Why Britain Can't Do the Wire

Ok, I've only read what you have here so far... (2.00 / 4)

...but I can tell you one reason why the quality of British TV is in the pooper.  We constantly steal your shows, actors, and writers!

Off to check out the article.  Cheerio.

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

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by: fogiv @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 14:35:18 PM CDT

You definitely steal our actors (2.00 / 4)

Half The Wire cast is British (prizes for those that can guess). True too of a lot of your shows.

Without this focusing specifically on my profession, I oughta say, that while you're all talking about US decline, or the self destruction of 'libruls', you guys are now ruling the world when it comes to the stories we tell each other, and the hours we spend watching TV - the whole world over.

Gotta love New York and California in some ways. Where would Fox be without these librul shows. They fund Faux News.  

Moose Juice; debate without hate

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by: Brit @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 14:48:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Dominic West, Idris Elba (for The Wire) (2.00 / 4)

A few others (past and present):

John Mahoney (Frasier)

Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Without a Trace)

Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl)

Damien Lewis (Life)

Joely Richardson (Nip/Tuck)

Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica)

Hugh Laurie (House, MD)

Robert Pattinson (Twilight)

Gabrielle Anwar (Burn Notice)

Joseph Fiennes (Flash Forward)

Ian McShane (Deadwood)

Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies)

Louise Lombard (CSI)

Minnie Driver (The Riches)

Kevin McKidd (Grey's Anatomy)

Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman)

Kevin McKidd (Journeyman)

Eddie Izzard (The Riches)

Mark Addy (Still Standing)

Where would Fox be without these librul shows. They fund Faux News.

As do shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad.  All of which are blatantly liberal.  The irony.  Example from American Dad:

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

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by: fogiv @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 15:07:07 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Wow (2.00 / 3)

We are humbled. You only forgot about a third of the cast of ER in the last four or five seasons. But you get the picture. We should be doing better. Instead - brain (and luvvie) drain

Moose Juice; debate without hate

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by: Brit @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 15:14:12 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Oh (2.00 / 2)

And two other english actors played leads in The Wire. You've still missed

Mayor Thomas "Tommy" Carcetti - Aidan Gillen
Detective Lester Freamon - Clarke Peters

Moose Juice; debate without hate

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by: Brit @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 16:59:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Joseph Fiennes is in Flash Forward?! (2.00 / 2)

I may have to check that out.  I love his brother, too.

I was sad that Gabrielle Anwar gave up the accent on Burn Notice.

Hey, Brett, piss or get off the pot.  Really.

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by: HappyinVT @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 18:01:00 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Are you saying that (2.00 / 5)

the land of William Shakespeare is lacking when it comes to writing drama? Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." - Sinclair Lewis

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by: John Allen @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 15:47:07 PM CDT

No, I'm saying... (2.00 / 6)

...the land of William Shakespeare is lacking the dynamic, intelligent, entrepreneurial environment of the Elizabethan Stage, where there was a direct access to the audience, and bureaucracy's heavy hand (in the form of the Chancellor's office) was mitigated by the messy, unpredictable stuff of creativity.  

Moose Juice; debate without hate

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by: Brit @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 15:49:21 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Oh, (2.00 / 5)

that's what you meant. ;~)

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." - Sinclair Lewis

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by: John Allen @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 15:51:11 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Sorry (2.00 / 3)

Should have made that clear...

Why can't the English Learn to Speak?

Moose Juice; debate without hate

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by: Brit @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 16:06:42 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Love that movie. (2.00 / 2)

It is my favorite musical. Actually, it's about the only musical I really like. I'll watch it every time I come across it.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." - Sinclair Lewis

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by: John Allen @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 16:44:53 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I would add (2.00 / 4)

Guys and Dolls and West Side Story to that list.

Moose Juice; debate without hate

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by: Brit @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 17:08:54 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Not To Mention... (2.00 / 4)

Porgy and Bess.

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by: Shaun Appleby @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 17:47:10 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Or is that an opera? (2.00 / 2)

Moose Juice; debate without hate

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by: Brit @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 18:48:57 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

An opera... (2.00 / 3)

By Gerschwin which ran on Broadway at the Alvin theatre, toured for a year, and was revived at the Majestic in the Forties, yeah.  It hit the Met in 1985.  But you're right.

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by: Shaun Appleby @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 20:00:23 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

There was a wonderful Musical Version of Porgy... (2.00 / 4)

Directed by Trevor Nunn in London a couple of years ago. And to bring us full circle, guess who played Porgy?

None other than Clarke Peters - AKA Lester Freamon of Wire legend.

It's a small world...

If you're not a worker or a peasant.  

