the-wire-season-1

In my continuing quest to convince everyone in America to watch “The Wire” and share every possible news detail about creator David Simon comes an excellent find today from kottke.org: several scripts for the show, plus a document dated September 6, 2000 that is apparently Simon’s original pitch to HBO (mediafire share here).

Here’s a choice quote from the conclusion:

But more than an exercise is realism for its own sake, the verisimilitude of The Wire exists to serve something larger. In the first story-arc, the episodes begin what would seem to be the straight-forward, albeit protracted, pursuit of a violent drug crew that controls a high-rise housing project. But within a brief span of time, the officers who undertake the pursuit are forced to acknowledge truths about their department, their role, the drug war and the city as a whole. In the end, the cost to all sides begins to suggest not so much the dogged police pursuit of the bad guys, but rather a Greek tragedy. At the end of thirteen episodes, the reward for the viewer — who has been lured all this way by a well-constructed police show — is not the simple gratification of hearing handcuffs click. Instead, the conclusion is something that Euripides or O’Neill might recognize: an America, at every level at war with itself.

Hell and yes.  Nerdy analysis never sounded so awesome.  I want to go back in time and watch this show all over again for the first time.  Oh, and also kill Hitler.   But mostly “The Wire” thing.