Monday morning quarterback
First and foremost, I need to know. Did anyone watch The Wire last night? Let me know in the comments. I re-watched the premiere yesterday afternoon and found a lot of things I didn’t pick up on the first time around. That’s how the show works. Think of it as the Arrested Development of drama. You get points for catching things in the background. For the die-hards, I’d say check out Alan Sepinwall’s weekly recap. It’s incredibly thorough and well written. As for the rest, it should be noted that last night’s episode had some of the coldest moments in the shows entire run. Aside from Wallace’s role in season one, you can’t get much more hardcore than something involving plastic sheeting, quicklime and a nail gun.
Now then, speaking of quarterbacks last night NBC’s multi-billion dollar hail mary came to fruition as their NFL coverage began. Given the match-up and the final score, it seems to have been worth every penny. I expect nothing shy of ground-shaking ratings. In the weeks to come, the NFL will always do well but the timing of this week makes me think it could be one of their highest rated weekends of the season (only competing against some cartoons on FOX and the 9/11 movie on ABC).
What’s funny about football and about the changing of networks, is that all of this money is spent on hyping the moves (MONDAY NIGHT FOOT, FINALLY ON ESPN! SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL’S GLORIOUS RETURNS TO NBC!), but then when you tune in you remember, “oh yeah, this game is going to look exactly the same no matter where its broadcast.” It’s not like NBC was going to show the game in 3-D or Smell-O-Vision. It’s football. It sells itself.
What did you watch this weekend?
September 11th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
I watched it last night. I had to rewind it in a few places to catch what Snoop had said. This season should be interesting. Oh, and why isn’t it in HD?
September 11th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
It’s interesting, a lot of people have been bringing up the non-HD-ness of The Wire across the internets. I seem to be the only person thankful that the show is still presented in widescreen. This raises questions about format and context– perhaps I’ll save that for another day, but I believe the reason the show is still in 4:3 is because its a more objective format. The Wire has a general point of view, but in terms of the characters it presents, it rarely seems to take sides. When a character is framed in widescreen, however, we, as the viewers, subconciously draw conclusions as to their relation to the frame. Is some off-center, what vertical lines are breaking up the space? Full-frame is democratic. It allows us to focus on the art of the story instead of the art of the frame (what’s nice is that under these parameters The Wire has been able to develop a cinematography that is both highly specific and yet nearly invisible).
September 11th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Fuckin’ A! I just got done watching the second episode. This show is amazing on so many levels.
I loved when Herc was told to play dumb. “Yeah, I can do that.”
September 11th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
At first, I thought it said “plastic sheeting, QUICKTIME and a nail gun,” and I thought, “This show involves violence committed with .mov files?” I almost decided to watch it.