RhymePhile's Rat Race

For those of you Wire fans that didn't understand the title of the series finale (also the subject of this post), it refers to AP style in declaring the end of a press release.

It was exactly what I wanted; it was exactly what I had hoped it would be. The final coda touched on everything I was wondering about, as well. Bubbs (tears), Dukie (more tears), Kenard (!), Michael...it was perfect.

I think the last scene with Marlo said it all. Standing there, heart pounding, blood pumping, he took that deep, inhaled breath of the corner, of the Western, of the Game, of life, of Baltimore.

Thanks, David Simon. It was a hell of a ride.

Sunday's ep of The Wire: Good LAWD, David Simon, why not tear my heart out with a SPOON? It would hurt less. And yes, soundbitesnyc, I was crying as soon as Bubbs held up his anniversary chip and pretty much didn't stop until the freakin' end.

( Cut for Wire talk, so the rest of my Flist can ignore it )

To all four of you on my Flist that watch the show, don't click behind the cut until you've seen this past Sunday's episode. I just watched it tonight, because as you'll recall I was covering the shitass Oscars while The Wire was on.

( Don't click unless you've seen it! I mean it...even though I don't specifically name who got killed and I didn't even spoil it by using an icon of said dead person! )

Christmas is over. Back to the ol' grind, which for me entails getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning for the long haul into work.

I'm looking forward to going back, actually, because I've been fairly bored these past few days. I watched the entire fourth season of The Wire again on HBO OnDemand, to refresh my memory for Season 5 starting January 6. I was going to fast forward through the political stuff, but as usual I became entranced again at the amazing writing and wound up watching the whole thing.

Mom went down to my brother's yesterday morning as she said she would, spent approximately an hour and a half watching Harmony open her presents (while my brother and his wife made phone calls and got ready for their big family party), and then mom went home. That was it. I don't think my brother gets the fact that we wanted to have time for us. *shrug* I told him I would see him for Harmony's birthday on January 19. Whatever. I'm not dwelling on it. It's over with.

Mom made a ham, so dad, mom, and I had a nice quiet meal this evening. We had cookies, listened to some Bing Crosby on the radio, watched a show on the History Channel about bigfoot (LOL), and I went home.

In all these days of rest I've developed another cold! Gah. Now I have to go into work tomorrow feeling ill, which is going to suck. The one good thing is that my boss took Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off, so my girlfriend is going to come in to the city one day and have lunch with me, and then Rhymey is sneaking out early on Friday.

I hope everyone had a nice holiday, and thanks for all the Christmas cards I received, to sionnachair for the Krycek card; colleendetroit for the deliciously near-porny card; and inlaterdays for her personalized card.

And for those of you across the pond, have a nice Boxing Day tomorrow. :-)

The Wire Season 4 comes to DVD next week, and once again I've whipped up another review for Big Dot Com.

All three of you on my Flist that watch the show with me can read it behind the cut.

( Readin', writin', and red tops )

Oh, show. How I love you and shall mourn your passing once Season 5 is over.

Season 4 of The Wire will be coming out December 4 to Region 1. Yeah, TVShowsonDVD had it on September 3, but I was just on the Warner site this morning.






No news on extras yet.

Right now Barnes & Noble.com is having a 40% off sale on select DVDs and TV box sets. One to look out for, if you're a fan, is the Homicide: Life on the Street Complete Collection.

Amazon no longer carries it, and it's not being made anymore. There's been an official "moratorium" notice on it, which means once retailers are sold out, it's gone forever.

You can buy it for a little cheaper via alternate sellers on Amazon, but you can't guarantee that's it's not an Asian import, no matter what the seller claims. At least at B&N you know for sure that it's Region 1 and official.

I'm tempted to buy it, but I know I'll never get around to watching all seven seasons. Then again, I know if I don't that I'll be kicking myself later.

Of course, Homicide is the show Tom Fontana of Oz and David Simon of The Wire worked on before they went on to their other shows. It's full of guest stars, including Lee, and this is where Munch started before he went to New York and SVU.

To the UK readers on my Flist, The Guardian is celebrating first four series of The Wire that are being broadcast on FX (starting today) by offering the very first episode of the show free for seven days on their site (UK readers only). You can find it here.

The download runs out on Saturday. Go watch one of the best (if not the best) dramas on television.

Tonight The Sopranos premieres on basic cable net A&E in an edited-for-basic-cable edition. A&E paid a hefty sum for these distribution rights, and spent a lot of money cleaning up the episodes for broadcast. Since HBO is a pay cable channel (as most of you know) they can get away with pretty much anything. A&E is forced to more closely follow those FCC bullshit regulations about sex, violence, and language.

From what I've read thus far the language coming out of Tony Soprano's mouth has been cleansed extensively. Obviously you can go out and rent the previous seasons, but many people prefer the simplicity of simply turning on the TV and finding an episode there. I can always pop in a DVD disc of The X-Files whenever I want, but I like watching it on TV when it runs in syndication, too.

A&E skews older demographically, and I can see people like my parents watching the sanitized version. It makes sense, I guess. The question is, do the shows carry as much impact when the language and violence have been ripped out of the narrative? Tony Soprano is supposed to be this scary mob boss -- I can't see him saying "freaking."

Also coming over the next few days are episodes of The Wire on cable net BET. They're going to have to sanitize the language in that as well. I don't think the hardcore lives of corner boys and the po-leece will be as effective with weak language.

Can you imagine trying to watch a sanitized Oz? "Freak you, ya freak!" just doesn't carry the same amount of dirty cleverness Keller uses to say it. And hello, nudity! Not that Keller would lose any of his sex appeal if we hadn't seen the Melonibits waggling all over the place, but it's certainly a plus. Why bother watching it?

And that's what I ask myself with The Sopranos premiere tonight.

See, here in the U.S. the government likes to think that we are complete imbeciles and can't be trusted to change the channel if language, violence, or sex offends us. They do it for us. Those of you in Europe should consider yourselves lucky not to be living in such a Puritanical nation such as ours when it comes to TV.

The Black Donnellys is one of NBC's mid-season replacements, and really the only reason why we should care is because our Ozzie Kirk Acevedo is in the first two episodes (at least according to the IMdB, but who knows). NBC has a preview clip up, and you can see Kirk, along with Chris Bauer who played Frank Sobotka on The Wire, and Mark Margolis who played Antonio Nappa on Oz. I'm hoping there will be lots of familiar faces and the show is watchable.

Go see The Black Donnellys preview and watch for the scene with Kirk in the car

Jeez, I'm spammy today. Sorry; I can't focus on work because I keep finding fangirly stuff.

Okay, look, y'all want yet another reason to rent and watch The Wire, aside from the fact that I've pimped this show more than once?

Here's executive producer David Simon, who created the show. Please notice the hat he's wearing, a show that he wasn't even involved in. (Besides knowing Tom Fontana from their Homicide: Life on the Street days)



Down wit' me now, yo? Ya feel me? He of course also did Homicide: Life on the Street, and if you haven't seen that show yet, that should be next on your list too.