Widening The Wire

So word is that HBO’s masterpiece The Wire is getting remastered and re-aired here in the coming weeks in glorious high-definition. Most of those who’ve seen the show swear by it being one of the most important programs on television, and even though I haven’t finished my way through the series, I have to agree. Its character development and complex storyline makes for some compelling storytelling, and I lament the fact that there will probably not be anything like soon.

You may be asking, “If it’s so good, why haven’t you finished it?” I have a confession to make. I’m not proud of it, and I’m almost positive it makes me a lesser human being for it. I haven’t finished watching The Wire because it’s not in widescreen.

I know. It’s a terrible reason, especially given the show’s quality. But that is the long and short of it. It wouldn’t be as troublesome if I were watching it on a 4:3 aspect ratio TV because then I wouldn’t have those columns of blackness on each side of the screen. Somehow those black bars are enough to bar me from still watching the program.

In a way, the show’s aspect ratio makes it feel like a relic from a past age like black-and-white TV. That wasn’t all that long ago, but given the meteoric rise of technology in the past twenty years, monochrome feels like it’s reserved for the old or artistic. I hate that I have that attitude towards it, but that’s how I see it. And that’s not to say I haven’t watched shows and movies in grayscale. But to be dumped into an era in which you are deeply immersed in Technicolor is to be spoiled, and boy am I spoiled.

Now you can watch syndicated episodes of Seinfeld that are themselves widescreen. Seinfeld is in widescreen. The Wire was not. The fact that this is a true statement is criminal. You can have those ridiculous black bars on either side of Jerry’s apartment. You don’t need all that space to point and laugh at Kramer’s antics. But The Wire needs that wider screen. It needs to be more cinematic because, despite the show’s episodic structure, it is above the form of its medium. The show doesn’t quite have the cinematography that screams, “SHOW MORE OF ME,” but it is a piece of sophisticated programming that raised the bar for other television shows. It’s time that HBO gave The Wire the treatment it deserves, and time that I give it the attention that I need to.