And what he has created—with “The Wire” and now with “Treme”—is a kind of novel in TV form. It became a cliché to describe “The Wire” as “novelistic,” but in fact the forms have a lot in common, far more so than the novel and film. The sheer length of the TV series allows it to take place in something like novelistic time, unspooling its plot and building its elaborate structure in relative leisure. And by creating shows that reward sustained attention and repeated re-viewings, Simon teaches us to watch television in a way that is very similar to close reading.
