For three weeks I've been spending 2-3 hours every night watching "The Wire". That's quite something, since I can barely sit through an whole episode of anything else.

This amount of time and dedication on my side deserves as a tribute. And since I'm still working on my HBO subscription (they produced the series), a journal entry will do.

If you need to remember why we need television, watch "The Wire". Reviewers tend to call it "a gritty crime drama" and then give it 9.7/10. I'm not sure what gritty is, but if it means hyper-realistic, it definitely sounds appropriate. If you're in the mood for reading, you can read some Wikipedia. Or, you can do that later, for plot and character reference. As for this post - it will not raise high on the objectivity scale. I like the moral part of the story - how the eternal good/bad fight is shown here and that's what I'll write about.

In short, "The Wire" is the complex story of Baltimore: a city riddled by crime, corruption, good intentions, bad decisions, compromised institutions and everything else that makes the city what it is: a "game", in which everyone must either play his part, or get left behind. But it can be the story of almost every other modern city.

The number of "players" portrayed is vast - bigger than anything else I've seen in TV series. They all act and feel real - with their own reasons to keep the guard up, with their flaws, hopes, ambitions, fears and bright moments. Actually, it's impossible to tell the bad guys from the good, because there's a problem with identifying them - it only works only if you're not personally connected to them. If they happen to be your parents, friends, or long-time fellows, it's not that easy to point the finger.

"The Wire" does one thing perfectly: it tells you the whole story of every character, making them feel like your best friend or at least relatives. Which in turn makes it very hard to judge them at all. And with our moral system temporarily turned off, you start to see them differently - in their true colors, which are definitely not black and white.

There are lots of "bad" guys who just happen to be bad. They didn't have the chance to choose their part. They don't have the knowledge or the options to do it. They were born where they are now and they play the game, surviving another day, dodging the cops and following the orders they've got.

What about that kid who joined the local killer crew when he needed help to stop his ex-con drug-addicted father from molesting his little brother? Was that a good or bad decision?

Then there are the "bad" guys whose decisions are motivated by their urge to move up. To get promoted, to get more money, to change their social status. Even if they had some good intentions in the beginning, they always fuck up along the way.

Like the young and ambitious mayor with disarming smile, who runs his election campaign on the promise he'll drop the crime rate but halfway through his mandate decides to run for congressman, leaving total mess behind - including stronger crime and weaker education than before his turn. He's politician, that's what they do, right?

Then there are the genuinely "good" guys. They are the real cheaters in the game - always on the verge of breaking the rules, struggling to do something significant, something that could change the game for good. But they also tend to fuck up - usually because of authority problems. That's what authorities do - always trying to keep the things as they are, instead of pondering how they could be.

Typical example of a good guy would be the police commissioner who practically legalized the drug trade in certain spots, while totally forbidding it in others, in order to lower the crime and save what's left of his district. It works great until the media learns about that little experiment. Then the higher authorities give him hell. Because what he's doing is immoral and vile - doing something new, instead of changing the numbers on the quarterly crime reports.

So, at the end of the day, the game is still same, only the players change.

I wrote so much without even bruising the whole idea of "The Wire". If you have read all this, you probably trust me enough to to watch it anyway. So here's a bonus for you - after watching the first season, you'll be able to translate almost any hip-hop lyrics without any dictionary or search engine - phrases like "dope fiend", "po-po", "five oh" and "hopper" will ring bells all the time. And let's not forget the "fuck" usage guidelines you can get from every episode.

Something funny to cheer up the atmosphere: