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Salon.com has posted two essays which attempt to answer the age old question, “What is the greatest television program of all time, The Sopranos or The Wire?” The question isn’t exactly answered – nor should it be, I suppose — though both writers do a great job of presenting their case.

I tend to side with The Wire, but the more I think about it, the shows are two sides of the same coin. One focuses on the chase for the American dream and how that chase ultimately corrupts. The other suggests there is no American dream because the systems we have constructed around us are so powerful no man can escape. it might be heady stuff, but it makes for perfect television.

News that The Wire was going to be showing on BET hit sometime in the last two weeks. Initially I found this revelation somewhat problematic. BET? That’s basic cable. They’ll have to cut the all ready dense episodes down to fit into a commercial-packed hour and erase out all of the vivid –and real– dialogue (and violence) that makes the show like no other. Plus there’s the delicate situation of having a show with a primarily black cast, airing on a black television network and yet not being a “black show” (a pejorative assigned to programming by television executives who feel the need to write off large sections of the TV watching populace). The Wire is an American show, and in classic American shortsightedness could being on BET would actually draw fewer viewers than HBO? God that sounds horrible. It is horrible. It’s also (probably) true. Of course, if whitey is avoiding The Wire because the characters don’t look like him, that’s probably not the type of viewer they were seeking out in the first place.

Though as it turns out, BET might be precisely the location for potential Wire viewers who don’t have the luxury of HBO and Netflix. Most significant, episodes will run 90-minutes in order to cater to both the commercial restraints and the intricacy of the show itself. As for the violence and language, we won’t be able to see how it has been edited until it airs (I’m hoping for the tasteful “blank” spaces, opposed to the annoying bleep or the ridiculous overdub).

Season one, episode one airs this Wednesday at 9:00pm on BET with episodes two and three showing on Thursday and Friday. January 18th the series continues in its normal time slot for the following 47 weeks. If you wanted to see the show, but were too squeamish about jumping in mid-stream, this is your chance.

This is it. Tonight marks the 80-minute finale to The Wire’s utterly fantastic fourth season. By now this could very well be an afterthought — the episode has been available since this past Monday on HBO On-Demand. I hope this is not the case. If there were ever a series with rewatchability (and if that were a real word), this is it. Much more after the gap…

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The original plan was to post something about NBC’s Thursday night comedy line-up and/or the premiere of Scrubs‘ sixth season. And while I tuned in for everything after My Name Is Earl, I don’t know, there just didn’t seem to be anything too remarkable worth commenting about. What were we expecting? Was NBC suppose to go from being a fourth-place network to A#1 in those two short hours? Hardly. It should be noted, however, that last night’s The Office was written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, a fact that seemed to slip by just about everyone until the opening credits rolled (or maybe just me — when no one is around I do like to call myself “everyman”).

Instead, I’d like to take this time to highlight some television goings on that most people all ready know:

• Ben Karlin is resigning as the executive producer of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. A reason for the departure has yet to be released, though in the long tradition of powerful people resigning their posts we can only assume he “wants to spend more time with his family.”
• Michael Sera (aka George Michael Bluth) has been hired by CBS to produce content for Innertube, the companies online video portal. The show will be called The Good Life, and will be about television producers because it seems to be the only thing anyone in the television industry seems to know anything about these days. Still, good news to see our boy making good– even if what we’ll be seeing will be really small, grainy, and buffering.
• For the industry-junkies out there: I read an old New York Times Magazine article the other day from the summer of 1997 about Jamie Tarses. She’s, more or less, who the Jordan McDeere character on Studio 60… is based. The story itself, from what I’ve heard, helped play a role in her ultimate demise at ABC. She was also the executive who put Sports Night on the air. You can read the Times article HERE, but you have to pay for it.
• I did end up finishing season four of The Wire this week and plan to write about it over the weekend. Quick questions: while I know that most people who read this site DON’T watch The Wire (your loss, suckers), I’d rather not spoil it for those who do. So, let me know in the comments if you’d rather have me wait to post my season-wrap-up until after it airs on HBO, or if I should post Monday after its put On-Demand? The decision is yours and yours alone. UPDATE: a The Wire MUST READ.

I’ve made the biggest little mistake of my life. Last Sunday I patiently waited for HBO On-Demand to upload the latest episode of The Wire (episode 12). It was up, promptly at midnight, and I watched it and loved it. AS ALWAYS. The problem was that I loved it too much. It was too good, and with only one episode left in the season I couldn’t wait. I’ve become spoiled by technology. It’d be like being a kid who could move up the date of his birthday. I needed to see that last episode. I needed to see what happened to these characters. So I went online, found the episode and downloaded it. THIS IS ILLEGAL and maybe I’ll end up in prison by this time tomorrow, but here’s the catch: the file I downloaded was only 58 minutes long. The episode itself is actually an hour and 18 minutes long. So now I’ve watched 2/3rds of the fourth season finale but am nowhere close to having actually seen the conclusion. This is killing me. Honestly, I’m dying. Why the hell couldn’t I just wait a week? I’d be able to watch the show in my living room, on an actual TV, with a crisp picture, in its ENTIRETY.

I hope we’ve all learned a little something from my mistake. Just wait. It’ll still be there, and it’ll still be good.

But I will say this: that 2/3rds is god damn incredible.

I try to watch The Wire each Monday on HBO On-Demand so I can attempt to stay ahead of the game. If I don’t get the episode watched on Monday it starts working its way further and further down my queue, especially after Monday nights onslaught of watchable programs.

Today I watched the episode that will air this coming Sunday on HBO (November 12th). It’s the ninth episode of the season and things are really starting to come together. The great thing about watching The Wire is the way the seasons are paced. Those first three or four weeks we learn about the principle characters of the season and set up the stakes. Then we have another five episodes of our new friends doing what they do. During this time we, the audience, start to see connections being made. We see how the cause and effect relationship of everything in this city, The City, plays out. We start to understand how a campaign donation can cause a city district to be denied services or how a chain of command can keep justice from being served. That part of the story seems to be wrapping itself up. Now we’re in the last act. The last four or five episodes where we’re suddenly sprinting through dozens of characters lives every hour, drawing conclusions, stacking bodies, and making arrests, all while The City goes on living like none of this matters. By the time we reach the end, we realize that The City was right all along, and yet deep down we feel, I feel, like there’s something to be done. Something to be done by real people. Even if those attempts ultimately end in disappointment.

Watching an hour of The Wire each week creates the ultimate viewer dichotomy. It is the only television program that makes me want to jump up, turn the idiot box off, go outside and do good. And yet the drama is so tight and so endlessly fascinating you can’t walk away. The week between episodes is sometimes enough to drive a man crazy. You end up not going outside and not doing good. Thirteen weeks later, you’re so cynical about the system you couldn’t even stomach the thought of trying to intervene, the thought of trying to change things for the better. Each week when I watch The Wire I want to become a homicide detective, or become a teacher, or run for political office. Something, anything. I can do good. I can change things. But then the credits roll and I realize that I’m still sitting in my living room in my underwear drinking Diet Coke out of a plastic cup. But its not an hour I’d want back. Never.