Wire, The (TV Show): The Complete Series (5 Seasons) (DVD)

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As I mentioned earlier, all the main characters on this show are very diverse and multi-faceted. There are the hardworking cops like McNulty and Greggs, who genuinely want to put the bad guys behind bars but are almost always met with resistance from the guys at the top due to some internal political struggle. While McNulty cuts the familiar figure of a divorced father who is married to his job, Greggs is not your run-of-the-mill tomboy cop but is instead a lesbian with a live-in lover. Then there are the department misfits, one group who are lazy and just want to take it easy and another who are just too eager and often make things worse. Of course, you also come across the superior officers who will think nothing of jeopardizing an investigation or to just do the minimum required in order to further their own ambitions. Even the bad guys are not one-dimensional criminals. For example, D´Angelo is not a straight-up street punk or a vicious killer but is actually an educated and intelligent young man. The only reason he is caught up in the drug trade is because of his uncle and the family business. And speaking of the kingpin, Avon Barksdale is an ultra-paranoid criminal, who runs his empire like any other business; only he trades in illegal narcotics and has no qualms about eliminating the competition or anyone else who dares cross him by force.

Not content with just focusing on the cat and mouse games played between the cops and the criminals, "The Wire" is also able to work in another aspect that serves to put a serious cringe on the familiar cop drama genre by exposing the stark realities of how internal politics and law enforcement efforts often clash and undermine one another to the detriment of the city´s poor. For example, Lieutenant Daniels, looking to work his way up the ladder, won´t do anything or defend his people unless he knows there is a personal benefit to be gained from it.

"The Wire" also tries to show the clear divisions within the city, where on one side is the affluent suburb while the other lives in poverty and is stricken by drugs and violence. A small but highly symbolic brush between these two sides occur when McNulty brings his street informant, Bubbles (Andre Royo), who is a drug fiend, to his son´s soccer game. McNulty´s wife shuns away from Bubbles, at once acknowledging the fact that a darker side of the city exists in her ex-husband´s line of work, a side that she chooses to ignore even though it is staring right at her.

VIDEO:
As you´ll see in a moment, HBO didn´t do a whole lot of work in bringing the complete series to disc. The first three seasons look the best of the five, considering these are fullframe transfers as originally intended. There is an older feeling to the first set of episodes, almost a vintage quality to them. Colors are subdued, quality is soft and there is a lack of detail. By the time season three rolls around, the series is firing on all cylinders, video-wise, with the transfers sporting clean and crisp details. Season four hits a brick wall, featuring copious amounts of grain, softness in most shots and even motion blur. The final year isn´t much better-but it is better. Does this video treatment ruin the enjoyment of the series? Not necessarily…but it would have been nice if someone put thought into this set.

AUDIO:
The audio portion of the set follows roughly the same trajectory as the video with one notable exception: the last two seasons are infinitely better. There are English 5.1 and 2.0 mixes across all the discs, along with French and Spanish 2.0 versions. Initially, the sound field is spread out across all speakers without any element making the audience take note. The ambient music is relegated to the rear speakers, occasionally walking on the dialogue. Keep going in the series and season three sports a noticeably improvement. Directional effects are featured, along with a more dynamic audio range. Since "The Wire" is dialogue driven, don´t expect a lot of work from anything but the front speakers.

EXTRAS:
Ugh. As if the packaging for "Deadwood" wasn´t bad enough, with its page-style disc holders, "The Wire: The Complete Series" comes packed inside a gray rectangular box. Remove roughly one quarter of it to find each of the five seasons housed inside a cardboard half page booklet. Each booklet unfolds to reveal a disc table of contents and the discs themselves.

There are no spindles for the discs to be secured to; rather, a semi-circle has been cut out of each disc holder, providing a "pocket" for the disc to slide into. Yes, I said slide. Considering the amount of money these sets go for, I´m sure no one wants to scratch or scuff even one disc. This is a unique, but terribly flawed, package design.

Now then, every supplement from the individual season sets is ported over to this complete series set. Every season, at the very least, includes a commentary or two. The first two years have the most anemic extras (commentaries only). The high point is arguably season four, with a two-part documentary on the production of the series, among other things, called "It´s All Connected" and "The Game is Real."

When the fifth season was released earlier this year, fans bemoaned the lack of three commercial-style pieces created for HBO based on the series. These three prequels are included on the fifth season´s fourth disc, as is a 13-minute montage of on-set flubs, gaffes and mistakes. The standard HBO material is also included: recap and preview segments, episode summaries and an episode index. "Deadwood" gets an entire disc of extra content while "The Wire" gets under 20 minutes of bonus material? Sure, quality trumps quantity, but let´s be honest. This is a disappointment.

PARTING THOUGHTS:
I know, you want me to tell you this 23-disc set is worth the $100+ price tag as some means of justification, right, for plunking down that much money. It may very well be, considering the critical praise "The Wire" received. My only reservation is in the interior packaging and lack of new supplements. If that doesn´t bother you-or "The Wire" is your favorite show in the world, go ahead and pick this up.

PS: I've been told the 6 for Film Value is misleading. When factoring in all aspects of the release-shoddy transfers on some seasons, a lack of real exclusive bonus material, sub-standard packaging-the score for the set as a whole turns out to be a 6, even if the content itself is much higher.

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