The Corner

Before The Wire, there was The Corner. In the 90s, David Simon and Ed Burns spent some time with real drug addicts from the slums of Baltimore and wrote a book about a particular family stuck there. It got turned into a miniseries on HBO directed by Charles S. Dutton, telling the true story more or less as it happened. It plays more or less like the drug scenes from The Wire, without the same focus on the more entertaining topics like the higher level drug dealing or investigations. It makes for a show that's more depressing and difficult to watch, and for the most part it's pretty powerful. The fact that these stories are actually real just makes it more affecting. It's not entirely mind numbing, because a few people actually do manage to straighten their lives out and at least stop using hardcore drugs, though others never manage the feat.

The six episode series ends with Dutton narrating the eventual fate of each significant character (at least up to that point in 2000), and it's sort of sobering how many of them end up dead. Fake interview segments with the different characters open and close each episode, though the final one instead interviews four of the actual survivors, getting their perspectives on what they hope the series can do for people. It's pretty sobering, eye-opening stuff, and it's just sad that things really don't seem to have changed that much in the worst parts of the country. As just a small window into what can really happen to anyone under the wrong circumstances, it's worth checking out if you don't have time for sixty hours of the best series ever, or want a little bit more.