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the wire

recaps

The Best & Worst of the 2008 Emmy Awards

The '60th Anniversary' Emmy Awards, recognizing "excellence" in television, paraded themselves around last night, vindicating and embarrassing the whole affair in equal measure. Some little-watched and much-deserving programs won top glittery trophies (30 Rock, Mad Men) while sycophancy, silly time wasting tedium, and suspicious whiffs of censorship soured the perfumed air. After the jump we'll give you some of the best and worst Emmy moments, as we saw them, for those of you (and I suspect that was most of you) who didn't watch any of the lurching proceedings. More »

emmys

The Wire Was Robbed

All these shows—nominated either for best dramatic series (the first six) or best comedy series (the latter five) in this year's Emmys—are perfectly worthy contenders. And the final season of The Wire, HBO's gritty drama set in a corrupt and decaying Baltimore, wasn't quite the climax that fans of the David Simon show had hoped for. But it's an injustice that such a brilliant piece of work, which turned the dismal failures of public policy into heartbreaking human tragedy, should have ended its run without a single nod. More »

things we will probably like

The Wire's David Simon To Further Depress Us With New Iraq War Series

In one month's time, David Simon will (hopefully) dazzle and depress us all over again. The mastermind behind The Wire, HBO's stunning and somber study of urban decay, has created a seven-part miniseries called Generation Kill, once again for HBO. The series, based on the Evan Wright book, depicts a group of Marines during the first forty days of the current clusterfuck debacle in Iraq. While we've not seen a screener or anything, we can certainly hope that Simon's ultra-realistic, carefully worded style will make the series as icky, uncomfortable, and thoroughly fascinating as The Wire. Above find a trailer for the series, below a brief clip of cast and crew talking about the project. More »

Things We Like Jim "Prez" True-Frost, from the greatest show ever on television ever, The Wire, will be taking over the part of Little Charles in the greatest show on Broadway right now, August: Osage County. Good casting.

The Coda The Wire will never die, as long as die-hard followers like Culture Vulture still remember. Here, from the New York Magazine blog, is a wonderfully geeky frame-by-frame analysis of the final montage from David Simon's crime and corruption drama.

great television

Saying Goodbye to The Wire, Over And Over Again

As you may have heard a million and one times today, last night was the series finale of HBO's The Wire, David Simon's sad and probing look into the lives of some people who lived in an American city once. Today there has been heaps of coverage about the last gasp of the Greatest Television Show In The History of Ever, and it can be a little daunting to sort through it. So, we've gone ahead and put together a little digest of some of the more interesting write-ups after the jump. Plus, a little video bonus. Shiiiiiit. Goodnight, Baltimore. More »

television

The Hubris of David Simon

Credit where it is due: after a mid-season wobble, which shook my devotion to the foundation, The Wire has come together for the conclusion. David Simon's incredibly ambitious drama of crime and corruption in a decaying Baltimore has been compared by Slate's Jacob Weisberg, among others, to the sprawling novels of the 19th century. Most creators would be flattered to be mentioned in the same sentence as Charles Dickens. Simon, who combines cynicism about the possibility of social change with complete faith in the importance of his art, makes grander literary references in a recent radio interview on NPR's Fresh Air. "We've been stealing from a lot of the Greek tragedies... Hubris, a willingness to challenge the gods, a willingness to engage in an argument against one's fate: the same things that Antigone or Oedipus struggled with we gave the same sort of dynamic to our characters... The gods are the post-industrial institutions of modern life. Whoever you serve. Wherever your paycheck comes from. Whatever calling you thought you had. On The Wire, there is every possibility it will betray you." Talk about hubris: such a claim would normally invite ridicule. But Simon, a frustrated former journalist, has defied the fate he's assigned to The Wire's heroes: the former journalist challenged the gods of television with a show that shouldn't have worked, and they let him succeed. After the jump, a clip from the interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross. More »

lolbama

Obama's Favorite TV Show: You Will Never Guess, Ever

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spent an entire day with a reporter for Us Weekly who asked "boxers or briefs" and other similarly pressing questions. The Times is kind of in a snit about it because when Us had Hillary Clinton in its pages, it was to have her make fun of her own worst outfits. Actually, the Hillary story was pretty fun compared with Obama's profile, where he comes across fairly vanilla, which is like a deadly sin in a celebrity magazine. Nevertheless, he does make fun of Stevie Wonder bumbling into things, which is kind of cool, and you'll never ever guess what his favorite TV show is: More »

last night's party

Media Jews Violate Kosher At Spotted Pig

Pictured here, New York's Adam Moss, host of the Oscars party the magazine threw at the Spotted Pig, before ab-obsessed Dave Zinczenko unbuttoned his shirt. Moss, who used to run New York Times' Sunday magazine, is one of the most high-minded of modern editors. Which makes the magazine's web triumph last week all the more disturbing. New York claims 20m pageviews per day for the arty nudes it ran of drunken starlet, Lindsay Lohan. (Yes, jealous.) Moss says the traffic is "addictive". He's joking, for the moment. But wait. (In this week's New York sex diaries, an S&M-loving comedian.) After the jump, lovingly photographed by Gawker's Nikola Tamindzic: Emily Gould; Julia Allison; Alan Cumming and other British luvvies' media gays displaying affection; "Smash" from Friday Night Lights; Marlo's enforcer from cult HBO show, The Wire; and Jews eating piglet. More »

backlash

Why David Simon Should Shut Down The Wire

Devotees of The Wire, myself among them, should be delighted by this hint given by one of the HBO drama's actors. Dominic West, who plays the increasingly manic police detective, Jimmy McNulty, tells the Los Angeles Times some of his colleagues are lobbying David Simon for a movie spinoff, and the show's creator is indeed considering a prequel. But here's the sacrilegious thought, which I can't suppress: the final season is not the triumph that fans had hoped for; and it's time for Simon to let go. More »