The Wire

I just finished up what was, possibly, the best show I have ever watched. Gritty, real, suspenseful, and complex, HBO's The Wire has more to offer the average TV viewer than nearly anything on TV today.

The show primarily follows the Major Crimes Unit of the Baltimore Police Department as they try to crack several high-level cases. This is as simplistic of a description as you can possibly get. The show is incredibly layered, and in reality, it is about the overall social institution of the modern American city and the competing institutions within it. There are several aspects of this show that blew me away as I watched, mainly because it was very challenging. This is no network cookie-cutter TV show. As the viewer, you are thrown into a world you might know nothing about, and expected to keep up with the lingo, a huge array of characters, a deep web of plots that continually intersect and affect each other. I don't think I've ever been challenged so much by a television show, just simply to keep up with what's going on. With this in mind, it's certainly a tough show to get the hang of, but once that is accomplished, once the language is learned and names are remembered, you dive into the world headfirst and are shocked by what you see.

We begin with Jimmy McNulty, an alcoholic murder detective in the Baltimore Police Department, and the story follows the events that occur due to his desire to bring in real criminals. From there, you're introduced to police officers, police commanders, politicians, drug dealers, drug soldiers, drug addicts, longshoremen, stick-up boys (I had never heard the term stick-up boy until I watched The Wire), elementary school kids, journalists, prisoners. This barely starts the list of the cast. You meet so many characters, all of them different, fighting the particular system they are in, trying to change it rather than be changed by it. That's the difficult part about watching this show. Each season deals with a different urban institution: the police department/drug trade, the harbor union, the local political structure, the school system, and the media. Each system is made up of individuals who are figuring out how best to survive. To me, that is what is most hopeful/depressing about the show, that at the core, it is about survival, and how Americans can do nothing but do their best to survive with what they've been given. No one chooses to be born in the poor neighborhoods to parents who don't stick around or who can't provide. Often, the people that we see are people trying to get out of their particular situation, and by doing so they compromise ideals or blend into their system in order to find their way out. It rarely works. This show breaks down the stereotype pushed on us by the American Dream, that if you just push, work hard, keep your nose to the grindstone, you will eventually succeed and be happy. This show takes that concept of success and completely turns it on its head. There are characters who you think find success, but what have they given up to get there? How do they view that success once they find it? The natural instinct in every human being to survive is shown to be innate yet flawed, as so many of us don't have the means to survive, or the concept of survival is far different than we originally expect.

There is a realism in this show that I'd never seen before. Right out of the gate, you are thrown into this world. There is no set-up, no checklist of character names/professions/relationships that are marked off in the first two episodes to ground the viewer into the environment. From the very first episode, the viewer is treated like just another citizen on the streets of this Baltimore, as someone who has lived this life and understands the names and the looks and the language of these people. Which is definitely a difficult thing to wrap your mind around when you're a white, male Iowan. It was a challenge to keep up with this show. We constantly had to pause and discuss what we just saw, or rewind a scene to catch dialogue. But if you can catch up and learn to follow along, holy cow is it rewarding. I've never seen a show that felt so raw. There isn't sugarcoating in this show. It's violent, it's visceral, it's authentic. Nothing feels out of place, or made-for-TV. And that's why when things happen that you don't expect or didn't think could happen, it's jarring. It's easy to look at a city's low-income school system and hope that the teachers are all just trying their best to teach the kids, or that the politicians are actually attempting to make good on their campaign promises to bring reform. Is it really happening that way? It shocked me to see assumptions and conventions I had in my head about how society runs flipped and turned around, and the reason it was really shocking was because I believed the show. There isn't any doubt as you watch that this must be how things are done. Obviously, it's still a TV show, so real life will prove itself to be somewhat different. But it's a testament to the show how incredibly real you feel it all is. Things don't seem faked in The Wire.

