The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

s2 deadwood > s1 deadwood >>> s1 rome > s3 deadwood (rip) >>>>>>>>>> s2 rome

deadwood season 1 is pretty dope, season 2 still really good, season 3 is pretty wtf. i think they spent 80% of the last few episodes focusing on brian cox's theatre troupe.

it was no 'lovejoy'

― special guest stars mark bronson, Thursday, 18 December 2008 16:19 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Deadwood severely lacked Hothouse Flowers

i got so fucking sick of that theatre troupe. and i feel like they did nothing with the storyline either.

it was a setup for s4

i'm sure it was--i guess i liked most of seasons 1 & 2 but that last season, jesus

it was also about an order and an economy becoming entrenched enough for culture to arrive, about deadwood becoming a place on the map. plus, dramatic writers love writing about actors, whadyagonnado

brian cox slinging gay innunedo in a brogue at swedgin was much better television than all the 'major dad is a psycho capitalist' business

i think john from cincinatti showed what deadwood dude's true colours were

dude just wanted to surf

and rome season 2 is totally awesome! i'll take degenerate marc anthony and saucy cleopatra over frownyfaced sheriff olyphant any day...

or all that stuff with jeffrey jones wanting to take walks with his buddies or whatever

i watched the sopranos episode with omar last night and i thought of this thread

imagine how rad a crossover would be... tony starts doing business with marlo... the cops get a hold of it!! one episode set in each respective location...

and that is all we are allowed to say about that before things get too custos-y.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harlem_Globetrotters_on_Gilligan's_Island

detective munch could be in it!!1!

xpost

man if the writing on rome s2 wasn't a huge step down from s1 the costumes sure as shit were

i have nothing to say to that.

i have never not liked the clothes on a show before! but there i was, watching, thinking 'holy shit what do they have these people wearing?'

i think the clothes, like most everything on Rome, were so accurate that I could almost smell the show. Deadwood same way btw - about smelling the characters.

yeah it should be a smellovision poll

Was Deadwood the one where everyone was always all "you have to watch it for the language and dialect, they're so unique and almost Shakespearean?" Because that does sound up my alley, but on the other hand (a) it is Deadwood and (b) I don't often get along with westerns.

i dunno, nabisco, aside from some stuff in season 1 w/wild bill hickok it doesn't really feel like a trad western in any way.

the language is amazing

the amazing shakesperean awesomeness of the language, or whatever, was fun at first but i eventually got really, really weary of it.

it feels like the language got denser as the series went on, if that makes sense. Farnum's language and raps and stuff=the highlight of the series for me.

nothing like a good western-style shakesperean rap!

they have those at subway now right

in the first season the language was really natural in a way, extremely well written but not show-offy in a noticeable way. the second season is where it started to get just a little bit too mannered, season 3 was admirable for being so weird but i can't say i enjoyed it, exactly. it mostly had to do with the dialogue.

yeah i really got into the dialogue and the ideas at play about social order etc -- how people make a character of themselves in public, how language responds to and creates power. i can see how this would be really unenjoyable to ppl but i loved it.

I am torn between my love of weird mannered dialogue and that thing where all western-type programs just remind me of boring middle-school field trips to local forts and sites of Indian massacres.

xpost - haha okay, "Foucauldian western" is possibly an exception I can make

we all remember when hal called falstaff a 'cunt-crazed maniac'

yes they swear a lot too! tee hee

lol ive never watched rome nor had the desire to but a fashion design friend of mine went fuckin crazy on it for using spaghetti straps on some of the costumes

cunt-crazed maniac

sub-Gregory Corso at best

in the commentaries milch goes on this long rambling riff about westerns and hollywood and the hays code and how it fucked up our perception of the west. the 'laconic cowboy' was an invention since everyone knew, or used to know, that cattle people and miners and settlers and all that were outrageously verbose, like every other victorian, even tho they were filthy. the same kids writing those amazing civil war letters home grew up and went west, etc.

i don't know if i buy it or if it's even true but it's interesting

yeah i kinda always figured it was true

i think i have to watch deadwood, if it's all about mannered dialogue. it's a good thing tim olyphant is dreamy.

he's got this perfect hollywood grill that sticks out completely

trixie's use of cursing seemed oddly forced to me and overdone. but I loved the dialogue for the most part.

Ok, so I've been watching The Sopranos in order because I'd only ever seen the occasional episode and hadn't seen it properly and this thread reminded me I needed to see it all. It's not as good as The Wire, because of all the stupid dream sequences etc. but up until the end of season 2, it's still almost perfect. And then, without knowing, the start of season 3 is fucking odd. The pacing is all wrong, the storyline just seems rehashed (oh, so another person not as important as tony but still important is more ruffless and crazy and seems unsure of tony's position etc) and most importantly, the livia episode! I never knew what had happened (spoiler: .............................she dead) so watching that scene of just rehashed livia quotes put on a fake body was the creepiest and oddest experience i can remember on fictional television. I'm sure there are great episodes coming so I'm going to continue but, really, people think this is better than The Wire?

oh, so another person not as important as tony but still important is more ruffless and crazy and seems unsure of tony's position etc

is to 'the sopranos' what 'what? the top brass want to shut down the investigation? just as we're getting close?' is to 'the wire'.

ha, ok, i totally agree.

I think it's better, yes. Keep watching, because season 3 is the best of the lot, I think. I never believed in any of the Wire's characters (even though I do like it a lot) in the same way as I believed in The Sopranos - still, what the fuck do I really know about any of these people, living in Cardiff?

yeah, it was more about me wanting to comment on how creeped out i got after watching that scene with tony talking to old livia clips was than anything.

yeah it is a shame that scene is so weird. i'm amazed nobody noticed that her parting keeps changing sides.

"season 3 is the best of the lot"

Totally and completely untrue.

ya fully untrue.

i'd say 5 at this point.

watch something like the opening montage of season 6 and compare it to the workmanlike filmmaking of the wire and it amazes me that anyone would thing the latter is a better show.

and if you think the sopranos is good despite "all the stupid dream sequences" you might as well give up now.

unfair, or at least missing the point to compare cinematography of these shows - sops eps were often used as showcase portfolio pieces by whatever director was doing that particular ep, so full of arty swoopy stuff - they usually kinda wanted to be film-like, the wire never did (i.e. the wire knows it's tv, wants to be tv, i.e. is better tv)