The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

that reminds me (lol), the acting is quite possibly the main reason sopranos is better

(tbc most of the acting on the wire is at least fine and some of it is great)

except for AJ

AJ is a perfectly awkward and whiny teen boy

having been a doughy white 14 y/o with ill fitting clothes just starting to read books for adults, I thought he nailed it

I thought the exploration of oppressive capitalist systems was more interesting than mob boss goes to therapy.

yeah, the one scene with McNulty and the FBI profilers pretty much captured the heart of that premise the Sopranos spent so much time on.

Honestly, though, in some ways, if you are looking at the two shows from a radical intersectional leftist lens, it's kinda like the shit that went down on election certification day -- cops vs. fascist idiots -- both problematic.

AJ suffers when he's doing scenes with Gandolfini and Falco, they are giving the greatest performances in TV history and he's just giving nothing back. He looks the part, and he has some good moments, and I think he's better in the last season. But he can be distractingly blank.

he was very much a line-reader only

his best delivery in teh entire series was "what? no fuckin ziti?"

i will say his suicide scene in the pool was one of the few times I saw him show legit terror in a believable sense as an actor

if you are looking at the two shows from a radical intersectional leftist lens, it's kinda like the shit that went down on election certification day -- cops vs. fascist idiots -- both problematic

hmmmm

they are giving the greatest performances in TV history

damn, people really like this show that much?? Okay.

The Sopranos is as much about capitalism as The Wire is, smdh

xp Simon -- seriously, all these people (except maybe the therapist) would be Trump supporters, you know this.

it's my favourite television drama and i don't think anything is close

xp Simon -- seriously, all these people (except maybe the therapist) would be Trump supporters, you know this.

if you watched The Sopranos and thought "the people making this think these people are cool and good" idk what to tell you

The Sopranos would be split with Tony voting Trump, Carm and Meadow voting Hillary, and Anthony Jr would fuckin vote Jill Stein

Part of the fanbase thought so, sure, and Chase wound up more or less attempting to punish them in later seasons. xp

if you watched The Sopranos and thought "the people making this think these people are cool and good" idk what to tell you

lol, I really don't understand how hard it is to grasp that someone might not want to spend that much time watching horrible stupid people deal with their horrible stupid lives, regardless of whether they are supposed to be "cool and good" or not.

The Sopranos would be split with Tony voting Trump, Carm and Meadow voting Hillary, and Anthony Jr would fuckin vote Jill Stein

Paulie would be a Marianne Williamson guy for sure.

Tony wasn't meant to be a hero, they showed him as a more likable, 'grounded' mobster early on but you definitely see his code to be bullshit the further and further he goes. sure, he doesn't hit his wife like some of his partners in crime, but he fucking ruins lives by murdering husbands then lying to their wives that they abandoned them, he certainly abuses women that aren't his wife, he's a misogynist, a racist, and he eats capocollo while standing up

lol, I really don't understand how hard it is to grasp that someone might not want to spend that much time watching horrible stupid people deal with their horrible stupid lives, regardless of whether they are supposed to be "cool and good" or not.

I find it hard to grasp in this context given who the people are on that other show

to be corny and earnest for a sec, the reason I think repolling this would be annoying is pitting these shows against each other makes no sense to me -- if someone liked one I wouldn't hesitate to rec the other. throw in Deadwood and you've got three differently compelling perspectives on american capitalism + crime, and the desire to rank them over each other is weird to me

but anyway, are there sopranos writers who aren't middle-aged white men? (genuine q!)

Carm and Meadow voting Hillary

Carm is openly pro W in the final season iirc, a smart character note imo

Silvio whacking Adriana was one of the horrifying moments in the series, because while you knew it was coming, the transformation in Silvio's angry, flaring eyes towards someone who up until then had been a friend that he'd cared for, and him calling her a "c***" right before he does it, in the middle of an empty forest....eesh.