One huge element of the show that really adds to that feeling of authenticity is the music. Aside from five instances in the entire run of the program (a song played over season ending montages), all music in the show is diegetic, or environmental music. If you hear a song in a scene, it's because the song is coming from a character's boombox, or from the speakers of a passing car on the street, or the house music from a strip club. There is no atmospheric music, no musical score in the traditional sense. And even more so, the music supervisors of the show added that much more credibility by choosing songs that would legitimately be listened to by citizens of the city. There is a lot of rap in the show's soundtrack, and very East Coast, Washington D.C. area rap. Not lots from New York. The program showcases popular songs from Baltimore artists, things that the people of that city would be listening to. I didn't notice it for a long time either, which is really interesting seeing how much music can add or subtract from the video medium. It just adds an entirely new layer of realism to the show that I love. And the theme song, holy cow it is an awesome one. The song is Way Down In The Hole, originally by Tom Waits, and it is performed by a different artist for each season of the show*. It is a powerful song, and one that wouldn't necessarily be thought of as the best choice for this show's theme song. But that's what makes this show great, there are parallels and painted pictures and metaphors all over the place. As the viewer, you're encouraged to piece things together and make your own opinions about how things are done, how the characters interact and live their lives, and catch on to a vague sense of what the show is trying to say. There is no easy solution or wrap-up at the end of each episode. There are symbols that just barely point to what the show might be trying to communicate; it's up to the viewer to really bridge those gaps.

On the whole, I'd classify this show as a bit of a downer. There are moments where hope shines through, but this is a show where characters (main and peripheral, there is no invincibility spell even for some of the show's most important characters) meet untimely ends, characters fail, efforts to do good or to succeed or to survive absolutely fall flat. This is a show with very few heroes, yet at the same time you find yourself rooting for a wide variety of the characters at different times. The Wire takes the normal procedural cop show format and turns it inside out. In those shows, you have good guys and bad guys, and the good guys are the cops who have to solve a crime perpetrated by one of the bad guy criminals. And at the end of the hour they've solved it and somebody is in jail. Nothing like that in this show. You know how as you grow up, you begin to see things less in terms of black and white and more in terms of a gigantic spectrum of colors and circumstances and finding real truth is difficult? In The Wire's Baltimore, characters seem to be born with that knowledge. And having that knowledge doesn't make life any easier. These are all people who are just trying to find personal success in what they do, and it is very nearly impossible to do so, because in life, there are almost always things that keep people down. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're born, or what you try to do, there are forces beyond your control against which you constantly have to battle. McNulty wants to solve crimes, he wants to be "good police", but what can you do when the mayor puts pressure on the police chief to juke crime stats so that it looks like there is less crime than there really is? The police are told to whatever is necessary to make the stats look good rather than solve real crime. Go for the low-totem, easy-to-bag criminals and make good numbers rather than bring down the kingpins who are responsible for the real, society-affecting crimes. Everybody is looking for a way out of their own personal hell, their own undesirable situation, and the lines begin to blur on who is really succeeding. It's powerful stuff you see in this show.

And that's why I'm labeling it the best show I've ever seen. It tells the best story, and in the best way. This is a story that really matters to people, because whether they know it (or believe it), these cultural issues affect them. It shows how important survival is, but really tests you to figure out what is acceptable to give up in order to survive? We clearly cannot do it on our own power. I think this is a very alien concept to the modern American mind; we can't do it ourselves, we require some outside power to come to our aid. We grow up being told that we can do it, we can achieve all our dreams, as long as we just work hard and apply ourselves. And I think the message that we are incapable of that on our own is a tough concept, but ultimately, a real truth in life and important to remember. It's a struggle to work through too, because the next question is inevitably: where do we find our help? None of these characters ever seem to hit upon it the right way, but it's incredibly entertaining and challenging to see them struggle with the question. Also, there is lots and lots and lots of sex, violence, and language throughout this show. Like I said, no sugarcoating. Be forewarned.

