TV with MeeVee

Emmy Semi-Finalists Announced

In what's either a thrilling new sign of openness in its voting procedures or a naked attempt to whip up hype, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences tonight announced the semi-finalists for best drama and best comedy in this year's Emmy awards. Tell us what you think of the lists!

The press release:

Top 10 Drama and Comedy Finalists Announced

The lists below represent the 60th Primetime Emmy® Awards’ top ten vote-getters for outstanding drama series and outstanding comedy series, as voted on by the entire Television Academy.
Step two in the process will be the Blue Ribbon Panel screenings, which will be conducted throughout this weekend of June 28-29.
The results of those panels, who will watch and judge the work of each finalist, represent 50 percent of the vote. Both results will be averaged together to come up with our five nominees in each category.
Those nominees will be announced by the Television Academy at 5:40 a.m. on Thursday, July 17.
Panel participants have been confirmed and the panels are currently closed.
The accounting firm of Ernst & Young oversees tabulation of Primetime Emmy® nominations.

Top 10 Comedy Series Finalists

• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Entourage
• Family Guy
• Flight of the Conchords
• The Office
• Pushing Daisies
• 30 Rock
• Two and a Half Men
• Ugly Betty
• Weeds

Top 10 Drama Series Finalists

• Boston Legal
• Damages
• Dexter
• Friday Night Lights
• Grey’s Anatomy
• House
• Lost
• Mad Men
• The Tudors
• The Wire

TCA Award Nominations - My Ballot

The highlight of my summer, professionally anyway, will be the Press Tour, two weeks in Beverly Hills interviewing TV stars with my fellow members of the Television Critics Association. Yesterday I got the ballot for our annual awards, to be given out at a ceremony on July 19. Here it is, with my picks and comments. "In each category, you may vote for zero, one or two candidates...."

 PROGRAM OF THE YEAR
__ "John Adams" (HBO)
X   "Lost" (NBC)
X   "Mad Men" (AMC)
__ "Ken Burns' The War" (PBS)
__ "The Wire" (HBO)

My Notes: According to the instructions, "Program
of The Year defines a show whose contents transcended television to become a major and commendable cultural phenomenon during the 2007-08 season." Of the nominees, I think only "Lost" qualifies as a cultural phenomenon. None of the others had enough audience to qualify. If that's really the criteria, "American Idol" or for that matter "Moment of Truth" would be a better nominee - until you hit the word "commendable." "The War" and "The Wire" were commendable but not major phenoms. "John Adams" was overrated. Beyond its entertainment value, I'm not even sure what's so commendable about "Lost." But I'm going to vote for it and my favorite show of the year, "Mad Men," despite the latter's relatively small audience.

"The Wire" Season 5 On DVD This August

If you thought you'd escaped endless TV critic harping on how great "The Wire" is, think again! The show may be over, but it's soon to arrive on DVD, meaning that everyone who didn't watch it on HBO or pirate it online is going to start renting the discs (or buying them - free shipping if you pre-order now with code WIRES5NL at checkout) and starting all over about how it really is the greatest show on earth.

You can't escape. You won't escape. Submit to "The Wire!"

Morning reads

• The evil get eviller. (AP)
• The Emmys show switches from the Shrine to the Nokia. Just so you can tell your limo driver where to go. (Reuters)
• Britney Spears has been hired to ruin guest star on "How I Met Your Mother." (GMMR, from whom we stole the awesome graphic)
• And her casting has already averted a guest appearance by Alicia Silverstone. (TV Guide)
• Big Thursday for "Lost," as we learn the final two members of the Oceanic Six. (Buddy TV)
• "Lost" is also the most time-shifted episode, with a DVR audience of 3.7 million!! (TV By The Numbers)
• Maybe it's time for us to get paroled from "Prison Break"? (Buddy TV)
• Tom Goodman went quality in drowning his sorrows over the end of "The Wire." (The Bastard Machine)
• Nikki Finke says you shouldn't be too happy about the launch of Skynet Hulu. (Deadline Hollywood Daily)

