"The Wire" on HBO

Yeah, I've kinda heard that before... But still, from the beginning to Home pt 2 is a 20 episode stretch that is as good as pretty much everything else on tv. That is not too bad. Perhaps viewers should just stop there.

(the photocopier as a lie detector thing in the wire was first done in homicide: LOTS)

I have always avoided the Battlestar Galactica reboot, but I do recall reading someone in The Guardian saying it was as good as The Wire about 4 years ago. What the hell was that about? Recently I watched some mini-episodes of the new Blood and Chrome series that starts in February. It's trash and I watched these mini episodes, but what the hell inspired a Grauniad writer to compare earlier series with The Wire?

the 3 hr pilot miniseries and the first season and a half of BSG are actually pretty remarkable.

I heard Star Wars was good so I watched the Holiday Special

Sorry I forgot to mention someone lent me a series 3 or 4 of BSG and I really couldn't get into it. I was struggling to keep my eyes open and my missus was shouting abuse at me for even watching it. I watch a lot of shit, maybe try series 1?

Cracker is great, bought the complete box this year and have been rewatching at about a serial a month. (About to run out of Jimmy McGovern episodes iirc though)

(the photocopier as a lie detector thing in the wire was first done in homicide: LOTS)

it was first done in real life, then reported in the book Homicide that the TV series Homicide was based on, which was written by David Simon, creator and head writer of The Wire, so

lots of IRL Jay Landsman lols in the Homicide book, which came before the fictional Jay Landsman in The Wire, which came before the actual Jay Landsman got a smaller, other role in The Wire

flowchart plz

(don't front, i know you have one prepared)

I watched the first two series of Prime Suspect and it struck me as much more procedural than the Wire - like an intelligent version of Law and Order (or now, The Killing, I guess). I'm more anglophobic than philic, so maybe I just didn't connect on that.

If not Band of Brothers for next-to-watch, then Deadwood, Rome or Generation Kill.
I miss the days when 80% of my TV-watching was HBO.

I keep having Al Swearengen quotes pop into my head at random. It's great. "In life you have to do a lot of things you don’t fucking want to do. Many times, that’s what the fuck life is… one vile fucking task after another."

Deadwood is a quote machine. Brilliant stuff.

Rome! yes, v v good.

flowchart plz

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_myIaArNPWLY/SKogRIkSp4I/AAAAAAAAAFU/j03dQI9GM3A/s320/Jay+Landsman+as+Dennis+Mello.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/81/The_Wire_Landsman.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sIaitixYQ2M/SNgjPGsPKJI/AAAAAAAABBU/hN69knIZZXw/s400/Wire_Jay+Landsman.jpg

milo, it is much more procedural. i wasn't that impressed with it (i mean it was good but) until the career-arc / alcoholic-arc had really gotten up to steam.

For SIS/SAS show, The Sandbaggers pwnz MI5 so hard.

Anyway, I actually would rec The Good Wife -- completely different subject matter of course, but it's the closest thing that comes to The Wire in terms of real world moralambiguity that isn't boring.

it has logan from the gilmore girls though
i was really bummed out when i watched an episode of the good wife & didn't like it, i thought it was gonna be just the legal drama for me, like rotating issue-themed story lines & all. probably instead of this z s you should watch ally mcbeal.

/gilmore girls

Just got a HBO GO hookup. Time to live in Romewood for a month.

i figured out HBOGO cause i wanted to watch Roc, and then i found out it aired on FOX even though everyone always calls it an HBO show

so now i'm desperately trying to get invites to fancy tv torrent sites cause that shit is hard to locate

If you need a break from cop shows and just wanna watch cartoons there's always Neon Genesis Evangelion.

^^^

pack a bowl for the final 10 eps

For Machiavellian/realpolitik nonsense I can't implore you enough to watch the House of Cards trilogy. It's Yes Minister with the jokes taken out, or a UK West Wing where everybody's a cunt. And it's as good a central performance as I've ever seen on a TV show.

there's a US remake of House of Cards airing early next year

well if we're going for that kind of drama, also try Shooting The Past (Stephen Poliakoff)

As much as I have no idea where it would have went had it gotten renewed, John From Cincinnati was kind of a perfect little season of TV.

I think I like and hate Poliakoff in equal measure.

pack a bowl for the final 10 eps

what kind of pipe are you smoking, literally

If you haven't seen Party Down yet...

Among the reasons I would love Prime Suspect, max suspiciously forgot to mention that everyone smokes constantly all the way through it like it's their collective full-time job.

not enough love for veronica mars itt

First 2 seasons are great.

when i made my list above i forgot that i had just recently watched NYC 22, a cancelled show (only made it through 13 episodes, all on netflix instant now) that is probably as close in spirit to 'the wire' as you could get if you made a network procedural that was focused on cops only. created by richard price, focused on one harlem precinct and the surrounding neighborhood, basically it tracks rookies as they get trained in 'community policing'. one of the rookies is an ex-journalist / auteur stand-in who switches careers in middle age, so he kind of acts as an in-show point of audience contact, and kind of as an attractor for the kind of david simony stuff you might expect to be in the show's dna somewhere. it has to be, world-building-wise and just visually, one of the most place-grounded shows i've seen in forever.

RIP big man

http://www.uproxx.com/tv/2013/01/r-i-p-the-wire-star-robert-prop-joe-chew/

heaven needed a hustla

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=ey0FDh444VU

hey j., did you ever catch up w/the newsroom? i was really enjoying yr take on it in the thread & didn't hear anymore after you said you couldn't get hold of it anymore

aw man RIP, he couldn't have been that old

(nope, sorry schlump, no access.)

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

oh those numbers from the ripped screeners that leaked really took me back

http://www.hulu.com/braquo

'the french wire'

(haven't seen, can't vouch)

that seems like extremely high praise. it's good tv but from what little i've seen here and there it felt more like the shield maybe. it was created by olivier marchal, who's directed a few movies in the same vein, think cops and the bleak lives they live or something to that effect (if you've seen mr-73 or 36, quai des orfèvres for example).

<3 The Shield <3

Yeah the shield is great. Braquo is similar in that its cops crossing a line and going too far and of course it doesn't end too well for them.

http://davidsimon.com/gus-triandos-1930-2013/

Lol, first comment