They have been sitting in my dvd shelf for a few years now. All four seasons of it. Ever since "The Sopranos" ended, I couldn't find another show that can hook me as much as this one.
Sure I finished "Hung" and "The Good Wife", all them seasons. "Law And Order" from UK to LA. But nothing really like how "The Wire" from HBO got me fuckin' addicted.
It's just so well written. The characters are fully fleshed out. No pretty faces, no named actors.
Baltimore City is like Manila. Nothing happens to solving the crime because the government is so fucked up that nothing is really getting done.
Just like "The Sopranos", this show is a slow burn. No cheap tricks, no plot manipulations and no cliffhangers(at least, not that I'm aware of). Just total trust on the story and you just ride with it to the end.
Not too many shows are like this anymore. Some rely on quick jokes, others on sex, some, too, on its fantasy elements or it's computer graphics. This one is just about people trying to get things done. And what a wonderful bunch of interesting characters there are.
I am ending my third season. And I am about to start the fourth one. I already got the last season. Even as early as now, like a little boy doing small bites of his favorite chocolate just to prolong having it, I am taking the watching bit by bit because I hate the thought that I am about to finish such a good show and will again start hunting for a new one. And it's just hard to look for a new tv show to like these days. Like what happened to me and House. The first three seasons were great. I love his cynical, jaded, bitter and arrogant quips. But as the seasons progressed, he has become too funny and quirky. He started to lose his angst and his bite. He has become this cute puppy suddenly.
My favorite characters are McNulty, Omar, Stringer, Prez and the new councilman Carcetti.
I don't really care for Avon Barksdale. I'm beginning to like Bodie, the street corner punk running at Barksdale's camp.
Seasons 1 and 2 are great! The 3rd season is like an intro to a big story. The way it's going now is that they're wrapping up the drug/street angle and is slowly moving into the higher government plot lines. And anything about government corruption could only be better for any show.
Except for Flor De Luna and Calvento Files, I can't think of any local tv series that had me on a can't-miss mode. Nothing to drool over.
I remember ABS-CBN doing a lame courtroom drama that has no drama whatsoever. I think it's called Ipaglaban Mo, way back in the 90's.
All our shows are not into characters and stories. They're into plot gimmickries like seeing a 2 headed freak in a circus. No solid story. They are all scared to invest on a good story. And they don't want to wait too. They just want to pile up conflict after conflict hoping their viewers don't switch channels. You can feel that they don't really care about their stories. They just care about instant plot twists and turns trying to get ahead of their viewers thinking that's how to get them glued to their sets.
How many times have we seen the plot of the adopted sister who has rich birth parents but ended up in a poor couple's house? How many times did we see a twin Judy Ann Santos torn apart when they were still babies? How many big wedding scenes ending in an explosion do we need to see? How many more newly bought ethnic costume dramas do we need to endure? How many mansions and scarred faces (using crumpled tissue papers) do we need to see in order to get an honest-to-goodness tv series that is worth spending millions of money to tell a great story that brings out the true Filipino psyche?
I guess not soon.
With the entry of ABC 5 as a major network, I thought that it was going to be a game changer. I thought that they will be different. That they'll be the alternative. Because they can afford to be different because they have good financial backing. But no. With the way their shows are going, it seems like they're hitting their competition following the same game plan their competition laid out for them. The same old soap operas with the same kind of over-the-top plot points and melodramatic tearjerkers that's meant for the dumb and the dumber.
I hate to finish "The Wire". I hate to be looking for another sensible tv show out there. "The Good Wife" is just about to start its 3rd season. Maybe if I watch the remaining episodes of "The Wire" in snail's pace, I can have "The Good Wife" just in time.
If not, I guess I'll be in the cooking channels again.
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