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The fifth and final season of HBO’s The Wire begins. From the NYT: No Happy Ending in Dickensian Baltimore. 

“This series’s greatest distinction is perhaps the very thing that chases away broad popularity and peer recognition: ‘‘The Wire’’ traces the interlaced lives of drug dealers and police officers, and both sides of the street receive equal time and consideration. No other series has as many African-American characters, and some of most richly conceived ones fall into categories — drug dealers, convicts and addicts — that violate television’s taboo against racial profiling. By defying the very stereotypes it perpetuates, the show confounds easy viewing. And in the inverted logic of ‘‘The Wire,’’ failure is its own success, a badge of honor in a decaying and dishonorable world. The series’s creators never received the acclaim their work deserves, and there are no lasting victories on ‘‘The Wire,’’ just glimmers of success that tease out hope only to be quickly and brutally squelched.”

Next week I’m going to sit down with coffee and doughnuts and watch four seasons of The Wire. Then I’m going to read Stalin: In the Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore. I’ll call it my Humanity: Dontcha Love It? Week.