Morning Reading

• "The Wire" ends. (Buddy TV)
• Showtime is parting ways with its lesbian lovers. (Hollywood Reporter)
• "Sopranos" movie? Not so much. (AP)
• Did I mention "The Wire" ended? (NY Times)
• "Dirt" still stains. (TV Squad)
• Rumors of a "Terminator" that won't die. Ironic, no? (TV Squad)
• Oh, and by the way, "The Wire" ended. (TGTV)

"The Wire" Cuts Off This Sunday

This Sunday, "The Wire" shuts down for good, with a 90-minute finale. After sixty episodes, it's finally coming to an end. Templeton, the fabricator at the newsroom (apparently named after the rat from "Charlotte's Web"), is running out of room, as is everyone else. Mayor Carcetti wants the police to clean up their own mess; McNulty (right) is scrambling to get out of the bed he's made for himself; Marlo has risen to the top of the game and has nowhere to go but down. With the old masters of the drug game dead, and new kids coming up, everything gets set to repeat itself.

Look at McNulty's face there: He's unhappy, but not disappointed, because disappointment requires thinking it's going to turn out better. He's no fool, although he acts like an idiot.

Meanwhile, in the world of TV viewers, everyone's getting ready to mourn and celebrate "The Wire" and its five-year run as the best thing on TV. Everybody, it seems, wants to be in on the action, from Columbus Ohio to CNN and USA Today.  New York Magazine has its editors in an IM chat, rehashing their favorite scenes, comparing the "Wire" ending to that of "The Sopranos," and muttering that all other TV sucks now.

Some outlets even have two articles about the finale: The San Jose Mercury-News has both a TV story and an Entertainment story (I'm not sure what the difference is, but there you go), while the SF Chronicle offers an obituary for the show and lets their regular TV guy, Tim Goodman, ponder the show's successors to the title  of Best Drama. (He likes "Dexter.")

If you haven't been too put off by the critical acclaim for the show (which, despite all that, never got the ratings of "The Sopranos," much less "American Idol"), and you haven't seen it yet, catch it on DVD. You won't be disappointed in the show, although it may remind you just how much you're disappointed in humanity and in the rest of television.

Pre-Weekend Cocktail Hour Reading

• A totally genius idea. Let's fix up those "American Idol" kids. (Glitterati Gossip)
• In the same "American Idol" vein, someone finally got to ask David Hernandez about the gay-stripper reports, and he finessed them. Duh. (EW.com)
• "Lost: Every Episode is a Ben Episode." Precisely. Look at him. (Buddy TV)
• Aside from the sadness surrounding John Ritter's death, I can't say I ever felt anything for the sitcom "8 Simple Rules For Dating My Daughter." Well, when David Spade was on screen, maybe a little revulsion. Now the author's followup, "8 Simple Rules For Marrying My Daughter," is going to be a movie. Woot. (Hollywood Reporter)
• Whoever told the NY Post that Jerry Seinfeld was talking about a new sitcom wasn't telling the truth. (AP)
• "The Wire" isn't the only finale on Sunday; there's also the season-one ender for "Breaking Bad." (TV Guide)

Obama Loves "The Wire"

In These Times alerted me to the fact that Barack Obama watches "The Wire," which strikes me as a good reason both to vote for Obama even if you don't like the show, and to watch the show even if you don't like Obama.

If you like both, of course, it's a cavalcade of "Obama: He's just like me!" But it's also important to understand what a political leader's perspective is on unwholesome organizational incentives is, and to understand that a political leader appreciates the cyclical, endemic nature of societal damage as represented in "The Wire."

Also, it's a freaking awesome show. Just watch it, OK?

