The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

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?

lol The Expanse, not The Expense

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

― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Thursday, January 21, 2021 11:59 AM (one minute ago)

see also The Wire Season 5

Deadwood > Wire > Mad Men > Sopranos IMO

wow that's pretty close to exactly backwards!

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

― sarahell, Thursday, January 21, 2021 3:01 PM bookmarkflaglink

kinda? Olyphant's characters seem a little more confident/stoic, whereas Holden seems to have a little doubt behind those eyes even when he locks in on something.

see also The Wire Season 5

oh yeah another reason the sopranos is better is that there isn't one whole entire ass season most fans think is trash

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

I get a psychotic version of that from Amos.

lol i'm on Season 3 and man, that "You're not that guy. I'M THAT GUY" moment is pretty chilling before he ices Dr Strickland

OTOH it's hard to think of individual eps of the Wire that are bad and very easy with the Sopranos.

AJ (...) 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.

his blankness is what makes this character so great, he and Livia were just guaranteed laughs every time

the musical episode of Sopranos was weird

lol but the ep with Massive Genius does kind of suck (the shitty band Ade produces are hilarious though)

oh see Amos reminds me of Frank from How to Get Away With Murder. ... anyway, I think people that liked Deadwood might also like The Expanse, if they aren't already familiar.

xpost omg the convo between the band and the record producer was so pretentiously stupid, i was cackling....right up until Chris domed a guy with a guitar (if that's what he did, i haven't seen that ep in years)

i adore teh Expanse, especially Avasarala. afraid to go into the thread until I'm caught up though

OTOH it's hard to think of individual eps of the Wire that are bad and very easy with the Sopranos

I think that's another reason I'm more inclined to go Sopranos, it was pretty ruthlessly disciplined in terms of season arcs but it also made wonderful use of the episode as a discrete entity, where The Wire was always more "10 chapters in a book, 5 books in the series" type of deal, which is cool but less impressive to me personally

hm, i've been toying with going in on the expanse but god i have a lot to choose from right now.

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

― stylish but illegal (Simon H.), Thursday, January 21, 2021 12:40 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

simon you are an agent of chaos

The Wire's presentation of bureaucracy is so entertaining. Probably because I deal with bureaucracy a lot.

starting from the beginning with "The colonel likes dots." ... I think about the gleeful way Rawls says that every time I have to create a document with bullet points.

I love The Expanse but should warn that I found the 2nd and 4th seasons tough going. The peaks, though...

xp
haha yeah that is a great line

That band was proto-Dekkar

My "Next To Watch" shortlist if you guys wanna put in your two cents:

The Expanse
Patriot s2
Small Axe
Lovecraft Country
Monsterland
Third Day
Perpetual Grace Ltd.
Good Lord Bird
Tiger
Eyes on the Prize
Beforeigners
Flack
Wayne
30 Coins
Paranoia Agent (haven't seen this in almost fifteen years)
Timeshift
Pretend It's A City
Endeavor
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

John Doman (Rawls) shows up in the Chicago 7 movie as a Nixon cabinet member, and it was like ... the role he was born to play.

The funniest thing about Defiler is that their "best" song is their openly homophobic self-titled one, which is supposed to be the "shitty old material"

paranoia agent so good

Small Axe (or at least Lovers Rock) and then Expanse imo

I've only seen Small Axe out of that whole list, but in case you didn't know forks, it's an anthology of mostly shortish films so needn't be consumed like a series

yup, i'm aware. my secret hame is that i haven't really seen anything by steve mcqueen yet so this represents unknown territory.

Lovers Rock is the best film by him I've seen tbrr

oh wait I started Lovecraft but being a horror/gore wimp I haven't gotten through it -- great cast I hope to see in more stuff though

I appreciate the sopranos more over time and reading the 2008 posts is making me really hate the wire. I want to go back in time to say christ guys it's not a fucking documentary

Lovers Rock is the best film by him I've seen tbrr

I have a soft spot for the hated Shame but it's his best since Hunger, anyway