"The Wire" on HBO

(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

This is a pretty cool behind the scenes article about how the actors got familiar with Baltimore:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/07/david_simon_s_the_wire_a_behind_the_scenes_look_at_mcnulty_kima_bunk_and.html

Still, Bubbles may have been more than a cliché, but it was a difficult character to play day after day. “My character’s head space was not a pleasant one,” Royo said. “I’d look at Idris? Nothing but bitches outside his trailer. Dom West? Nothing but bitches. Sonja? Dudes and bitches. Me? I’d have junkies out there. They fell in love with Bubbles. I’d go into my trailer and clean my shit off and come out and they’d look at me like, ‘You’re not one of us. Fuck you.’ And then when I had the Bubbles garb back on, it’d be, ‘Hey! What’s up? Welcome back!’ That’s a head trip, man. That shit eats at you.”

By the third season, he said, “I was drinking. I was depressed. I’d look at scripts like, ‘What am I doing today? Getting high or pushing that fucking cart?’”

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-01-27/lifestyle/35438800_1_probation-officers-adults-sonja-sohn

on sohn's post-show community outreach

that bubbles quote, lol.

still feel like season 5 taints my memory of the show as not being as great it actually was.

i never got around to affording season 5 dvds so that has been working out ok for me so far

started rewatching for the first time in ages, I forgot how much of a shock it is when Kima, ostensibly the honorable, good cop out of all of them starts beating the shit out of one of the low-rise boys (Bodie?) when he punches a cop.

yeah, the one cop who WON'T hit anyone is mcnulty; in many ways, he's the model police officer!

S5 really isn't as bad as its rep suggests.

Yeah, it’s not as good and is perhaps a bit OTT, but still has so many great moments, and good to see the the decline of local newspapers, which I experienced at first-hand over 15ish years in UK local media, covered in such a great TV show.

I rented and watched all 5 seasons as they came out and later got them all on DVD. Even though I've had the DVD sets for a long time, I still haven't yet re-watched seasons 4 or 5, while I've watched the first 3 seasons multiple times. Gotta make some time for them.