"The Wire" on HBO

yeah, the guy who plays Bunk is from New Orleans and I believe he and the show have been involved in a number of post-Katrina fundraiser-type things.

also lol @ baltimore sun tv critic guy bitching about criticism of baltimore sun on tv. nothing too spoilery

the first seven episodes made available for preview

ok, so they're previewing this season a little less than the last one, but not by much (especially since this season is the shortest yet, only 10 episodes).

bunk did a waiting for godot production in a fema park or something in n.o. i think.

xpost

yeah he did, in the lower 9th ward on a street corner. like 1200 people showed up (i was working, sadly) and everyone was raving about it for a while. whether that's because it was really good or because we are really starved for that kind of stuff right now i can't say. it was still an awesome idea.

Premiere already HBO On Demand apparently.

not in HD, i'll pass

You can grab it off Usenet right now.

ep 1 2 and uh 5 seem to be up on piratebay http://thepiratebay.org/search/wire/0/3/200

bunch of commenters claiming its fake w/o dl then people saying they watched - seems legit!

bunk did a waiting for godot production in a fema park or something in n.o. i think.

xpost

-- tehresa, Monday, December 31, 2007 8:48 PM

profile of the show in nyer

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, October 15, 2007 4:13 PM

apparently contains spoilers for s5 that i didn't even notice?

not in HD, i'll pass

The Wire is not shot in HD. Waiting won't make any difference.

Yay Norman's back too. :)

Thank you for this; I'm really looking forward to going home tonight.
6 and 7 appear to have leaked as well; once 3 and 4 hit, it's party time.

I got all excited and started downloading eps 1&2 last night before remembering I haven't seen Season 4 yet.

:(

You have nothing to feel bad about. Season 4 is a revelation as to the potential of what television can be.

friend watched 1 and said good -sets everything up for the season. i am getting so antsy!

Hit me up, Hoos.

what's the deal with 1,2 and then 5,6,7 getting leaked. WHAT HAPPENED TO 3 & 4?

from the piratebay comments (grain of salt):

mpinphilly at 2008-01-03 00:28 CET:
First, major props to Warcloud on the massive re-up.
Second, peoples, from what I understand by reading other online fora, HBO gave Eps 1 and 2 (Eps 51 and 52 in the overall count of Wire Eps) on one screener DVD and Eps 5, 6, and 7 (55-57) on another. I.e., they didn't give out Eps 3 and 4 (53 and 54). Smart, arguably, but this means it's unlikely we'll see 3 and 4 until they air, or at least go "On Demand" the Monday prior to airing (they should be available On Demand Jan 14 and Jan 21). So all you peoples need to decide what to do. I'm waiting until I see 4 to move on to 5-7...

I'm waiting until I see 4 to move on to 5-7...

not if you're one of the many people seeding 5-7, i guess!

the sound quality on ep 01 is atrocious

Freakonomics blogger watches episode 1 with real bangers:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/what-do-real-thugs-think-of-the-wire/ spoilers obviously, with ep2 spoilers in the comments.

there are spoilers for everything that's been leaked in the comments

don't know if this ever got linked but here's the full interview
http://www.believermag.com/issues/200708/?read=interview_simon

yay another useless comparison to dickens.

high fidelolity

I like this bit:

My standard for verisimilitude is simple and I came to it when I started to write prose narrative: fuck the average reader. I was always told to write for the average reader in my newspaper life. The average reader, as they meant it, was some suburban white subscriber with two-point-whatever kids and three-point-whatever cars and a dog and a cat and lawn furniture. He knows nothing and he needs everything explained to him right away, so that exposition becomes this incredible, story-killing burden. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell.

I have a hard time taking Simon's 'the decline of journalism' as seriously as other topics covered by the show - when was this golden age of respectable newspaper coverage?

The tradition is more tied up in partisanship and yellow journalism and Wm. Randolph Hearst isn't it?

no, simon is describing modern journalism, aka the "tradition" of 20th century non-partisan journalism, eg. lippmann, dewey, etc.

i dont know that its the absence of "nonpartisan" journalism--the hero editor at the wire's sun is pretty clearly partisan and wants his articles to reflect that--so much as it is the (apparent) shift of newspapers from defending the interests of "the public" against the gov't and corporations to defending the interests of those corporations and publishing weepy stories about kids in wheelchairs that is meant by "decline of journalism"

this isn't directly related to the wire, but it should ring a bell: sociology prof hangs out with charismatic leader of a crack-slinging gang for a year. sociology prof leads the gang for a day. pretty interesting.

talk version of that: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/29

no fair dropping Freakonomics content without warning

yo could this be the thread where stick-the-mud week-by-week viewers of s05 convene? apparently the dedicated series five thread has been contaminated w. spoilerz?

^^^ That please.

start of e01 wasn't really doing it -- they have to reintroduce everyone -- and also the pre-credits bit was taken directly from 'homicide: lots', only with added Cynicism About America. but then, probably when carcetti fronted on daniels and the states attorney, or whens sergei came up, it was back to awesomeness.

wtf with the fire huh. lost-esque.

"puts the b in subtle" from herc = ha

I'm on-board for keeping this a spoiler-free (ie, realtime, regular HBO schedule) feed. IE, we can talk about s05e02, which aired today.

Have to say, the stuff with McNulty at the end was really, really baffling and disappointing. Felt like such a dumb, unjustified, out-of-character act, and felt dangerously like a jump-the-shark moment (albeit v late in the series!)

goddamn, it's hard to watch Bubs now

mcnulty's plan seems silly. maybe part of it is that he's drinking all the time. i guess hamsterdam was silly too

i think we should all applaud milo for being brave enough to share.

fuck xpost

gramophone otm the mcnulty stuff is really bad.

pretty lame - I suppose that's the setup for the big media frenzy. What a tangled web we weave, oooh.

Where's Omar?

mcnulty's all self-destructive and hates the system, his attempts at getting the case re-opened make sense in the context of his character. i figure he thinks he's smarter than everyone else though this will likely be the end of him. lol @ avon playing the west side 4 life card with marlo. i wonder if avon is setting up marlo somehow.

I thought he was just being a sarcastic asshole to Marlo.

Nah, I think Avon is sincere with that "Fuck those Westside Bitches" line. Marlo showed up for his sentencing, after all, but not Prop Joe or even Slim Charles.

im w/dan he was obv just fucking w/marlo (and getting paid)

he was being an asshole because he doesn't give a fuck but playing at bygones being bygones, i.e. "so what's new with you?" "the game is still the game". also lol @ marlo's non-reaction to the insults of "boris".

it was pretty funny how marlo was being all smooth getting in touch w/serge then he shows up at the prison and gets nothing but grief