How The Wire Ruined My Already Pathetic Little Life

I used to be so social. ‘Hey Jon we’re going for a pint after work. Wanna come?’ ‘Sure mate count me in!’ ‘Hey Jon we’re going to go throw cashews at squirrels in the park.’ ‘I’m there!’ Then one fateful day last summer a friend said ‘hey man. Gonna start watching the Wire starting from season one. Would you care to join me?’ At that point I should have said ‘no thanks mate. It’s a nice day I’m going to take a nice walk around the harbour and maybe pick up some falafel.’ Unfortunately I said ‘Yeah okay. I’ve heard very good things about it.’ At that point my life changed irreversibly.

Fast forward 7 months and I am completing the 5th series of The Wire for the 3rd time! That’s one hundred and eighty hours of the last 7 months sat in front of my computer, mostly on my own, revelling at undeniably the greatest show of all time. That’s approximately 51 minutes a day on average watching the television equivalent of crack cocaine. And considering I’ve been employed and getting the good eight hours in that whole time makes those statistics even harder to swallow.

I’m not going to bore you with why the show is so good. If you watch it you know already and if you don’t I’m sure you’ve been told 495,861 times by annoying little toe rags such as myself. The show has ruined my life on two different fronts so if your reading this and are planning to start watching it consider this a warning. If you have watched it then I’m sure some of you will share my pain.

I used to love television. During my days as a student I would literally watch any old crap. I studied Film so I would constantly be picking movies apart while watching them, but television was different. My whole house (all guys) would sit down together to watch the Eastenders, Hollyoaks and Neighbours. If I was too broke or too burnt out to get plastered I’d regularly watch shows such as The Bill, Holby City and Judge John Deed. It was nice easy to digest television. It didn’t matter that the acting was bad or the storylines were preposterous, you could sit there and go numb for a little while. The ‘credible’ dramas I did like such as Lost, Heroes and West Wing I thought were genius. Hard to top in terms of good television. Then The Wire came along.

Now I can’t watch anything remotely serious without comparing it to The Wire. Started watching The Shield, great show but gave up after half a series to start watching The Wire again. Michael Chicklis’s testicle-esque face just started irritating me and I wanted to go back to McNulty’s questionable accent and bad drunk acting. Attempted to watch the latest series of Spooks as I’d heard from many peers that it was terrific. ‘What did you think?’ ‘It’s not The Wire is it?’ The amount I’ve used that bloody sentence since starting to watch the show is ridiculous. I feel like such a pretentious little fuckwit.

It’s not just drama’s either. It’s pretty much any television show. I’ll be watching Big Cat Week or something (have a weird attraction to that really posh zoologist) and just think ‘I’m wasting my time. I could be knee deep in Baltimore juice right now.’ Bit of a weird analogy but hey I’m tired.

Unfortunately it doesn’t just affect my television habits. It’s trickled into my personal life. Friends will be rather irritated when I reveal that at least half a dozen times I’ve turned down invitations to go for beers or whatever to watch the show. No television show has ever affected my decisions whether to get drunk or not. Usually it’s just a resounding ‘See you there mate!’ But while I’m in Wire mode the thought of getting blind drunk and hitting on lampposts and other such inanimate of objects suddenly looses a little bit of appeal.

And then when I’m out having a drink with other people who’ve watched The Wire all you end up talking about is the fucking Wire! You could’ve known the person all your life and have millions of thing to talk about but you don’t. With one particular friend the amount of times we’ve said ‘Lets not get into it’ and realise 3 hours later we haven’t talked about anything else is a little pathetic. I mean you could be going to talk to the person to reveal that you’re sleeping with their sibling but completely forget once The Wire’s mentioned. It’s a very sad state of affairs!

After you’ve watched it you’re suddenly a criminal law expert. Or at least you think you are only to talk pompously to someone studying or practising law for your knowledge to be totally dissected. In fact from my experience, perhaps subconsciously, if you’ve seen it you carry a very slight superiority complex and subsequently sound like an arrogant twat when talking about it with someone who has never watched it. The shame!

So be warned. Yes it is undeniably one of the finest television shows of all time and yes it is horribly addictive and yes you will be inconsolable when you’ve finished watching it. But it may ruin your life. You could be a suave big city man about town who likes nothing more than stuffing canapés into your elegant face while sipping Santana champagne and chatting up ball gown clad young women, or you could be a sociopathic alcoholic who likes nothing better than putting on your finest Primark white shirt, catching syphilis off some ropey at best women and kicking to sacks of shit out of someone who disagrees with your preference of football team. The moment The Wire takes hold you’ll become a sad little loner just like me.