like me who knows his way round comic history, it's great to see and recognize these nuggets. Yet for my wife, coming across them for the first time, the strength of the story telling comes through despite the change of medium. I love picking out all these references, like

!SPOILERS!

the episode in the future that homages the Days of Future Past X-Men story, or that Linderman's plan is basically the same as Ozymandias' in Watchmen. You get several characters named after various comic creators, the finale takes place in Kirby Plaza...awesome.

I'm guessing one reason for this reverence of comics is the fact that a major comics creator, Jeph Loeb, is the co-executive producer of the show. So he is quickly becoming one of my heroes, not just for helping to create Heroes but also because he co-wrote Teen Wolf and Commando.

I love Commando. Maybe even more than Heroes.

You can't slip anything past me

This is only really for those who saw tonights episode of Doctor Who, but it had two massive Marvel Comic references:

1) You have the Time Lords referred to as "watchers of the Universe, who vowed never to interfere". Well, that's The Watchers, the ancient race of beings who, well, watch.

2) The US President says the meeting with the new aliens will be on the US aircraft carrier Valiant. So the Doctor and his crew teleport onto the carrier and look out of the window and don't see any water. Well, blimey, it's a only a big rocket powered flying aircraft carrier.

Well, that's SHIELD's Helicarrier. Nick Fury had loads of those.

What next, the Doctor popping this adamantium claws? Or throwing this mighty shield?