-Jon

* The version by the Blind Boys of Alabama (Season 1) is far and away my favorite.

The Voice Recap: SPOILER ALERT

Disclaimer: All thoughts, statements and proclamations contained within are the sole opinion of the writer. And they are opinions only. And I disagree with lots of people and most news articles I've read about the show so be forewarned... I despise Dia.

The Voice ended it's first season run last night and I certainly have some conflicting emotions. Ultimately, the show was a success for me because despite its many flaws, I kept coming back for each new episode because I was invested. I must say, I am very pleased with the winner. Javier obviously had the best technical voice of the whole crew, and while it might not have been the most unique voice, nobody deserved the title more than him. But let me back up a bit.

I've been unsure during the whole run of the show whether or not it seems like an effective structure. The whole coach votes and audience votes seemed confusing and ineffective, and especially since the voting system changed every week. It was hard to keep up with how things were actually getting tallied. And since each coach became emotionally invested in their particular team, they seemed to get less and less helpful as the show went on and offered less criticism. By the end, not a single coach said anything negative about any performance, other than "Didn't like the setting." Far too complimentary for a group of amateurish singers who all faced serious missteps in any given performance. I stopped caring what the coaches were going to say because they all basically said the same thing, "You have a fantastic voice, you're such a star, such great presence, I'm a fan of you!" Watered-down mumbo-jumbo if you ask me.

Which begs the question, how important is a contestant's actual vocal ability in this show? How soon does it become more about presence and spectacle than talent? Biggest case of this is with Team Cee Lo's final two members, Vicci vs. Nakia. Nakia's final performance was Whataya Want From Me (that's actually how the song title is spelled, and it makes me sick.) Nakia did a fine job with the tune, but forget it as soon as Vicci comes out and does a (vocally) average rendition of Dog Days Are Over, but who had an entire fleet of Japanese Taiko drummers to back up her own fiery drumming. Who sang better? Nakia. Who performed better? Vicci. Vicci wins. Of course you're going to win if you're the last performer and you have a grand show-stopping tune to cap off the night. So is it fair? Who the heck knows.

This also leads me to believe that the coaches stopped doing anything worthwhile except for choosing songs to sing. With one glaring exception (DIA), the finalists all had great voices. And they all faltered on certain songs because of poor song choice. But did the coaches EVER give them any real vocal critique past the semifinals? Of course not. When really, what could've been said were things like this:

"Javier, the original song you sang actually seemed a bit off for you. You didn't seem comfortable, you sounded out of breath the whole time, and your voice didn't ever seem to find its power through the song. Nerves maybe?"

"Vicci, rather than turning every song into a contest with yourself to see how much air you can push out of your mouth by hitting as high of a note as you can, try scaling back a little and showing some variety in your voice."

"Beverly, stop falling back on hitting that one wavery high note you hit in every single song when you're not sure where to go with a vocal run."

"Dia, you're awful in general. Go back to the anime cartoon you came from."

The last one is a little harsh, but you get the idea. Nobody was flawless all the way through, but the show just got so freakin' feel-good by the end.

In terms of the four finalists, I wasn't totally on board with all of them. My ideal final four would've been Xenia, Bev/Frenchie (didn't care, liked them both), Nakia, and Javier. There was no way Xenia was going to make it to the final four, and I'm surprised she even made it as far as she did. The girl had the voice most noticeably different than everyone else on the show, but gosh did she lack some stage presence. Her performance of Price Tag was clearly uncomfortable to watch, even if her voice was fun to hear. Nakia just had more flair for me than Vicci. Vicci has a decent voice, but I wasn't buying into her whole war-dance/primal scream persona. Who could seriously listen to an entire album of her taxing her lungs that way? It'd be exhausting. And Casey Weston's weak Dolly Parton impression was absolutely no match for Javier's range and technical skill.

