I was cruising around Show Hype, the latest creation from the folks that brought us Ball Hype, when I came across an article in the New Yorker about The Wire. Actually, the article is about David Simon, the creator of HBO’s The Wire, but The Wire is the main topic for 2/3 of the story. Here are some of the things I picked up from article about the upcoming final season of the best show on television.

• Gus Haynes, a newspaper editor, will be a high profile character as the show explores the world of journalism.
• Mayor Carcetti will still be a major player.
• Dukie dies? Maybe, maybe not. There’s also mention of one character finding a way out, so maybe Dukie makes good.

These were my favorite random Wire moments from the piece:

• A junkie gave up his dope to Andre Royo (Bubbles) saying “Man, you need a fix more than I do”.
• Somebody got shot and staggered onto the set.
• “Snoop” caught some people bootlegging The Wire and called David Simon to see what she should do about them.

If you’re reading this and you have no idea what I’m talking about, shame on you. I’m smf at you. Go buy the past seasons on dvd, catch them ondemand, do what you have to do, but get up to speed so you can watch the final season of the best show on television. A show that will not go out with a bs Soprano’s type of ending.

As much as people praise the show, it has never won an Emmy, and it averages 4.4 million viewers per week. That sounds like a lot until you see that the Soprano’s averaged 13 million and even Big Love averages 6 million. This makes sense since the show was a hard sell to HBO in the first place. David Simon had to challenge the cable giant to show some balls:

It is a significant victory for HBO to counter program alternative, inaccessible worlds against standard network fare. But it would, I will argue, be a more profound victory for HBO to take the essence of network fare and smartly turn it on its head, so that no one who sees HBO’s take on the culture of crime and crime fighting can watch anything like “C.S.I.” or “N.Y.P.D. Blue” or “Law & Order” again without knowing that every punch was pulled on those shows. For HBO to step toe-to-toe with NBC or ABC and create a cop show that seizes the highest qualitative ground through realism, good writing, and a more brutal assessment of police, police work, and the drug culture—this may not be the beginning of the end for network dramas as the industry standard, but it is certainly the end of the beginning for HBO.

Good thing the man can put together an email. For all of you Wire junkies, the show will be back in January. If you’re a fan of David Simon, he’ll still be putting in work for HBO. The next show will focus on musicians in New Orleans.

STEALING LIFE: The crusader behind “The Wire”. Courtesy of The New Yorker

Tags: The Wire, David Simon, Baltimore, The New Yorker, HBO