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Simon does two things better than anybody else I have seen. First, he writes characters with real voices and depth. And second, he ties these characters into a larger critique on systemic problems. Neither of these things are easy...not to write, not to portray, and certainly not to sell to an industry, and a viewing audience, that focuses on the exact opposites. To add to this amazing accomplishment his shows are entertaining, funny, gritty, and unpretentious. It is like eating something delicious and then looking at the label and saying "Holy shit...this is actually good for me!"

During the five season run of The Wire we are pulled through the intestinal tract of the City of Baltimore. To take a burned out genre like cops and robbers and use it to connect the audience to the core issues that create the problems of America's inner cities takes balls. And David Simon and his writing partner Ed Burns (a former Baltimore cop and teacher) have huge balls...and so does HBO for letting it air for five seasons even if it didn't draw a crowd like The Sopranos. HBO even stuck it with it when, despite critical acclaim, The Wire was routinely shutout on Emmy night.

One last thing I want to say about Simon's writing is that he expects a lot out of his audience. He will plop you down smack dab in the middle of a story. There is no "It is the first day on the job for the rookie so we will vicariously learn the ropes along with him" bullshit. No...minute one and you are drowning in it, and maybe three or four episodes down the road you might tease out a little more understanding. Characters are never formally introduced...hell half the time you don't know their names. The dialogue is always rife with slang and jargon and you are left standing there without your dictionary. You are forced to pay close attention and by the end of the season you are a veteran...you speak that language. Trusting an audience to take that journey goes against everything the last 50 years of TV has stood for. But David Simon shows that there can be a market for smart TV.

So are you going to be smart and watch The Wire? I hope so. If not, I am sure there is an episode of Two and Half Men on right now.

UPDATE:

I forgot to add these videos of David Simon talking to Bill Moyers about The Wire, so here they are:

For the past week or so I have been spending quite a bit of time with HBO's Deadwood. And not just watching it either...many is the night I browse through Wikipedia on my phone when I should be asleep. When was the last time a television show made you investigate things further? Instead of sleeping I am clicking through links on Wild Bill and Calamity Jane. How did this happen?

One thing that Deadwood does better than most is offering rounded characters. Forget rounded...these folks are in 3D and Smell-a-Vision. It is a "root for the bad guys" good time, full of swearing and sex and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. I love every single person on screen, precisely because they are warts-and-all monsters.

I am also a sucker for the myth of the Old West, where men could make it on their own and all that "possibilities of the frontier" bullshit. Deadwood does not sugar coat the fact that these were hard times, and especially hard if you weren't a white man. This kind of historical, Howard Zinn-like honesty about the past is refreshing when so many other shows try their hand at revisionist history. This was an ugly time, and people did evil things, and the writers don't apologize for it.

Much has been said about the use of profanity on the show, especially how the word "fuck" is used in it's extreme. Initially it does feel out of place...much more Lebowski-esque language than what you would have actually heard in the Dakota Territory in the 1870s. But the producers claim, and I agree, that the important thing to express is the coarse nature of their words, and that the swears of yesteryear wouldn't make much sense to us today. But it would be remiss to only focus on the naughty words and ignore all the other fun the writers have with language. Deadwood reaches new heights when it stresses the social obligations and laundry list of manners that the Victorian Era dictated, all couched in beautiful turns of phrase. The contradictions of a colonial culture obsessed with outward manifestations of dignity amidst the lawlessness of the American West are summed in characters like E.B. Farnum, the dimwitted innkeeper and ad hoc mayor, who desperately tries to straddle these disparate worlds with a vocabulary that is firmly rooted in both.

And for a show that focuses on the evil that man can do when gold and lust combine one thing you don't see a lot of is lying. Characters on Deadwood tell the truth and they tell it to your face. Sure there are plots and schemes. The real drama though is not based in the tension of revealed deceptions, but in the boldness of standing in the open. We don't get that enough, and this nobility in honesty endears us to even the most despicable characters. And despite its brutality, and occasionally because of it, Deadwood is an incredibly funny show.

The complete series box set is an attractive package that is worth adding to the serious TV-ophile's DVD collection. At least rob the torrent...that would make an old evil bastard like Swearengen happy.