"The Wire" And "Law & Order" Compared

First off, let's talk about the disappointment in the air over this season of "The Wire." In particular, the critics over at Slate seem pretty unhappy. They think McNulty is way out of character, the newsroom story is too spiteful, and the only good points are Bunk Moreland and what little we see of the kids from last season.  TV Squad thinks  this episode (we're talking number six, "The Dickensian Aspect," by the way) stumbled a little bit, but the show is still absolutely stellar. And Tim Goodman is still in love. Still, it really seems like this season just isn't living up to the impossibly high standards set for it by previous seasons and their attending hype.

In other words, "The Wire" isn't perfect. And even if it were the greatest TV show ever, its existence doesn't magically invalidate everything that came before it.

See, I keep coming back to the story David Simon likes to tell about "The Wire" and its origins, how it's meant to be a big kick in the teeth for people who produce shows like "Law & Order," which pull punches and are too pat and too easy.

I'm not sure it's all that different, though.

Is David Simon Too Angry For "The Wire?"

The problem with attacking journalists in a TV show like "The Wire" is that you depend on their good graces for kind reviews. They're bound to say that an ex-journalist who's still full of rage is hardly objective about the faults of the newsroom. The temptation for journalists skewered in season 5 of "The Wire" is to make the rationalization that David Simon (at right) is just biased because he's been exiled from print media.

The Guardian has a rundown of this kind of phenomenon: Journalists have been quick to take offense when Simon's critical eye turns toward them; They're far less picky about his treatment of police, drug dealers, schools, government, child services, and cell phone companies. Does Simon's anger at the journalistic status quo endanger his vision for "The Wire"? Or does it just mean that the last season is going to get bad reviews from people whose feelings it hurt?

I'm thinking it's the second one, but to be certain we'll need to wait until a couple weeks after the final season comes out on DVD, just to get a really good critical perspective on the entire show. Send me all five seasons as a box set and I'll write it up for you.

"The Wire" Finally Gets A Humorous T-Shirt

"The Wire" doesn't have an overwhelming audience among hip college-age slackers who wear sort of ironic t-shirts, at least not in the way that "Entourage" or "The Office" do. That explains why it's taken so long for Busted Tees, purveyors of  shirts bearing slogans like "Hug it out, bitch" (now discontinued) and "That's what SHE said," to come up with something honoring what we all know is the greatest show ever televised.

But now, at long last, they have, and we can all rest easy knowing that people who admire Tommy Carcetti's integrity, hard work, and genius for governance will announce their feelings on their chests, so that we can avoid them as much as possible.

Seriously, Tommy Carcetti might be the least horrible politician in the political cesspool that is "The Wire," but that doesn't make him a good person. If you see someone wearing this shirt, congratulate them on watching good television, then kick them in the shins for their allegiance to a corrupt slimebag of a fictional politician. They deserve it.

Someone Loves "The Wire" Even More Than Me

When Max Silvestri saw a headline about Apple CEO Steve Jobs recruiting someone from Avon, he immediately thought of "The Wire" master crook Avon Barksdale, not Avon Cosmetics. And you know, if going door to door to persuade people to use Macs doesn't work, Jobs just might have to try Barksdale's more aggressive sales tactics.

Monday Afternoon "The Wire" Roundup

HBO puts its digital customers first, allowing them access to new episodes of "The Wire" a full week before the usual airdate. Whether that's a favor for the show is debatable, but it certainly makes things a little more complicated for bloggers, and it definitely marks a dividing line between the hardcore fans and those content to watch on the regular, analog schedule.

Tim Goodman at TGTV, Slate's faux-Socratic email dialogs, BWE, and the bloggers from Variety are all talking up episode 2, "Unconfirmed Reports," and TWOP has its usual over-detailed play-by-play. This is the much-rumored episode where McNulty finally snaps: He begins taking crime scenes and adjusting them to be more exciting so there will be more effort to solve the crimes. Coupled with the growing Clay Davis corruption scandal and the constant newsroom search for headlines that will move papers, that means the bloggers are all talking about the nature of fraud and scandal and reporting, and at what point ends justify means.

(Variety also has a nice post from someone who hasn't seen the first four seasons, talking about what it's like to jump into the storyline now.)