And then there's Dia. Where do I begin? From the very beginning, she has played this show like a game. Granted, it is a reality show vocal contest game, but the fact that she is playing it so obviously makes me hate her. She is without a doubt the most disingenuous person on the show. Looking back, she started out harmless, singing some breezy song with her innocuous voice that got Cee Lo and Blake to turn their chairs. Whatever, not a big deal. She came across as this super shy girl with an interesting voice, but oh if only she could break out of her shell! said everyone. Fast forward to the battle round, still a bit stronger, but boy Dia you really need to break out of your shell if you're going to get further! And everytime she's on camera up to this point, she's blinking her little mousey eyelashes at everyone and giving off this "Are these big celebrities telling little ol' me that I have a good voice? It couldn't be!" vibe. Then comes her performance of an acousticey Heartless, which sorry, has already been done by another reality show singing competition. Go get a more original cover, Dia. But oh my gosh! Dia finally came out of her shell! Nobody saw that one coming! Where did this little on-stage firecracker come from?! And then in the coaches remarks, she's back to blinking at them like she didn't know what just happened and she's just so thankful for all their kind words, blah blah blah. Awful. This girl knew exactly what she was doing the entire show, and she apparently fooled Blake and all of voting America with her snake-like behaviors. So from then on, she just kept the strong performances coming, and not strong vocally, just strong in that everybody thinks she's doing so well by singing confidently when really she's had that in her the whole time. She played it so well, she started with a problem that was very easy to fix, no confidence/no stage presence, and when she did fix it, America freaked out and started buying her crappy Kanye cover on iTunes. Annoyed me to no end. How could you have released FOUR albums without any confidence in your vocal ability? Does not add up. If you look at her and you look at Xenia, obviously Xenia was being real because she actually did look uncomfortable and was not good on stage. She's sixteen! She wasn't faking anything. Dia was faking all the way.

And here's the worst part: her voice is not that great. Sure, she can carry a melody just fine, but her voice sounded basically like this to me. I can't really explain it much better than blaaaah-blaaaah, blaaah-blaaaah. Like she pushed her tongue out all the time and the sounds came from the back of her throat. Just awful to listen to.

Ironically, the only person that seemed to ever point out that she was playing the game well and putting up a front was the show's fakest asset, coach Christina. There were actually two or three times where Christina's comments were less than flattering and came just short of calling her out on her game-playing and Dia's little cat-like demeanor changed from this:

to this:

Kudos, Christina.

Here's the most frustrating part about Dia for me too, she nailed her duet with Blake. They chose the best possible song, it sounded great, Blake's country voice fit just perfectly into that Tom Petty song. If she had made her Voice debut with that song and not played her manipulative game, I would've liked her far more. I'm so glad she didn't win.

So overall, did the show succeed? Did it find The Voice? I'm saying definitely. Javier has a great voice, and deserves the accolades he's receiving. Should it be up to America to choose The Voice? Definitely not, as based on the finalists original song performance, Javier just barely beat out Dia. Neither of their originals were that great. Javier had a good song, he just did not deliver a good performance. Based strictly on original performance, you know who I thought was going to win? Beverly all the way. Yeah her original song was a little cheesy bland vanilla ("lovesick...lovesick...I'm sick of love!"), but gosh did she deliver a great performance, and not only spectacle and stage presence, but she nailed her vocal part. She had the best original performance without a doubt. Yet Javier still wins. Did America choose right? Yes, but I wouldn't trust them to do it again.

One last thing before I wrap; the show needs to ease off the product placement. Yes I know the finale needs to be exactly that, a finale, with grandiosity and flourish and big names, but I don't consider Pitbull and Ne-Yo to be big names. Stevie Nicks was a good draw with some legit credibility (even if she has the most nasal voice ever), but the Train singer? Even worse, the OneRepublic singer? American Idol alum Katherine McPhee? Do we need a Social Media Correspondent? Or a "chance" run in with Gym Class Heroes in the next door studio which allows Adam to perform their upcoming hit single on which he is featured? All this stuff seemed SO contrived and I'd love to see less of it and more actually performing by the contestants (and the coaches for that matter). And now a few favorites:

Favorite Voice: Probably Xenia. While she wasn't technically the best, nor certainly not the best on stage, she had a super unique tone for a 16 year old and was really fun to listen to.

