TV Review: The Wire Season 1 (2002): F+

The Wire doesn’t have a blind detective who can smell crime. It doesn’t have beautiful CSI’s who throw out one-liners and interesting little investigative tid-bits. It’s doesn’t even have a love triangle. It fails in every aspect of the modern crime drama.

Set in Baltimore (Not LA or New York=boring), this show centers around the city's drug scene. The first few episodes are the worst because the show feels the need to establish character motives and plot details before diving into the murders and mysteries. Det. James McNulty (the only stud in the show) has been assigned to lead a joint homicide and narcotics team, in order to bring down drug kingpin Avon Barksdale. The show depicts the lives of every part of the drug "food chain", from junkies to dealers, and from cops to politicians. It’s like reading a novel…gross.

I think the biggest mistake the show makes is in its cast and writing. There are like 50 billion characters in this mess and I can’t tell who the hero of the story is. It even gives the drug dealers as much screen time as the cops!? Like hello, drug dealers are bad. I think they’re making all these mistakes because the people behind the show are former journalists and police officers. Get some Hollywood writers who know what they’re doing. For example; a experienced television writer would know that if they spent more time with the good guys we could have had some really juicy melodrama and hot cop sex.

The best advice I can give this show is to try to switch to a more episodic format. This way you can have a new bad guy every week and end on a super cool climax that makes people want to tune in for the next episode. Plus, you can have a different theme or “lesson learned” in every episode instead of concentrating on just one topic.  Since I’m reviewing the entire series, I hope to see some of these changes in the seasons to come. I didn't know TV could be this bad/realistic.

But seriously, it's genius.