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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…

I’ve been putting off this post for almost a week because I’m absolutely dumbfounded as to what I can say that hasn’t all ready been said. The fact that just about every critic in the country has more or less declared the series to be the single greatest achievement in filmed entertainment doesn’t help matters. Perhaps what is most telling about the quality of The Wire is that one can read these grandiose statements day and night and still walk away from a season completely blown away by the series’ ability to live up to those claims and completely shattered by the emotional toll wrought on oneself in those thirteen episodes. The shows perfections aren’t what’s interesting anymore. The apparent lack of interest by most of America’s HBO-watching populace, however, is. If anything, this season has taught us that, generally speaking, critics don’t matter. With so much praise, why is it that so few people actually tune in?

I’m not talking about the whole television audience, just the HBO regulars. AND, it isn’t even about numbers. I have no idea how The Wire does in comparison to Deadwood or Entourage or Six Feet Under, but as someone who watches way too much television, and spends way too much time talking about television, I’ve noticed decisively that The Wire has no buzz. For some reason, the ultimate water-cooler show can’t even find a drinking fountain. This doesn’t make any sense. Most people who watch HBO’s original programming do so because they want series that are more challenging than what can be found on basic cable. The easy argument is that these people are looking for sex, violence and swearing. I don’t buy this. HBO audiences are drawn to series that take chances, series with realistic characters, series that pay off at the end of the season. The Wire has all of this in spades, but I don’t lie, it’s a difficult watch. This, I suspect, is what has kept people away.

The notion that someone would tune into a 13-episode run of a series and not have a grasp on what all is happening six weeks in is a hard reality to get past (and yet Heroes managed to pull off that very feat this year to the sound of 10 million viewers a week — with one likable character). Most people are busy. Most people don’t have time to dedicate an hour each week to a television program. Most people have exciting lives. And yet a lot of people still watch television, and even they aren’t patient enough to watch a show with scores and scores of characters doing things that seem to make no sense in an environment completely unfamiliar. The Wire requires thought on the part of the audience. Thought: the dreaded word television executives flee from faster than a Michael Richards apology. How do you convince an all ready educated audience that by putting forth a little effort they can experience payoffs in television unlike those delivered by any other series. It isn’t impossible for a viewer to jump into any season of The Wire and enjoy it through and through, but it is definitely a show that rewards you for doing your homework. Like, Arrested Development, The Wire is loaded with references to previous episodes. The reach of its universe is too big not to. Of course, no one watched Arrested Development either.

At its heart, The Wire is about the American city-state, its broken institutions, and how it’s impossible to reform the system we’ve created for ourselves. Though for the sake of this column, The Wire is also a scathing indictment of the state of television as art. Maybe it’s because the notion of long-form visual storytelling is still relatively new, or maybe its just because high-minded people will always associate the big screen with art and the small screen with entertainment. Either way, it’s frustrating.

Maybe part of the problem is The Emmy awards. Say what you will about the Oscars, when all is said and done there is usually a case to be made for the big winners (except for, maybe, Crash– which was actually kind of like The Wire, if it were written by a 14 year old). But with the Emmys, its a complete crap-shoot, and even if a series or performer is recognized, it doesn’t really mean people are going to watch the show (see again: Arrested Development). In the film world, Oscar equals Box Office. I’d like to say that these awards don’t matter, that it should be about the movie or the television show itself, but that isn’t the case. These works have to exist in an environment of business. Luckily for us, HBO all ready did the right thing and guaranteed a fifth season for The Wire. Other great series haven’t been so lucky. Which returns us again to the notion of television as low-minded art. There are some things you just can’t sell. Critics could declare that by watching The Wire you were actually looking right into the soul of god himself, and it wouldn’t matter. The show has its audience, a loyal audience, and that’s it. Those who want to see it, have all ready found the show. As for those who don’t, well those of us who have seen god’s soul can just nod at each other knowingly when we walk down the street.

As for the episode itself… no spoilers, but let’s just say it ends on a down note, and that season 5 can’t start soon enough.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 10th, 2006 at 6:33 am and is filed under HBO, The Wire. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.