Geek Blight

A few weeks ago I finished watching the fifth and last season of The Wire. I’m a bit late to the game, but here in Spain the show was not aired on any main channel and was difficult to come by. Its fans, however, are very vocal and The Wire always ranks close to the top whenever a poll on TV series takes place on the net. After having watched it, I can say without a doubt The Wire is one of the best, if not the best, TV series I have ever watched.

I can only repeat here the favorable comments you can find everywhere else. The way its fictional stories portrait police work and explain how different aspects of the Baltimore and US society work is engaging and natural. The never-ending war on drugs is the main plot during the first season and the background story of the rest. The series duration is just about right. It hasn’t been extended beyond what the creators needed to tell their stories. Characters are appropriately developed and their adventures are fun to follow. In short, I loved the series and can recommend it to anyone.

Furthermore, as it’s already finished and was last aired in the US already a few years ago, the show can be purchased comfortably from Amazon and makes for an excellent present, at a reasonable price for what amounts to 60 episodes of about one hour each.

PS: This has also been the first time I’ve watched a full show in English with Spanish subtitles. Almost everything here is dubbed usually, but I had heard The Wire was better viewed with subtitles to appreciate the Baltimore accent and way of speaking, so I did. I think I made the right choice and I am watching Homeland now also in English, and the same for Breaking Bad. However, it’s true that reading all the time can be a bit tiring when you can’t make out what people are saying, and you do lose a bit of detail in the facial expressions and the rest of the scene. If you were expecting to judge acting performances better, that’s not quite true. It’s much harder to tell when actors don’t speak your mother tongue.