Meanwhile, Heaven And Here is already on to episode 3, talking about Marlo's attempts to move up the ladder into the realm of international criminal enterprise...

Who's Going To Die On "The Wire" Season 5?

Sociology and economics expert Sudhir Venkatesh, who writes about the workings of inner-city gangs, got together with a number of semi-anonymous New York City thugs to watch the first episode of season 5 of "The Wire."

He shares their predictions about the season with the New York Times "Freakonomics" blog: McNulty and Bunk are destined for a falling out; Bunk is probably going to die; Clay Davis is going to get busted for corruption.

Of course, by now, pirated copies of the show are leaking onto the web and actual, accurate spoilers are following them quickly. Links and hints after the jump. Don't click if you want to stay surprised!

If you want non-spoilery "Wire" news, check out this enormous roundup of links and articles, which includes links to updates on David Simon's next project, rumored to be set in New Orleans.

Just How Much "The Wire" Can The Internet Hold?

Slate alone has a half-dozen pieces on "The Wire" right now: The script from a deleted scene, an ongoing email debate among various critics about the new season, plus reposts of older material.

Cynthia Littleton has two posts, one about the season as a whole and one about the first episode. And of course Tim Goodman is all over it on his blog. And his other blog.

Also, series creator David Simon is in on it, reading everything about his show and writing in to discuss it on Slate, arguing points on Poynter, talking back on Hitsville and Ubiquitous Marketing and the New York Magazine article about him as well. I guess making a TV show about journalists is a good strategy to get journalists to pay attention to you.

The Mystifying Unpopularity Of "The Wire"

Since "The Wire" is beginning its final season, critics and newspapers have started going all-out to claim it as the best thing ever. The Boston Globe, for example, gave it more than half the front page of the Arts & Entertainment section yesterday. Sure, it's a good show. I'll go so far as to say it's my favorite show.  But I'm not going to claim that everyone should watch it, or pretend to be mystified that it's not more popular.

For one thing, I resisted the show at first, too. I only really started watching because it came on after "Sex And The City," and I felt like such a pansy for getting involved with Carrie and Big that I needed something manly to compensate. After about two weeks, I was completely hooked, even though it gave me nightmares about heroin addiction, police interrogation, and gang warfare.

The New Yorker noted last October that the audience for "The Wire" is a mirror of a hollowed-out city: all entitled yuppies and struggling underclass, no broad middle. Yes, I love it. Of course I do. TV critics and bloggers love it. So do gangsters and admirers of gangster culture - that's why BET snagged the syndication rights. But that doesn't mean it's going to catch on with your average TV viewer, and I'm neither surprised nor disappointed.

"The Wire" is not easy to follow, even with the episode guides posted at HBO.com. That limits its appeal at least somewhat. More importantly, as gripping and intense as it is, it's rarely fun. People who want something that they can watch before bed will not find this the show for them - and that's a lot of people. Most of us have to be awake for work in the morning, and can't afford to have TV get in the way. And as much as you love the renegade rip-and-run artist Omar (Michael Kenneth Williams, left) and strung-out informant Bubbles (Andre Royo,  right, almost unrecognizable when cleaned up and out of character), it's awfully hard to invest the emotional energy in them when you just know they're going to get screwed in one way or another. At least on "Grey's Anatomy," you're sure that Meredith is going to find some kind of success or redemption, even if she doesn't find true fairytale love.

Point being, it would be great if everyone would watch this show, but I know that's not going to happen, and I don't think it's an outrage or a tragedy. I'm content just to know that "The Wire" exists and that some people are moved by it.

"The Wire" Starts Sunday

"The Wire" season 5 starts this Sunday on HBO, and since it's a news-themed season, the news media are all over it: The New York Times has an interview with Clark Johnson, who plays the newspaper editor this season, while New York Magazine has a careful parsing of the most recent ads for the show.

