"The Wire" on HBO

i loved homicide but i was kinda always comparing it to nypd blue, which seemed to be a lot more humorless and backwards-thinking w/r/t style and topic (beyond america getting its long desired fleeting glimpse of the butt of dennis franz.) but it did get lame with the arrival of the jon seda seasons.

i always thought the initial core bunch of detectives was pretty awesome. melissa leo was always kinda underrated, i liked her character just because she was so awkward and strange and original.

doesnt ****spoilerz**** Gee get shot in the last episode or something? what was the deal w/ that

yeah & polito was fantastic too

Homicide is awesome for like the 3 episodes and then divebombs rapidly when they start moving away from material in the book - e.g. I think episode 4 has this bizarre segment where Yaphet Kotto flips out over asbestos or something and it is just baffling.

i am only two discs into season one and think it's classic/best show ever created. better than the wire by far. i'll have to check the book out.
― ghetty green (eman), Friday, August 5, 2005 12:16 AM (5 years ago)

i prob don't agree w/ eman's 5 yr old "best show ever" claim but i do think pembleton >>>>>> most wire characters. i did read the book eventually.

xp what was baffling about it? i dont remember it seeming particularly weird? maybe im remembering wrong

yeah i was tempted to say earlier that pembleton's probably better than any Wire character - dont hold me to that though

pembleton having a stroke and being not at full strength for a couple seasons police skills-wise was kinda like putting han solo on endor imo but what can you do

thats season 5 i think, it def got worse towards the end to much greater degree than the wire did

i think i still haven't watched the homicide movie. i've heard its terrible

xp what was baffling about it? i dont remember it seeming particularly weird? maybe im remembering wrong

I mean it was baffling in tone, not that it was a confusing plot point or anything. Like we went from this really intense high-stakes interrogation scene in the previous episode to concerns about asbestos levels in the next.

Nevertheless, in its attempt to improve Homicide's ratings, NBC often insisted on changes, both cosmetic and thematic. For example, by the beginning of the third season, talented but unphotogenic veteran actor Jon Polito had been ordered dropped from the cast. At around this same time, the network also began clamoring for more on-screen romance and violence. In order to have episodes NBC considered more eye-catching air during "sweeps" periods, it sometimes aired them out of order, often to the detriment of story arcs that had developed over several episodes or even entire seasons.

;_; love unphotogenic jon polito

and i remember getting a goofy rush as s2 got rolling and the crew started reassembling like a long drawn out act 1 of a heist movie where they 'assemble the old gang' and it was like awwwwwwww yeah

― aka the pope (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, January 17, 2011 10:31 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

thought this was corny as all hell, tbh, but w/e

hoos liking corny stuff?

; )

last season of homicide is incredibly bad. I've never made it through more than a handful of eps.

still love the series as a whole, tho.

the show is VERY of its time (silverchair song in a montage! double-take edits!) but the lineup changes are, by far, the biggest problem with the show. the cast is constantly in flux and the new characters are almost always a step down from the ones they are replacing. less likable, more cardboard, all of that. by the time (uh, spoilers I guess?) pembelton leaves and some model chick joins the crew in his place, there's an unmistakable void hanging over everything. NO FUN.

the book is pretty different and definitely worth reading.

nevertheless, I think the book and the show both have an addictive procedural quality to them.

i always thought the initial core bunch of detectives was pretty awesome. melissa leo was always kinda underrated, i liked her character just because she was so awkward and strange and original.

― omar little, Tuesday, January 18, 2011 6:55 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

otm

"some model chick" = mcnulty's wife!

o yeah and the final season has giancarlo esposito (gus from breaking bad) as gee's jheri-curled son lol

wait, not that model chick. this model chick:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005230/

did not realize that was gus! gus rules I really despise the homicide character he plays.

'Getting the band back together' is usually good times in any movie/tv show. I'm surprised How I Met Your Mother hasn't used that for an episode yet.

o yeah and the final season has giancarlo esposito (gus from breaking bad) as gee's jheri-curled son lol

― am0n, Tuesday, January 18, 2011 2:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Whoa!! i knew id seen dude before

he's been around for years, he's pretty dope.

one more thing I hate about the last season of homicide: EVERYBODY IS DATING.