Moose Juice; debate without hate

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by: Brit @ Fri Oct 30, 2009 at 05:48:41 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

You strike at the core reason the Moderate will never fully agree with the Liberal. (2.00 / 1)

(Warning: excessive simplistic use of labels follows.  Take with salt.)

The Liberal pushback against Capitalism can be perceived (sometimes correctly) as a pushback against Entrepreneurialism, and that is something the average Average is never going to buy.  The splitting of the GOP into True Believers and Everyone Else is an acting out of the lesson the Democrats are well served to learn if they are going to Capitalize (oh, the irony... ;~) on the opportunity to own the majority for an extended period.

While the shrill whine from the Wingnut Right [tm] overstates  the issue in every way, there is every reason to have real concern that an overreaching government could stifle the spirit of innovation and independence that more than anything else defines the American advantage.  That is in fact what happens when government through a wealth of good intentions goes too far in wrapping the population in swaddling and gauze.

My more conservative friends - particularly the ones who heard me rail against Canadian (and to a lesser extent, American) Liberalism through the first three-quarters of this decade - are typically surprised that I don't see Obama as the embodiment of the Nannystate that I so vocally oppose (don't I know that he was the Most Liberal Senator??).  But I have had almost no reason as yet to change my opinion that he understands the need to keep a flourishing entrepreneurial environment in the US, and that losing this is tantamount to forfeiting US world leadership outright.  The shrill ranting of those the furthest to the left only lulls me into a state of confirmed contentment that he is remaining inside the sane pathway.

And yes, I did say "almost no reason".  Love the guy like a brother, but he is ideologically to my left by a warm country mile.  But I don't think he's self-destructively dense enough to act out the worst excesses of economic liberalism.

"Conway, whom experience had taught that rudeness was by no means a guarantee of good faith, was even less inclined to regard a well-turned phrase as a proof of insincerity."  James Hilton, Lost Horizon

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by: chrisblask @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 16:40:06 PM CDT

Things are odd in the states (2.00 / 2)

Economic liberalism in the UK, and I guess the rest of the world, means breaking down government or monopoly control. Only in the US does 'economic liberalism' mean its inverse.

Social liberalism is an entirely different matter, though.

The US has so little experience of a real nanny state, however, I sometimes wonder whether both the libruls (such as your brother) take extreme positions because they're entirely speculative, and unlikely to come about. Rather than a realistic debate about where and when the state should intervene to correct market failure, or deal with goods that cannot be provided or costed by the market (from defence to pollution) it all gets a bit theological and abstract. Socialism bad/good. Capitalism bad/good.

This explains the batshit crazy stuff I read on Kos from Trotskyites or Chomskyists, who know that there prescriptions, in the US, will never ever go beyond theory. So they match the far right in conceiving grand impossible conspiracies which will only be overturned by ecological collapse, revolution, military takeover or rapture.

So when I hear that you can never convert to the liberalism of your brother, Chris, I feel I'm hearing a language of extremes. Extreme theory meet aversion to extreme theory. I'm not sure how this actually relates to real politics.

As for the nanny state, I've mentioned before that the reason British directors and actors do so well in the US, is our stellar training facilities. Thanks to subsidised theatre, they can practice, get things wrong or right, for years, and learn their craft. That I applaud.

That an effectively subsidized monopoly, the BBC, should then choose winners and losers, determine outcomes rather than just capabilities, is something I abhor.

Moose Juice; debate without hate

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by: Brit @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 16:51:12 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

You are correct in seeing the American Dance around the issues as cartoonish, (2.00 / 3)

but somehow it seems to work.  Perhaps there is something in it all that speaks to the need to be almost ridiculously deliberate with such volatile materials - like the religiously checklisted handling of nuclear materials.

Or maybe we're just weird.

"Conway, whom experience had taught that rudeness was by no means a guarantee of good faith, was even less inclined to regard a well-turned phrase as a proof of insincerity."  James Hilton, Lost Horizon

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by: chrisblask @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 17:01:54 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yeah, Maybe It's CCTV vs The Networks (2.00 / 3)

But when it comes to political satire, the Brits still rule:

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by: Shaun Appleby @ Thu Oct 29, 2009 at 22:03:10 PM CDT

New series of The Thick of It (2.00 / 3)

...just airing here now. But like The Office, this was done out of the deadening shadow of the drama bureaucracy. And guess where Armando Janucci, the deviser of the In the Loop and The Thick of It, is off to next....

To HBO to do his own series, free from the constraints here.

Moose Juice; debate without hate

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by: Brit @ Fri Oct 30, 2009 at 05:50:57 AM CDT

[ Parent ]