And of course the bloggers have been up on it since day one. Heaven And Here is the best-written, most philosophical, and most in-depth. Frankly, if you've read that you don't need to read much other commentary on the show. Warning, though: They all watch it a week early through On Demand, so you might find some spoilers if you're not careful.

No Young Leek On "The Wire" Soundtrack?

HBO is releasing a deluxe "The Wire" soundtrack, featuring select lines of dialog and songs from the show. It's got three different versions of the theme song, "Way Down In The Hole," but I'm disappointed to see that it doesn't have Young Leek's "Shake It, Jiggle It."

That's the song Marlo and Snoop kill a man for not knowing. You can buy the CD at the HBO store, but be aware that if someone asks, you should say your favorite Baltimore musician is Young Leek.

Oddly, the only decent video of the song I could find was illustrated with The Sims:

"The Wire" Official Trailer

HBO has released a new trailer for Season 5 of "The Wire," kicked off with a great line from Mayor Carcetti: "It's Baltimore... no one lives forever."  Plus, after the jump, one of my favorite scenes, in which McNulty and Bunk discuss a murder scene using only the f-word.

"Heroes" And "The Wire" Hot Links

Heroes
Brokenback Tango went to the Jules Verne festival and brought back a spoiler-rich report of some of the events that will be coming in Volume 3 of "Heroes."

The Wire
Heaven And Here has a lengthy discussion of genre and how "The Wire" is supposed to be a genre-bending tale, but couldn't exist without the roots it has in film noir and the broadcast-TV police procedural.

"The Wire" Actress Felicia Pearson Has A New Book

Felicia Pearson, who plays Snoop on "The Wire," has a past uncomfortably similar to that of her character. The way she talks is the way her character talks. Her nickname is Snoop, and she was raised in a Baltimore foster home. At the age of 14, she was sent to prison on 2nd-degree murder charges. After her release, she found it hard to get a job because of her record.

After a lucky break, she became an actress, and now she's telling her story in an autobiography, Grace After Midnight. Publisher's Weekly calls it "a powerful story of someone trying to find her way in a dark world, realizing she can still choose her life's direction even in tremendously difficult circumstances."

Bonus link: The Fader has a short interview with Pearson from '06, among other coverage of the show.

"The Wire" Bloggers Start Up Their Engines

Twenty-six days before "The Wire" shows up in On Demand pre-release, Wire-blog Heaven And Here has started back up with an extensive (and highly negative) critique of those backstory videos I posted earlier. I was just bathed in nostalgia to see a young Omar forming the basis of his criminal life, but Heaven And Here thinks it's a cheap marketing ploy, and I have to admit they're right.

"The Wire" has always rejected things which are too easy, and these promo clips are exactly that. It's not that I don't like them, but they're not up to the formidable standards David Simon has set for the rest of the show. They do one thing very well, though: Whet my appetite for the actual episodes.

"The Wire" Characters Back Story

While you're waiting for the final season of "The Wire" to hit HBO OnDemand on New Year's Eve, check out the back story pieces they've put together for the characters. How did McNulty get into homicide, and how did he earn Bunk Moreland's respect? What was Prop Joe like back in grade school, when he was selling test answers and not dope? Best of all, what was Omar like as a young hood?

Bonus Link: Matthew Yglesias says "The Wire" is the only show that matters.

Two more after the jump.

Spend New Year's Eve With "The Wire"

It might not be the most glamorous way to spend New Year's Eve, but it's certainly going to be tempting to some people. You could be out partying, but why not just stay at home in front of the TV, watching "The Wire" from HBO On Demand. While the official premiere isn't until January 6, 2008, each episode will be available a week early for digital cable subscribers.

TV Squad wonders why HBO is doing that, and I have to admit it's kind of puzzling. It's sure to sap ratings for the official broadcast, it puts a divide between fans with different kinds of cable service, and it leads bloggers to discuss the show in more general terms to avoid the wrath of spoiler-haters.

