The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

The second story of The Killing (seasons 3 & 4) were up there with The Wire for me as well

was that the Sarsgaard era?

I remember really liking that one season anyway

Succession seems to me like the most obv omission from flopson's list

Self-consciously prestige, also much much more shakespearean than Wire or Sopranos

it's the one with the homeless kids ... and Joel Kinnaman made me want to marry him

Beforeigners is the Norwegian time travelling cop thing, right?

lol Succession is prob great for folks that like the Sopranos and can stomach watching such horrible people which ... I couldn't. Maybe if we hadn't spent 4 years with Trump as President I would be able to, but no.

oh yeah that was good. kinnaman adorable throughout xps

Yes, the Norwegian one with the Viking cop and the transtime community and the bougie porridge cafe

lol I have never heard of this show and it sounds unpossible

"Television Programs without Horrible People" sounds like a good thread to start and pretty challenging to name.

Sesame Street = Oscar the Grouch
Mr Rogers = I heard Daniel Striped Tiger killed some guy down by the bus depot

i will give beforeigners a look. there's too much stuff!

Succession rules

is Succession... a comedy? I kinda feel like it is?

it’s more like Arrested Development than Sopranos tho. milo was correct when he said all the good shows are comedies now

yeah I think it's best appreciated as a bone-dry black comedy

It isn't that I want to watch shows without any horrible people, it's that Succession is like, almost entirely horrible people. It's like, I don't give a fuck about any of you.

yeah, I couldn't deal with Arrested Development either ...

I mean I called it shakespearean but it's more like his immediate uh successors who were a lot less humanist

sarahell, I think that response is 100% understandable

well succession is genuinely straight up Lear!

I don't mean to wag my finger at those who can reconcile their hardcore Bernie Bro ethics and gaining great pleasure from immersing themselves in the fictional lives of "the enemy" ... I just can't do it, without some character(s) representing positive traits or sympathetic circumstances

xp but also relevant to sarahell's point
yeah the set-up is obviously taken from Lear, but none of the kids are exactly Cordelia

tbrr a large part of the enjoyment of watching Succession is watching these assholes eat themselves, so to speak

the kids take turns playing at being cordelia imo

yeah I get it. I just feel like people like that get too much attention IRL.

i can't argue with you there.

hey for anyone missing Succession, consider trying CALL MY AGENT which is on Netflix, a really enjoyable shitty people doing work comedy in French. Focused on the movie industry.

i wouldn't say the attention that succession pays to its characters is good attention. the show does a pretty good job of stripping back the flash and glamor of rich person life, showing that even though the roys can do whatever they want, they're miserable fucks.

Xp and then catch A Very Secret Service which is a stylish 60s-set spy farce

Fuck, like i needed more! You recommend that dmac?

Times did a breakdown of the current haul of "foreign" cable:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/arts/television/international-losing-alice-gomorrah-flack.html

Yep, its got a v nice vibe going on, def if you liked call my agent (which of course is the only paris-set office comedrama anyone should be boosting this last few years instead of That Other One)

alright i grabbed an episode (and pembrokewhatever) on your recommendation

Be good to hear back

Will do here

Lol, maybe do it on the best of 2020 thread, this thread is for the sopranos being shakespearean

Methinks the lady doth etc

Is this SAG war i see before me

Shakespearean

I dont understand what americans mean when they type this word

I am not convinced that they do either

/Pinefox

― Qanondorf (darraghmac), Friday, January 22, 2021 1:18 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I was the one that brought up Shakespeare and I'll take the heat if I'm wrong, but feel free to sub in "tragedy with flawed male protagonist who destroys everything around them and everyone dies at the end" if you so choose.

I'm no Shakespeare expert (obvs).

that predates Shakespeare tho -- the Greeks repped that shit like a motherfucker

Let’s just all agree on my definition. 🤣

When Paulie reluctantly accepts a promotion in the show's waning days, he tells Tony "I live but to serve, my liege." Maybe that puts the whole Shakespearean thing to bed?

Also Johnny Sack misquotes Macbeth at 1:21 here

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

case closed

Who can be wise, amazed, temp’rate, and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment?

Sil

Meadow's "I could have taken ecstasy but I didn't!" vs. Tony's "Hey I had her tested for AIDS, what do you think I am?"

Off the pace of the original golden era (behind Deadwood, The Wire, Mad Men) but maybe the best comedy.

I have so many coworkers now who were too young for either of these shows.

WOW at those results. no way they'd be like that these days.

Josh Johnson performing about the Young Thug trial is great if you like these two shows.

It's weird now to see old threads where I tried to annoy people by not liking the Sopranos. I watched through it again later and liked it. I think maybe I didn't like it when it was on-air because I saw it too irregularly, and the segments I saw the most of were ones I still less engaging. I still had the 20th-century mentality where a show would work even if you missed episodes, but we were ticking over into the 21st-century mentality where you're expected to watch in sequence!

I've never gone back for a rewatch. I enjoyed the first several seasons but got very irritated in later seasons when James Gandolfini pretty much checked out for long stretches of episodes. Maybe I'd be more forgiving now.