"The Wire" on HBO

there is much less male nudity in The Wire

Oz is more emotionally brutal and has way more male nudity and gay sex. I love both shows.

Okay I haven’t seen Oz, and now I’m scared to.

Oz is fine but basically a penis-heavy soap opera. Wire is epic.

No need to be frightened of a few dongs now andrew

Oh yeah I should probably have clarified that I’m scared because Season 3 of the Wire is the my benchmark for emotional brutality.

Oz is fine but basically a penis-heavy soap opera.

no, it's kinda the opposite ... the soap opera elements and other "lighter touches" (e.g. musical numbers, theatrical narration) are there to make the socio-political issues at the core of the show easier to watch/engage with

in terms of emotional brutality, Oz is closer to Walking Dead, where all of the characters experience serious personal trauma at some point in the show, and Walking Dead is a speculative fiction about zombies.

Oz characters experienced some intensely brutal and degrading stuff but nothing on Oz was nearly as devastating as, say, the ultimate fates of a couple of the younger characters on the Wire.

nothing on Oz was nearly as devastating as, say, the ultimate fates of a couple of the younger characters on the Wire

it sounds like you just didn't really empathize with the characters in Oz.

I think it's fair to say that I empathized less with the characters on Oz than I did the characters on The Wire. The former characters didn't feel quite as fully rendered to me.

The regular characters were at least as fully rendered as the main characters on The Wire, some more so, I felt like. I can see someone not wanting to empathize with them because at one point they did something horrible (and since they have been in prison, they have done other horrible things), unlike the kids in the Wire who were victims of their circumstances ... but I feel like saying they weren't "fully rendered" seems odd to me. Especially, in comparison to the Wire, which is more about how systems work, and less about people.

TBF, I've seen The Wire twice through but never finished the last season or two of Oz. It's entirely possible the characters were ultimately more fleshed out than I recall.

TBF part 2, The Wire (and a number of shows since) had well-rounded characters who did awful things but still elicited sympathy/empathy so I can say that's not the issue.

I felt like the Aryan Nazis in Oz were as fleshed out as most of the characters in the Wire, but I didn't have much empathy for the Nazis, but characters like Beecher, Alvarez, Maria (the doctor), Saeed, Cyril, Bob, Sister Peter Marie, the priest, Mr. White who just keeps fucking up ... the list goes on.

Oz was a dumb and bad show

oh, and of course, Augustus Hill the narrator ... idk, the production techniques of the two shows were pretty different - like Oz had that late 90s staginess/awkwardness as it was kinda at the beginning of the "era" -- it was somewhat similar to this UK show I watched recently that was made around then (late 90s, pre-Wire), "Supply and Demand" that had Eamonn Walker in it, and it had some of that awkwardness too. And I can definitely see how the awkwardness can create a barrier to empathizing with the characters (it did for me to some extent).

Oz was a dumb and bad show

― Louis Jägermeister (jim in vancouver), Monday, March 12, 2018 2:10 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this was a dumb and bad opinion

Oz was more about the characters than the plot to a fault, imo

yeah well so is life mannn

The characters on Oz was less fully realized because we basically only saw them in a very dehumanizing environment. When I think of heartbreaking scenes with Wallace, I think of the scene where he plays with his toy while on watch out, or where he has to get all the other kids to school. There's nothing like that on Oz, because prison is exactly about removing people from those kinds of things.

**SEASON 1 SPOILERS LOL**

welp, made it 10 episodes into this show before my first ugly cry (first Kima getting shot and then really hard when Carver went to go tell her girlfriend). Also was very very sad about Wallace :( :( :( Season 1 was great and the first episode of S2 was.... not terrible but just really off, like it feels like a totally different show. Everyone and their mother has told me this so it's m/l what I expected going in.

Yeah, prepare yourself for a mild POV reboot every season.

Season 2 is the biggest shift, but it's a classic in its own way.

Also was very very sad about Wallace :( :( :(

in that case, brace yourself for season four my dude

Is season 4 the one with Zombie Wallace?

Season 2 is the reason The Wire is The Wire, I think. Season 1 ended much more definitively than most other seasons, with McNulty on the boat and the group disbanded, so they had to really lay the groundwork for the show running five seasons in season 2. It is kinda offputting, but I think the reason many other shows go off the rails after great first seasons is because they try to cut corners with their long term investments.

Season 2 is the reason The Wire is The Wire

otm

I don't know why the only thing I specifically recall as a development during season 2 is the drama surrounding Valchek's stained glass windows.

Oh, wait, shit, season 2 was Ziggy, wasn't it. I clearly need to rewatch this thing for a third time.

heard this is a good show, started watching it, halfway through S1 and it's really great!

I've heard that too, watched the first six or so episodes years ago and didn't feel that moved to continue but someday I'll give it another go

Glad to see the word's finally getting out about this show. It's so weird that HBO's hourlong dramas never get any buzz.

o_O

I think it's great that people are still getting to experience this show for the first time.

I've seen several of the HBO dramatic series. They're pretty good! It's just surprising to me that I never hear anything about them in the press or via word of mouth. Oh, well. Maybe someday they'll get their due.

(I'm lampooning you, mh. It was a simple lampoon.)

I figured you needed a straightman to sell it

Season 2 is the worst. Get through it.

Wrong

Having watched the show in its entirety multiple times, I think I'd rank it just below s4

i prefer it to s1. fred b otm about the reasons for its slow start, which is less frustrating on rewatch, as is the way the barksdale org stuff feels compartmentalized for the whole season while it sets up s3. (3 and 4's political stuff would also be shallower had you not surfaced into it from s2's grain pier scenes.) s1 is p much self-contained but s2, as it were, plugs the show into a thematic supply chain it will need going forward

that makes it sound dry tho and i mean: frank

s2 is one of the best, but i didn't like it the first time around

you get so into the street and its world and characters and then you are lurched out and taken into the world of these dumb fucking longshoremen

but yeah it is actually a good season. love frank sobotka 4eva

s1->s4 is a progressive (cumulative, really) improvement and s5 is not that much of a quality dip

lol the same discussion about S2 in this thread so many times

we still have some time to go before definitive answer is established

Best season of The Wire

Yup. It's usually prompted by people watching it for the first time though, and it is jarring in that context

3 is the overrated season

lol the same discussion about S2 in this thread so many times

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Tuesday, March 20, 2018 2:56 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

true

nicky sobotka looks like he smells bad

lmao at that wire poll ending presumably after human extinction

Ziggy is unforgivable. I don't mean as a character, I mean as a thing that writers thought up to make the audience suffer through. But I'll stop

5 is the worst season and, as Simon notes, it's not that much worse than the rest. And it's almost entirely due to the just...mindblowing stupidity of McNulty. I mean, seriously, what the fuck, McNutty.