She’ll probably be the Republican Congresswoman from Inbredsville in two years. https://t.co/uYs7b1VBQ2

— Stevie Van Zandt (@StevieVanZandt) January 19, 2021

the actor who plays Johnny Sacks is hardcore MAGA now, on the other hand

My review from a million posts ago:

The Sopranos always felt very dumbed-down to me whenever it got outside of its comfort zone of a bunch of assholes hanging out shooting the shit. I was always thinking "have the writers ever actually talked to a real therapist/liberal college kid/gay person?" That, and it got repetitive after a while with the "who's gonna be the rat/get whacked this season?"

(allowing that the corner boys, teachers, and humble harbor folk are off the hook xps)

Carm would vote Hillary in the sense that my mom did. My mom voted McCain and Romney but she voted Hillary because she is a feminist and always liked her and wanted her to break the glass ceiling.

There’s a scene in the final season where AJ tells Tony he wants to get his pilot’s license and fly Trump around as a career, or something like that.

throw in Deadwood and you've got three differently compelling perspectives on american capitalism + crime, and the desire to rank them over each other is weird to me

I seriously considered making a new poll w. Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, and Evangelion, lol

Carmela is not a feminist! Also these people are racists?

This is also reminding me that there's a weird bit of throwaway dialogue in S6 where Tony is asking AJ what he wants to do with his life and he says he wants to get a helicopter license so he can pilot for Trump

xp

yeah, but Sopranos was a character drama -- like, it was about those people. The Wire was plot driven, so there was more to it. Also -- the characters on the Wire were generally less stupid than those on the Sopranos.

if you are looking at the two shows from a radical intersectional leftist lens,

I love politics board now

trump is never mentioned on the wire, and that's why it's better

tv shows should have more stupid people in them not fewer imo. I love it when Sopranos characters misuse or mispronounce words.

the desire to rank them over each other is weird to me

yeah, bottom line, I agree with this.

I love politics board now

― Qanondorf (darraghmac), Thursday, January 21, 2021 2:41 PM (one minute ago)

shout out to forks for making it ILTV right now

imo it makes sense to compare them as contemporaries that aired at (some of) the same time on the same outlet, but it's true that pitting one against the other ensures lots of talking past each other because they have basically nothing else in common beyond prestige

give it 3 years for the backlash pendulum to swing back around and liking the wire becomes cool again

just gotta wait for the next generation of left podcasters to discover it for the first time

This is a little facile, but it does make sense that the Wire really caught on during the Obama years, and the Sopranos seems to be enjoying a renaissance under Trump

I feel like Sopranos is really dependent on existing fictional narratives about mobsters and nostalgia -- like there's a "comfort food" aspect to the show. Some of the pleasure of the show is based on recognition of tropes and classic movies and how Sopranos fits or challenges those. Idk, maybe that's just me, and there are people that are unfamiliar with mob movies or have never liked a mob movie but like the Sopranos. ... This isn't saying the Wire is better because it is less reliant on that. The Wire is more reliant on "real life" and the audience's recognition of "how things work" ... and it really depends on why someone watches TV, what sort of pleasure one is looking for, and how one derives pleasure from television.

but on the subject of acting -- Herc is seriously underrated. Like, I have watched The Wire at least a half dozen times, and some of the acting gets less appealing on multiple rewatches, but Herc ... gets better.

I seriously considered making a new poll w. Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, and Evangelion, lol

― stylish but illegal (Simon H.), Thursday, January 21, 2021 2:40 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk if i think that deadwood is the best of these, but in this hypothetical poll i would definitely be team deadwood

deadwood feels like a show that wasn't able to reach its potential to me.

due to being cancelled

deadwood>wire>sopranos imo but i rewatched deadwood and the wire over the past two years and haven't seen sopranos since it went off the air so i may have some recency bias

oh man, the super creepy guy from Deadwood showed up on an episode of Criminal Minds, and as soon as I saw him, I knew he was going to be the sadistic serial killer.

there's also the question of volume in that they don't match up apples to apples in how much room HBO gave them to grow

I once would have voted Deadwood but now I must concede its brevity works against it. The movie did not help

and speaking of Deadwood, does anyone else who's watching The Expense get Timothy Olyphant vibes from Steven Straight/Holden?