'The Wire': Made for Us?

At this point, chances are that if you've heard about HBO's crime drama The Wire, you've also heard that it's the best show on television. And if that's true, you'll also know that this praise comes from all directions: Time, Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian, Slate, friends, relatives, strangers on public transit -- it goes on. The show is loved by many (myself included), and that love is frighteningly contagious. The New Yorker recently spent 11,000 jubilant words profiling David Simon, the show's creator and executive producer. The Tyee has sung its praises too, on more than one occasion.

And now that its fifth and final season premiered yesterday evening, don't expect the bombast to die down anytime soon.

Reasons to like The Wire are numerous and well documented. It's a brutally honest look at a city plagued by drugs, murder, and a self-serving police department. Its attention to detail and intricate, often overlapping storylines rival anything in contemporary film or fiction. The drug dealers are often more sympathetic than the detectives. But there's another reason why Vancouverites in particular ought to be tuning in: you just might see something you recognize.

'Free zones' and newsroom cuts

While The Wire is filmed entirely on location in Baltimore, what it really offers -- like any good piece of art -- are glimpses into the viewers' own lives. Better still, it's a series about detectives, meaning that its starring character (as well as chief topic of conversation) is the city itself. This means that everyone will probably see their own neighbourhood somehow reflected in the gritty streets of Baltimore, but the parallels between there and Vancouver are downright eerie in their specificity.

Try and watch, for instance, Major Colvin's clandestine efforts in season three to move all drug traffic to a designated "free zone" without thinking of the Vancouver Police Department's containment strategy in the Downtown Eastside. Their motivations are remarkably similar -- both want to move the drug problem to society's margins rather than address its root causes -- and the effect is the same: to keep illegal drugs out of the downtown core, and out of the public's sight.

But The Wire's portrayal of the free zone gets more complicated almost immediately when Colvin cannot locate the heart of the drug trade in order to then relocate it. (He eventually settles on the mid-level dealers, who have authority over their runners as well as the customers -- they also manage the violence.) Before long, the community is split between the benefits of the somewhat-salvaged city blocks and the anarchy of the free zone. Churches and advocacy groups begin to demand medical treatment for the addicts and residents stuck there, and the language of human rights is invoked -- all of which is a reasonable paraphrase of what happens daily in Downtown Vancouver.

Even the terminology overlaps: our city's infamous marijuana crop has earned us the nickname "Vansterdam," while The Wire's drug dealers affectionately call their new territory "Hamsterdam."

Newspaper blues

Or consider the upcoming season, which aims to document the gradual and whimpering death of the daily newspaper. Shrinking newsrooms, an ever-expanding lifestyle section, indifferent corporate management -- strictly speaking, I'm talking about Simon's depiction of the Baltimore Sun (which retains the name and logo of its real-life counterpart), but it also sounds remarkably similar to the problems facing the big Vancouver dailies. There's one scene where a senior Baltimore Sun editor smiles and telling his dwindling staff to "simply do more with less." According to some reports, staff at Vancouver's big papers have already heard similar suggestions from management.

A Baltimore editor from the new season perhaps sums up the state of the media best when he wonders aloud, "How come there's cuts in a newsroom when a company is still profitable?"

How to catch up

Of course, this is only a brief skimming of the links between The Wire's Baltimore and our fair metropolis; I'll leave connecting the police brutality and scheming political dots (among many, many others) to someone else.

And if you're looking for a crash course in what's happened so far, the other seasons are all now on DVD, and HBO's website boasts exclusive interviews, preview clips, and even a free video podcast to more fully whet your appetite. From there you'll soon be joining the rest of us, crying "best show on TV" in no time at all.

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  'Deadwood' and other addictive DVD sweets.
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  Chris Haddock on politics, televised and not.
• CBC Fires Back at Haddock
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