Category: Television

Lone Wolf of Bal’more.

“It’s really dark and explosive. Everyone’s off the hook; no one trusts anyone. Everyone questions the way things are operating on the street level, in the police department, in the newsroom. Like McNulty, he’s way off the hook this year. He’s doing things that are totally outrageous, questioning authority, and trying to find the truth. He goes way off the deep end this year.” On the eve of Season 5 (for the nOn-Demand folk), NY Mag‘s Joe Colly talks with Michael K. Williams, a.k.a. Omar Little of The Wire. Update: The last scene of Season 5 leaks! (Sort of.)

The Bigger the Lie, the More they Believe.

A New Year is dawning. A New Day is not. I spent the first hour of 2008 watching the first episode of The Wire Season 5 — which is now live if you have HBO On Demand — and it was time very well spent. Between instantly fascinating new characters in the Baltimore Sun newsroom and some even more byzantine connections made between the old regulars (Note Partlow’s errand to the Criminal Court, and wait ’til you see who Herc’s working for), the best show on television is back in a big way. (That being said, it might take me awhile to get used to Mel‘s husband Doug from Flight of the Conchords as the Sun‘s managing editor.) Update; More discussion of Ep. 51 here at Alan Sepinwall’s blog, who’s also compiling a list of The Wire‘s greatest moments (That might take awhile.)

Figwit, get an eyepatch.

Wait, what? Maybe I’m just late to the plastic pantomime, but my sister informed me over the holidays that Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords was previously Figwit(!) Strangely enough, I’d never made that mental connection. In any case, in honor of one of my two favorite new shows of 2007 (the other being Mad Men), here’s one of the funnier television moments of the year: Jemaine as Bowie (Ashes, Labyrinth.) It is quite freaky, isn’t it?

Back in the Day.

I heard about these a few days ago and thought they were Youtube fan flicks. But, no, they’re the real deal: Along with the Season 4 DVD comes a handful of exclusive Wire prequels at Amazon.com, including looks at young Omar and Prop Joe in action and Bunk and McNulty’s first bender. Season 5: January 6, or Dec. 31 if you’re On Demand-inclined. (Teasing press-release summaries here.)

The War on Drugs is Lost.

“All told, the United States has spent an estimated $500 billion to fight drugs – with very little to show for it. Cocaine is now as cheap as it was when Escobar died and more heavily used. Methamphetamine, barely a presence in 1993, is now used by 1.5 million Americans and may be more addictive than crack. We have nearly 500,000 people behind bars for drug crimes – a twelvefold increase since 1980 – with no discernible effect on the drug traffic. Virtually the only success the government can claim is the decline in the number of Americans who smoke marijuana – and even on that count, it is not clear that federal prevention programs are responsible. In the course of fighting this war, we have allowed our military to become pawns in a civil war in Colombia and our drug agents to be used by the cartels for their own ends. Those we are paying to wage the drug war have been accused of human-rights abuses in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia. In Mexico, we are now repeating many of the same mistakes we have made in the Andes.“

To their credit, those left-wing hippie radicals at National Review said as much way back in 1996, and HBO’s The Wire has dramatized the dismal consequences of the conflict for several years now. Now, coming to the same dour conclusion in 2007, Rolling Stone‘s Ben Wallace-Wells explains how America lost the War on Drugs, and argues that continuing to perpetuate it in its current fashion — with its “law and order” emphases of crushing supply, international interdiction, and mandatory minimum sentencing — is tantamount to flushing money and lives down the toilet. “Even by conservative estimates, the War on Drugs now costs the United States $50 billion each year and has overcrowded prisons to the breaking point – all with little discernible impact on the drug trade…The real radicals of the War on Drugs are not the legalization advocates, earnestly preaching from the fringes, but the bureaucrats — the cops and judges and federal agents who are forced into a growing acceptance that rendering a popular commodity illegal, and punishing those who sell it and use it, has simply overwhelmed the capacity of government.” (Found via Jack Shafer’s endorsement at Slate.)

Ready for his Close-Up.

“But political success on television is not, unfortunately, limited only to those who deserve it. It is a medium which lends itself to manipulation, exploitation and gimmicks. It can be abused by demagogs, by appeals to emotion and prejudice and ignorance. Political campaigns can be actually taken over by the ‘public relations’ experts, who tell the candidate not only how to use TV but what to say, what to stand for and what ‘kind of person’ to be. Political shows, like quiz shows, can be fixed-and sometimes are.”

By way of Ted at The Late Adopter, Senator John F. Kennedy ruminates on how television has changed politics in 1959, and much of it reads as presciently as Eisenhower’s farewell address fourteen months later. “The other great problem TV presents for politics is the item of financial cost. It is no small item…If all candidates and parties are to have equal access to this essential and decisive campaign medium, without becoming deeply obligated to the big financial contributors from the worlds of business, labor or other major lobbies, then the time has come when a solution must be found to this problem of TV costs.” Yeah, I’d like to say we were working on that.

Wrestle and Trek.

Mickey Rourke signs on to play The Wrestler for Darren Aronofsky, set to begin shooting this January. (He replaces Nicolas Cage in the role.) And, more casting on the Star Trek reboot front: Bruce Greenwood is Capt. Christopher Pike, Winona Ryder is Spock’s mother, Amanda Grayson, and House‘s Jennifer Morrison and P2‘s Rachel Nichols are in too, possibly as Yeoman Rand and/or Nurse Chapel. Well, ok then. Update: Another Trek addition: Clifton Collins Jr. of Capote will play Big Bad Eric Bana’s #2.