Nevertheless, in its attempt to improve Homicide's ratings, NBC often insisted on changes, both cosmetic and thematic. For example, by the beginning of the third season, talented but unphotogenic veteran actor Jon Polito had been ordered dropped from the cast.

he barely made it to the start of season three.

but the show was still good at that point.

start of season two, even.

never seen homicide

and i never put jon polito's name to his face!

brother seamus represent

wait, not that model chick. this model chick:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005230/

― (⊙_⊙?) (Alan N), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 3:30 PM

damn forgot about her

'homicide' is great, yall are chumps. i like the cast replacements on 'homicide' just because they show the culture of the department and the relationships between the detectives changing as the job grinds people down. lewis is really interesting in that regard, as you see him go from not catching crosetti's suicide, to going in with kellerman on the mahoney shooting, to just sort of kicking around the department not really bonding with anyone, and even going through a quarrel with whatsername after her gun gets taken.

Homicide is awesome for like the 3 episodes and then divebombs rapidly when they start moving away from material in the book - e.g. I think episode 4 has this bizarre segment where Yaphet Kotto flips out over asbestos or something and it is just baffling.

― ears are wounds, Tuesday, January 18, 2011 7:00 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

nah, it's never that much like the book, it couldn't be, and there's good stuff in the show that isn't in the book. but there's some really nice bits from david simon that aren't narrative, just good writing. just the other day i was thinking about how he describes cops persuading people to talk when they really don't have to. you can make a scene out of that but in the end that passage does what prose does and drama doesn't. and that's ok.

xpost

i gave up on homicide when they started having to pull out their guns in every episode, but the ensemble was still solid as hell.

yeah, kellerman is kind of interesting. my initial thought was that he was brought onto the show as a pretty face to boost ratings or whatever but then he becomes so unlikable as the series progresses...

the actor that plays him is good too. menacing at the right moments.

weird to me to hear giancarlo esposito described as gus from breaking bad, coz he seems such a staple of american indie films down the years - spike lee, jarmusch etc. - and u see him pop up a lot elsewhere.

this was dope btw http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109842/

damn forgot about her

― am0n, Tuesday, January 18, 2011 8:36 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, could be getting my timelines for character intros/exits mixed up too.

weird to me to hear giancarlo esposito described as gus from breaking bad, coz he seems such a staple of american indie films down the years - spike lee, jarmusch etc. - and u see him pop up a lot elsewhere.

Yeah, I think I prob. first saw him as Buggin' Out in Do the Right Thing.

Yeah he's been around forever, love that dude.

He's been in a lot of short-run tv cop shows, but there was one he was in that I loved...I looked through IMDB but I can't figure out what it was. Maybe New York Undercover?

I stopped watching Homicide after Season 1 -- there were some great scenes and plots, but there was also the network-y corny plots involving a guy dressed as Santa and a parentless baby. Was that Jake Gyllenhaal's first real acting role?

Yeah, I think I prob. first saw him as Buggin' Out in Do the Right Thing.

― Pink Friday XIII (jaymc), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 3:52 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i knew the connection w/ this dude & homicide but never gus for some reason

One of my favorite episodes was when Melissa Leo goes home to Maine ?)...Massachussets (?)...somewhere where there are crabs, anyway, sorry my geography gets hazy on that lol...and her Dad and brothers are all crab fishers...she was such a great character, I really enjoyed seeing a woman on screen not really 'made up' at all, just hanging out with guys and not trying to kiss them and all that...she was so real for TV at that time, I dug it.

Gee could I ramble any more? Make of that what you will.

she goes to the eastern shore of maryland

but there was also the network-y corny plots involving a guy dressed as Santa and a parentless baby. Was that Jake Gyllenhaal's first real acting role?

― sarahel, Tuesday, January 18, 2011 3:57 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

this episode is the only one that really strikes me as blrggroghru
but mostly bcuz of the role of the mother of the baby ... the acting is super-theatrical & script was worse

so some dude's issue with the line is because Bubs drops the first syllable of "between"?

thin line 'tween between and 'tween

the thing with Melissa Leo's character -- I dunno -- it definitely was a stage in TV trying to create strong female characters, though she struck me as a prettier, less realistic Christine Cagney

I'll buy that. Hard to get much realer than Cagney & Lacey, as far as women in cop shows go.

i wonder how they say "ambulance" in baltimore