Favorite Performance by a Contestant or Coach: Team Cee Lo's cover of Everyday People by Sly & The Family Stone. Cee Lo's afro wig was unforgettable.

Top 3 Season 1 Moments:

3. What song does Christina choose to duet with her protege? HER OWN SONG. This was the icing on the cake for how inflated her ego could actually get.

2. Brad Paisley asking Blake a question mid-song and Blake responding in kind by singing while sitting down then getting up and joining Brad on stage. So cheesy.

1. "If The Voice should be delayed for anyone, it should be...for the President. LET'S, GET, TOIT!" - Carson Daly, possibly the blandest and cheesiest human being alive. Can't wait for what gems he's got in store for us during Season 2.

-Jon

P.S. Was Cee Lo and Vicci's Pat Benetar cover inspired by Hook? Cee Lo made a great Rufio.

The Voice

NBC finally pulled it off. They got Colleen and me hooked on a reality music contest show. We first saw the ads for The Voice about a month and a half before the premiere, and usually when a show is overhyped I immediately write it off. A reality music contest judged/coached by Christina Aguilera, the girl-voiced Maroon 5 guy and a country singer, hosted by Carson Daly? Thankfully Carson managed to pull in the artist who released one of the Top Three Best Albums last year and who has the soul to match his wardrobe, Cee Lo Green. I'd seen Cee Lo do some featured spots on some rap albums prior to the Gnarls Barkley album "St. Elsewhere", but his name actually solidified in my brain after he and Danger Mouse released the single "Crazy" in 2006. I definitely wouldn't ever have expected him to do a reality music contest show so I figured this one was worth tuning in for.

Oh so right. The first two weeks were blind auditions, where the four coaches get to pick 8 singers for their team based only on their vocal performance. After the blind auditions, the coaches then have pairs of singers off their teams perform duets and then they decide which singer they keep on the team and which one gets booted off the show. After each team is whittled down to four people, then show will go live for I guess audience voting rounds? I'm not sure past that but for now, the show is riveting reality TV.

What is the draw here? I'm confused as to why I like the show but I think it has to do with a combination of good singers and good coaches. With American Idol, you have to sit through the first few shows of crappy auditions to finally get to the actual contestants. With The Voice, I'm not sure where they got the contestants, but most have had some kind of experience with singing, whether it's on broadway, releasing actual studio albums, back-up singers for famous singers, etc.

And the coaches! Cee Lo is obviously awesome, and it's so great to see him talk about music and singers and goof off with the other coaches. His outfits are outrageous. With Adam, I used to be a huge Maroon 5 fan (they've got pretty redundant to me the last few years but whatever), and he's got some pop music credibility so I'm fine with him. Christina has singer cred all over the music industry, so while I'm not a huge fan of her, I appreciate her being a coach as she's got some pretty impressive, albeit often gaudy, pipes. Then there is Blake Shelton. Started off not liking this guy because he's country, what is he going to have to offer? He won us over on the first episode. Not only is he a pretty funny dude, he might be the one coach who has the most legitimate pieces of advice for the contestants. So while I will never listen to his music, I definitely think he adds a lot to the show. And that's why, you don't judge*.

