I’m no big fan of Jonathan Ross but Friday night’s show was an unexpected goody.
For me, it was one of those moments of synergy, when the sum of two parts is so much greater than the whole.
There in the green room, side by side on the sofa were two of my big TV character heroes; Jack Bauer and Stringer Bell.
Stringer (Idris Alba) had dressed down for the occasion. In The Wire (a multi-stranded, brilliant, award-winning series about the dark under-belly of Baltimore) he is tall, built, groomed and sleek, the elegant, ruthless, thinking face of a brutal drug-dealing empire.
Most actors are painfully diminished without their characters. His external uber-cool was somewhat spoiled by his Hackney accent and in place of the suits and tailor-made shirts he was wearing a T shirt proclaiming “I have nothing to declare but my genius” (which was fine coming from Oscar Wilde but utterly naff worn on a T shirt) and leather trousers. His cool was also marred by the cast on his lower leg. He tore his Achilles tendon playing football. Pah. Stringer Bell would never play football.
Jack was wearing a dark suit with an open-necked white shirt. He was pale, measured and quietly-spoken and had a touching smile like his fathers. (Yes. Appearances can be awfully deceptive. The papers say he was recovering from the mother of all hangovers). I should explain I’m talking about the actor Kiefer Sutherland, son of Donald (Mash. Don’t Look Now etc). It was weird seeing him smile. He’s only allowed himself a taut, crooked smile about twice during the 24 episodes I’ve watched.
While individual TV series are ok, or just bloody excellent in the case of The Wire and to a lesser extent, 24 (although it did pave the way for Spooks so is justified on that count alone) why does no-one ever consider a merger?
You could combine Coronation Street with Emmerdale, for instance and move Wentworth Detention Centre (Prisoner Cell Block H) to Lancashire. I can just imagine Jack Shepherd visiting his mum in Wentworth and bumping into Debbie Dingle and Charity Tait (just released after a short stretch for shoplifting and benefits fraud) with tantalising consequences.
Watching Jack and Stringer there side by side, I yearned for Wire originator David Simon to rattle out a script for Wire 24 – maybe a nice storyline involving shadowy Middle Eastern types moving on in the edge of Stringer’s drug-dealing empire. Naturally, drug-dealing is just a front for a diabolical plan to seed clouds with toxins and rain poison on selected American targets.
Course Jack, persona non-grata with CTU due to a drink/drive conviction, would get wind of this and move in, aided by faithful, perpetually perplexed Chloe back at base and another colleague – I always liked Tony Almeida. Jack works best with just one of two trusted allies back at control.
But just as he gets close, we see Zim Zim Salabim’s men capture his daughter, Kim. She’s a tough cookie. She’s been captured before and shows remarkable powers of recovery, as does her dad. It’s in their genes for wounds to heal within 25 minutes, to shrug off dirt without washing and to bear absolutely no scars after a day.
So Jack is just listening to the blackmail threat on his mobile near the Low Rises when he gets winged in a bungled drive-by shooting by one of Stringer Bells henchmen. Stringer sees a man down, inching himself along the sidewalk with a bleeding shoulder and recognises him off the TV.
Stringer picks him, gets him treated and bandaged and takes him along to a meeting at the hotel where Stringer, fresh from seducing the widow of a man he’s executed, meets with his hoodlums and cronies. Stringer calls order. Jack speaks from the floor, whispering, urgently “We don’t have much time. I have to find Kim.”
“It will be done, bro. I have always been a fan. We are homies now,” says Stringer.
Jack reciprocates saying he always watches The Wire and it’s a pleasure to be working with Idris, who he respects totally as an actor who’s replaced his Hackney twang with pure backstreet Baltimore. Idris’ is as fine a character portrait of a black gangland boss as he’s ever seen.
There is an ad break during which we wonder…
Can Stringer get Jack’s daughter Kim back?
Can Jack nail Zim Zim Salabim before the poison cloudburst?
Where is McNulty when you need him for a gratuitous naked butt shot?
Will we ever find out when Jack finds time to recharge his mobile or go to the bathroom?
Of course not. But, well, I can dream, can’t I?
Boadicea's Chariot 
I can’t see it working meself. The Wire achieves a sense of tension and violence simmering between the surface. Jack Bauer seems to spend most of his time screaming and running around waving his hands about. Stringer Bell would simply put a cap in his ass and be done with it.
You can’t simmer between a surface. You might simmer under it. You can’t have watched Season Four. Shockingly violent. However, I agree with your conclusion. 😉
that was a typo. In the Wire, the violence simmers just below, in 24 jack bauer goes blatting along the surface on water skies towed by a powerboat.
i couldn’t get past season 2 of 24. i stopped caring.
Sorry. Slapped own wrist for insufferable pedantry. To be honest, in 24 the plot is rather laid out on a plate with frequent recaps so that even hopeless thickies can follow. The Wire writers interweave plotlines fiendishly well and robustly refuse to dumb down, which is as it should be.