I'm going to guess that HBO gets better data about the number of viewers who watch On Demand, and so they want to encourage people to use On Demand when they have the option. Maybe some time in the future they'll even have a show that's On Demand only. That would be kind of weird.

Either way, the best possible way to watch "The Wire" would be while eating snacks from plates once owned by Jimmy McNulty, a.k.a. Dominic West. It's a little late to pick them up now, but if you were in Baltimore on September 1, you had a chance to pick up some celebrity plates at his moving-out yard sale. I'm kind of pissed I didn't get to go myself. (Another thing I missed that month was an NPR piece about the show by a Baltimore resident who lives in one of the city's safer, greener neighborhoods and doesn't see a lot of the "gritty" side of the city. It's not spectacular but Wire completists will want to hear it anyway.)

Yes, I'll be watching "The Wire" On Demand on the 31st, possibly while everyone else is out celebrating the arrival of 2008. Yes, I'm going to name my next pet or child after McNulty. No, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

"The Wire" Soundtrack Set For Jan 8, 2008

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the return of "The Wire." I'm also thrilled to hear that the soundtrack will be released on January 8 from Nonesuch Records. Like BuzzSugar, I'm looking forward to being able to compare different versions of the theme, the Tom Waits song "Way Down In The Hole."

But mostly, I want to hear the various Baltimore club tracks. So far I haven't had much finding the local songs used in the show, but I did find Young Leek's "Jiggle It"  with a fan-made video using the Sims computer game instead of real dancers. Yeah, it's kind of weird, but it's also hilarious.

Related: HBO already has a behind-the-scenes book about "The Wire" called "Truth Be Told."

David Simon To Move From Baltimore To New Orleans?

David Simon has built his career on Baltimore crime, first as a journalist, then in TV. His credits are impressive and each one outdoes the last: "Homicide," "The Corner," and most recently, the sweeping "The Wire," whose final season airs late this winter.

But now, he says, he's ready to move on from Baltimore. The city has changed, and so has he.  Maybe, he says, he'll do something in New Orleans.

Buzzsugar and I are both getting this from the same New Yorker profile of Simon, and we both have the same reaction: if he does it (and that's a big if), it'll probably be better than "K-Ville."

Now, I like "K-Ville." I watch it every Monday (there was no episode last night- baseball instead), and when I do I'm rooting for the characters and for the city itself. But I know it could be a better show, a deeper one.  I think David Simon could do that show.  But maybe not: it took him years of living and working in Baltimore, and a series of different shows about the city, to reach the level of "The Wire."

Can Simon jump into a new city years after a transformative disaster and really understand it? Isn't that kind of thinking exactly the sort of devaluation of human relationships and individual human history that he's trying to fight against? Maybe, maybe not. If anyone knows how to drop into a city, talk to the people who live there, learn what's important to them, and tell good stories about them to the rest of the world, it's David Simon.

"The Wire" Finishes Filming For Final Season

"The Wire" has wrapped its fifth and final season, and the Washington Post was there to talk with the cast, crew, and writers. They also have a great interview with Jamie Hector, who plays the sociopathic young drug lord Marlo Stanfield. I've said it before and I'll say it again: "The Wire" is a true oasis amid the vast wasteland. If you haven't seen it, you should. Season 5 will air some time in early 2008, so you've got time to rent the previous seasons on DVD.

How Accurate Is "The Wire," Anyway?

We're between seasons of HBO's gritty crime drama "The Wire," but it's still on the minds of a lot of people. It's been praised as a realistic portrayal of Baltimore's underground economy, but without actually being an inner-city drug dealer, how do you know if that's what it's really like?

Well, you can always ask someone who knows. Freakonomics author and New York Times columnist Stephen Dubner talked to Sudhir Venkatesh, the man who explained the economics of drug dealing in the book. Now a professor of economics at Columbia University, Venkatesh says he and his gang contacts really like the show and feel that its an accurate illustration of how people get by in the inner city.

"The Wire" will return for a fifth and final season in early 2008.