After the blind audition weeks, the coaches pick two singers off their individual teams and have them practice up (with the help of a celebrity coach aid) on the same song which they then perform as a duet, then the coach picks one to stay and one to go. I wasn't sure this change in the show's format was going to work but holy cow it definitely does. It immediately draws out some fierce competition having two singers singing the same song at the same time. I will say though, in terms of the coaches actually coaching their singers before going out into the battle round seems a little pointless. The coaches don't actually seem to offer much technical advice and their celebrity friends offer even less. The aids were Reba McEntire, Adam Blackstone, Sia, and Monica. I don't care much about any of them other than Adam Blackstone (producer on many great records, he's playing the sickest bass with ?uest and James Poyser right here), and he just wasn't featured much. They could be done with the celebrity cameos and it wouldn't hurt the show at all.

So the battle round went off like crazy, super fun to watch and listen and root for a certain team and singers within teams. The only thing I'm torn about is the finality of the coaches decisions. This was demonstrated better by Blake than anyone during the first battle round. He had two guys singing against each other, the country guy (Patrick) and the soulful guy (Tyler). Blake ended up going with (SPOILER ALERT) country boy Patrick, which was severely disappointing. As good of a voice as Patrick had, Tyler had pipes that blew his competitor out of the water. He was so much more entertaining to listen to, he had real range and emotion in his voice versus the one-note stylings of Patrick. The better singer was robbed. And there's no second chance, no comeback or anything. We're just left with a singer who is less entertaining than another one. Disappointing.

So the show rocks, and if you haven't seen it, it's still early enough on to catch up with it and keep watching. Good reality competition TV, which I think is hard to find.

-Jon

*-J. Walter Weatherman

Sex & the City

Admission: I watch, and thoroughly enjoy, Sex & the City.

It's an admission not because I feel guilty about it (I don't), but
rather because it's uncommon. While I haven't polled lots of guys
about it, I still don't know many that would call themselves fans of
the show. The core audience is middle-aged, single women. But I'm
throwing caution to the wind here, and it's really a great show.

What the heck do I find enjoyable about it? It's relational. All the
best (or all my favorite) art draws somehow on relationships. Most of
my Top 10 Favorite Movies are, at their core, about relationships. And
I'm not just restricting this to romantic, heterosexual relationships.
SATC analyzes so many different kinds of relationships, romantic,
platonic, hetero-, homo-, parent-child, and on and on. Yes, there is a
nearly superfluous amount of sexual content on the show, but just
because it's called Sex & the City does not limit the breadth or scope
of its knowledge to sexuality. More often than not, it relates its
sexuality to relationships and how the two are intertwined. Makes for
an engrossing show.

Until the last few episodes Colleen and I watched, one of the things I
liked most about the show is that instead of indulging itself in the
ubiquity of the "drama"-filled TV story lines, each episode could
stand alone in an observation of some aspect of relationships. There
is the ever-present story arc of Carrie and Big's relationship, but up
until the last few episodes, that was less about stereotypical, soap
opera-esque "drama" and more about the real issues that the two faced
in their getting together, breaking-up, lasting feelings towards each
other, etc.

However, that important distinction was crushed in the last two
episodes we watched. Carrie is dating Aiden, everything is going
great, and Big finds his way back into Carrie's life. Spoiler alert:
she ends up cheating on Aiden with Big. Not that cheating doesn't
happen in real life, but I certainly don't want to see it pop up on
this show when it's on every other relationship show on TV. It's
unoriginal.

I still hold out hope for the show though. As long as this stupid
cheating story arc ends itself soon, I will continue to watch and
enjoy it. With that in mind, I probably wouldn't recommend it. While
it makes very interesting observations about relationships of all
sorts, its portrayal of life in Manhattan for the thirty-something
single woman seems fairly absurd. They are always eating out, always
out for a drink, always buying expensive shows, always having
uninhibited sex with whoever they want. I've never lived in Manhattan
nor even visited New York, but the lifestyle they depict just seems
far too good to be true. I'm fairly certain that in real life, all of
these women would be homeless, penniless, in debt up to their eyeballs
and just chock-full of STIs. No thanks.

But it's not reality is it? It's just fantasy and so makes for a great
thirty minutes of TV.

-Jon