"The Wire" on HBO

In a lot of ways I prefer the grand operatic story of The Sopranos, and I sure as hell think that everything from season 3 onward on that show is pretty much as good as it gets, but The Wire is so tight. There's no such thing as a weak episode in this show. Not a moment is wasted.

My personal favorite season of SFU is season 3, actually.

I don't think 6FU or the Sopranos really match up to the Wire at all. 6FU was really great starting out, but this last season turned into some bizarro homoerotic grand guignol. Which isn't HALF as awesome as it sounds. Sopranos was always wildly uneven, and for the last couple years the only good eps have been the ones in which important characters are killed. The cardboard hatefulness of the Sopranos pisses me off too, esp. in comparison to The Wire - even the sympathetic characters are monsters. which, yeah, is obviously the point, but it makes it hard to remain invested in the show when everyone drips venality and cruelty. The uneven writing makes it even harder, obv. Things definately did improve last season, but after all the meandering it's difficult to care about how things will conclude. (and for a show in which character comes first [wtf does that mean anyway], the people in it sure are fucking static)

The only kinda gratuitous tv-watching that I can remember from the last two seasons was that bit in "Cold Cuts" when Tony is getting all freaked out by that 60 Minutes report on how easily terrorists could get stuff into US docks.

I guess the only way I can refute this is by going back and looking at those eps, which sounds like a pain in the ass. I know that WHAT they're watching usually has some kind of thematic relevence, but I never felt like it enriched the narrative or contributed much? It also frequently came off as self-parody to me. I guess I just prefer more to be HAPPENING in my tv (cf. the Wire), and this particular trope always felt emblematic of the show's slothfulness.

(and yeah, not unrealistic, but it's hardly a documentary etc blah blah)

The Sopranos seasons: 3 > 5 > 4 > 1 > 2

1 > 2 > 5 > 3 > 4

(Not seen Five):

But 1 > 2 > 4 > 3.

Alex In SF, I can't believe that you really believe that "Proshai, Livushka" is the worst episode of the series. I'd easily place that one in the top ten or top fifteen. If you really think that duds like "Commendatori," "D-Girl," and "A Hit Is A Hit" are better, then hey, whatever. We're not going to see eye to eye on this!

Also "D-Girl" is great. The other two are just okay though.

Well, what else were they supposed to do? Pretend the character never existed? Please be even a little bit realistic or sympathetic about this. That one scene isn't that big of a deal, but the rest of the episode is VERY strong. It was a great send off for that character, who had run her course either way.

Ralph Cifaretto > all other similar antagonist characters on the show combined, and has the best death episode of anyone in the five seasons to date.

I'm not that sour about Jackie Jr, but I do agree that it's not one of the best subplots in the series. A lot of the reason that I love season 3 is the stuff with Tony and Carmella, the introduction of Ralph, "Pine Barrens," and the Gloria Trillo storyline. I have a certain fondness for season 3 because it's the season where the show really comes together. Season 1 and season 2 are good, but there's some flailing in season 2 that makes me suspect that the writers weren't 100% sure where they were going with it, and were still reeling from the massive success of the first season.

I saw that Wire episode with "I Walk The Line" at the start of it (it's called "Storm Warnings") for the first time yesterday. I agree, it's exceptional. It's hard to pick stand-out episodes in the Wire because it's all so consistent, but yeah, that's on the shortlist for me.

Yes, the "Jar Jar" Livia is the same episode as her wake. The wake is the majority of the episode, and that one scene with her is no more than two minutes.

There are two or three really great individual episodes in Season Three (Pine Barrens is amazing, so is the first one--Mr Ruggiero's Neighborhood--with the FBI, also all the bits with Janice and the one legged lady are brilliant) but it's got a lot of the weakest subplots too (Charles S Dutton, Melfi's rape, I don't rate the Gloria subplot at all, and of course almost all of the Jackie Jr stuff.)

http://p076.ezboard.com/fpoliticalpalacefrm34.showPrevMessage?topicID=1332.topic

From MTV news:
http://www.mtv.com/bands/m/mixtape_monday/092704/

Meeting Idris Elba is a straight bug-out. He's been in videos by Fat Joe and most recently Angie Stone, but he's best known as kingpin Russell "Stringer" Bell on HBO's "The Wire." So imagine how ill it is to holla at him for the first time and discover that he has a thick British accent and he's a DJ. "I've been collecting records since I was like 10," said Elba, who grew up in London. The actor, whose DJ name is Big Dris, began spinning around the age of 14. "I started out with my uncle," he remembered. "He had a sound system called Sound International back in London. He basically did weddings. I was the speaker boy. ... By the time I was 15, me and my men from around the way started our own little sound that was called the Social Affair Sound [and] we started doing local parties." Dris, who began putting it down behind the turntables in clubs by the time he was 19, has been living part-time in NYC for the last six years and actually started earning his living by spinning in the East Village and Alphabet City before landing a guest appearance on "Law and Order" in 2001. His stint on "The Wire" began in 2002. Dris said things are going to get ugly this season for his character, but in real life, Elba is straight. He's already put out a series of street CDs called Foot Fetish, and he's linking up with other DJs to put out collaborations. "I consider myself a blend DJ more than anything," he said. "Like my mixtapes, the way I want to see them grow, I basically want to see if I can get my mixtapes to showcase new talent. I can't compete with the big boys on getting the freestyles and all that, because I don't have the connects yet. Eventually, I'd like to get the new freestyles, but at the same time, I want to see the new cats that's coming up."

Hey Cabbie! by Thaddeus Logan

http://www.citypaper.com/bob/story.asp?id=174