"The Wire" on HBO

crackling paranoid lincoln assassination scripts!!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GewvuNcC81I/T0fbPqluwEI/AAAAAAAAAKg/kMV9DI0ETtI/s1600/homicides1b.jpg

FINISHED.

http://i.imgur.com/f9AqxPX.gif

I say there's no more nostalgia anymore, but it did feel like I was watching a period piece as I caught up. Going from Nick Sobotka asking Ziggy, "So you just type in some words into the computer and it finds it for you?" to McNutty dropping his jaw at the sight of Spiros texting on his cellphone to Season 5's Lester going "What the?" at the ability of Marlo to send PICTURES through his MOBILE DEVICE.

I watched this solo and didn't check any threads or wikipedia out of fear of spoilers.

Not much more to add. Maybe when my wife and I change into our color-coordinated tank tops and eat dinner tonight like Cedric and Ronnie, I'll think of something.

I really liked the first few episodes of Treme. Is it worth the effort for the long haul?

I enjoy it, but it is much more soap opera-y than The Wire

the dialogue is generally up to typical simon & co. standards - storytelling, not so much. acting is good w/the marked exception of steve zahn (although maybe its just that he's really good at playing one of the most grating characters ever, making ziggy look restrained and introspective by comparison). the music is pretty wonderful.

i could never stick with it other than a few episodes each season, always lost interest. in a nutshell, the criticisms of being excessively didactic or more interested in message than storytelling that some applied to the wire or generation kill are actually true of treme.

I really enjoyed The Wire, but the build-up of it being supreme over Sopranos or Breaking Bad was overkill. There were plenty of moments where it seemed just like any other cop show, except with actual profanity and headshots.

Maybe it was my "what the?" apprehension when I began the second season and saw the boats and ChefTech POS graphics of cargo in the opening credits, but the whole intro scene of the dockworkers on their own ground inside the bar, raising a glass to the union and to the City of Ballamare, that I first groaned a little.

Even that opening where Valchek gets in a huff about the stained glass window treaded close to that awful Sopranos Columbus Day episode where Silvio all of a sudden gets a burr in his ass about the Native Americans.

And the newspaper scenes… Good grief. "He's right. 'Evacuate' is an action done to something, not by an object or person…" Those were some of the most hackneyed of them all.

But The Wire was worth the time and effort. I'd put any of those characters up against any Soprano or meth maker. Seeing Chris and Weebay standing together at the end almost gave me a lump.

Breaking Bad isn't even in the conversation pplains

xp you're crazy the evacuate line is hilarious - well, the one that prompts the alma guiterrez reaction you quoted, not her line

(i see your general point tho)

i love Sopranos and Breaking Bad and, for me, the Wire makes those shows seem like Scooby-Doo.

http://i.imgur.com/ROE59nS.jpg

On some days I prefer sopranos. But breaking bad is def a tier below the others

plains - you blew my mind. wow.

Did not catch this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KRQ72iHV40

pp did you watch this yet? it's a must:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX1Du7d4gTU

I did! Saw it upthread.

very curious that just after some renewed conversation about the wire and remembering how deeply people hated the journalism aspects of s5 for their supposed implausibility (and, to be fair, other more understandable reasons), brian williams has been revealed as a less egregious version of scott templeton

haha yup

so season 5 is a pretty big letdown from season 4. Just a couple episodes into my re-watch and it's clear that there was a pretty steep fall off in quality.

yep

Breaking Bad isn't even in the conversation pplains

― Number None, Thursday, February 5, 2015 12:09 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haven't seen sopranos but tbh i enjoyed breaking bad more than the wire. i had more fun watching it. part of it could be that i watched the wire by myself and didn't have too many people to talk to about it. breaking bad i watched with my wife and most people i know had seen it already, so it could've just been down to that

and let's be clear the wire is very good but as pplains otm that there were PLENTY of moments that were just typical cop procedural garbage

plenty of cringeworthy moments too. i was so tired of seeing drunk cops singing "im a free born man in the usa" yet again

breaking bad had fewer lows imo

dude you gotta get on the sopranos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97PxJ-_6JwM

if you think the dropoff from S4 to S5 was bad in The Wire, i pre-emptively lol at taking on The Sopranos which was wildly inconsistent from episode to episode

i agree that BB was more enjoyable than The Wire too. don't see the great chasm of quality difference between the two, tbh, BB was just as masterful at what it was doing

Sopranos has the virtue of having great characters/character acting and zero police procedural crap

xxpost

well, sure, S5 of The Wire is at least watchable as compared to the long stretches in The Sopranos later seasons that were utter crap

arrest shakey

You be bad cop, I'll be good cop.

it's dark out there on that backlot. western district boys mistook him for a pinata.

we don't have PC, plant something

Don't bother, just write up a warrant for Shakey bin Laden.

in every cop show ever

count how many of those the Wire does

Season 5 spent the first few episodes showing stagnation, building up to McNulty and the reporter's breaches, but it really drags us deliberately through some tedium to get there.

xp prob around 40-50 out of the 180 or so, one could easily do the same with italian-american life and/or mobster cliches in the sopranos

and i grew up in northern jersey, a fair amount are accurate but some are absurdly "come onnnnn" just the same way the wire has a few.

the worst wire episodes are still better than most of seasons 4 and 6 of the sopranos (5 is pretty solid throughout)

I will grant that 4 is the low point of the Sopranos but 6 is incredible

the first serialized TV drama to actually have a definitive, iconic, well-thought out ending

BB is the only other one that even comes close so far

tbf when i say 6 i mean "the first 12 or 13 episodes," i have no prob with the finale and the few hours leading up to it

even 4 has eps like "whitecaps" and "whoever did this"...it also has literally every other episode that season

Also has the show's best episode, "The Weight"...

Uhm, how about The Shield for iconic ending?

The ending to Sopranos is crap. Well thought out two minutes, grasped onto an anti-climactic story, the combination of which makes no sense either way you interpret it. And Breaking Bad was the best final season ever for 3/4 of the way.

Also, season four was my second favorite season of Sopranos after five. Though I can't remember why. Whitecaps, though.

i thought breaking bad was pretty consistent throughout the entirety of the show, never felt like they fell off at any point. i did feel some small sense of burnout at s5a but it was brief, s5b was magnificent i thought

sopranos > wire >>> breaking bad