Similarities between 'Battlestar, 'Wire'

Critically revered shows reached for the stars

By BRIAN LOWRY

MIRRORING MISSIONS: 'Battlestar Galactica' (with Katee Sackhoff, right) and 'The Wire' (with Lance Reddick) had more in common than surface appearances would indicate.

At first blush, identifying similarities between "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Wire" -- other than shared critical adulation, coinciding with a lack of commensurate attention from Emmy voters -- sounded like a formidable challenge. Yet after some thought, various parallels began coming into focus.

Both series feature big casts and heavily serialized storylines. Both are dark and brooding. And both explore strange worlds (respectively, outer space and inner Baltimore) that are foreign to most members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which helps explain why they lack much golden hardware to show for their runs.

Each show, moreover, explores the internal bureaucracy and politics that embroil warring factions. In "Galactica," the focus is on surviving humans, trying to maintain a level of normalcy in the face of a grave threat, and the murderous Cylons -- divided by their own bickering -- pitted against them. In "The Wire," it's Baltimore's police and elected officials, whose efforts to curb the drug trade are mired in any number of intractable problems, matched by organizational and turf-war disputes among the dealers themselves.

The two series also exceeded any reasonable qualitative expectations, though "Galactica" gets the edge in that regard, inasmuch as it was inspired by a mediocre 1970s "Star Wars" knockoff. To their credit, the producers borrowed the title and template but dramatically expanded its scope and ambitions, transforming the show into TV's most intriguing rumination on the post-Sept. 11 world, where paranoia among a frightened population threatens to undermine the freedoms and liberties they hold dear.

Yet "The Wire," too, set its sights considerably higher than what anybody might have anticipated from another urban crime drama. Series creator David Simon instead used each season to examine another culprit in bringing about and perpetuating societal decay: City bureaucracy handcuffing the cops gave way to the ailing middle class, followed by misplaced political priorities, decrepit public schools that fail to offer kids an alternative to drugs and, finally, a shallow, budget-slashing media that fails to hold any of them accountable.

Simon meticulously layered each of these strands over the one preceding it, and, not surprisingly given the series' bleak vision, offered no easy solutions or comfort that anything could break the vicious cycle.

Finally, both programs came to define their networks and even genres in significant ways. "The Wire" embodied HBO's mission -- that famous "It's not TV" slogan -- precisely because the program wasn't the sort of big cultural smash represented by "The Sopranos," though acolytes would qualitatively compare it favorably to David Chase's game-changing mob drama.

Lacking other reinforcement, the pay channel stuck with the show simply because it was so incredibly good, thus fostering good will among critics and cultural stewards while lacking the other major credential -- namely, ratings -- that would justify keeping it around. If you truly want to establish that your enterprise is "not TV," nothing says so quite as forcefully as renewing a franchise that couldn't survive by any broadcast measure.

As for "Battlestar Galactica," the series not only demonstrated that basic cable's original programming efforts could rival television's best in the most unlikely of venues (a ball FX began rolling uphill, only to see others, from TNT to AMC, follow suit), but helped chart the way into TV's ancillary-

oriented, multimedia future. Sci Fi Channel has turned the show into a multiplatform phenomenon -- including webisodes and toolkits to assist in fan-generated fare -- at the cutting edge of TV's own still-inconclusive quest to wring profits from new media.

"The Wire" made its debut in 2002, and "Galactica" launched as a miniseries a year later, each inspiring small but phenomenally loyal fanbases. In that respect, they also contributed to TV's fragmentation, a trend that has made everything -- from supporting quality programs to mounting an Emmy telecast where viewers are familiar with most nominees -- that much more difficult.

On the plus side, both shows engaged critics and an intelligent core audience in a way that generated a probing level of discourse and prose seemingly better suited to a master's thesis than traditional TV blather. And if there isn't a specific award for that yet, well, perhaps there should be.