Can't. Frakkin. Wait.

OMG, OMG, only 2 hours until the Battlestar Galactica season 4 premiere! Please, don't let it suck.
I was talking with some friends about The Wire the other day (I know, rare occurrence) when we decided that premium TV dramas are the narrative art form of this era. Think about The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under...they speak to us in ways only great novels and cycles of novels used to. And thanks to DVDs and other forms of digital storage, we can visit and re-visit them just like we would our favorite literary trilogies.

I think I am satisfied with the final episode of The Wire

MILD SPOILERS

Last night's finale ended with much the same message as the third season (constructed to serve as a series finale because it was at the time unclear whether the series would be renewed). Time marches on, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. It seemed satisfying and appropriate, and somewhat moving. Thanks for the memories, guys. You've earned a long-term spot in my DVD collection.

Now to be critical. The major flaws of the finale flow partly from the major flaws of the entire fifth season, and partly from the exigency of wrapping up a bunch of crazy plot lines in only 90 minutes.

Heavy handed story telling; scenes that "tell" rather than "show." I understand the auteurs wanted to demonstrate that Marlo is no Stringer Bell. Like Avon Barksdale, he'll never be able to quit the game; it's in his blood. But to have him literally walk out of a meeting of real estate moguls and arrive, still in a dapper suit, on the corner? And get grazed by a bullet then taste his blood? It's a bit much. If they'd had more time, this story could have been conveyed with more subtlety.

Plot elements that stretch credulity. In the final montage, we see Templeton and the awful Sun editors accepting a Pulitzer, presumably for Templeton's fabrications about the red ribbon killer and his adventures among the homeless. This, after those same editors ignored credible and well-documented evidence that Templeton was full of shit. As David Plotz writes at Slate, this would never, ever happen.

Over-heavy symbolism. In the two scenes described above and many others, the symbolism is just silly. I watch The Wire specifically not to get beaten over the head by the message. Make the audience work a little. Again, the entire fifth season has suffered from this, and 90 minutes was not enough time to make the point without resorting to such ridiculousness.

Blogging cable TV --as art

Wouldn't it be nice to write for Slate and get paid to obsess over The Wire all day?

It would, and Jeff Goldberg and David Plotz do it well. If you're a Wire fan I think you'll enjoy their back-and-forth, and especially their reflections on the current season's newsroom plotline.

"[LA Times publisher] David Hiller is the Marlo Stanfield of daily journalism." You're killing us here.

No more Wire

Sadly, the best show on television (tied with Battlestar Galactica, I think), is wrapping up after five seasons.

"For the past two years, a good chunk of "The Wire," the HBO show that critics have praised for the grittiness of its inner-city verite, has been filmed in an anonymous soundstage in the burbs -- a soundstage that reportedly will be turned into a massive Wegmans Food Market." (WP)

So now Wire fans will have to make pilgrimages to this new Wegmans--leave memorial wreathes and pour out bottles in the produce section, or something.