The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

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

ah admittedly, I never saw Shame

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

― stylish but illegal (Simon H.), Thursday, January 21, 2021 3:05 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

season 5 of the wire is fine

i've heard plenty of (wrong) people express similar sentiments about sopranos season 4 and season 6a

Unless a show changes drastically--the last two seasons of Friday Night Lights would be an example--I have a hard time differentiating seasons from a distance. I remember the second Wire season had almost an entirely different cast, so that one's easy. With my two favourite shows, Mad Men and The Sopranos, all seasons pretty much blur together.

Sopranos is the greatest narrative TV show of all time and any opinion otherwise seems absolutely insane to me

Though I haven't really watched much post-Mad Men except like three seasons of Better Caul Saul so maybe the "cartoon horse is actually depression" or "cartoon parakeet is actually depression" or "disgusting cartoon children can't stop masturbating" shows are better

doesn't even own a netflix

Man we are back and its good

he and Livia were just guaranteed laughs every time

Yeah the scene where none of Livia's tricks work because AJ is too literal to manipulate is one of my favorites

"cartoon parakeet is actually depression"

lol is this a real show I can't remember

tuca & bertie. good show!

can't wait for the "dismissive opinions about what the kids like is actually depression" cartoon

Sopranos is the greatest narrative TV show of all time and any opinion otherwise seems absolutely insane to me

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, January 21, 2021 1:26 PM (eighteen minutes ago

says ILX's greatest self clowning oven of all time

if you haven't watched the literal THOUSAND+ series that have been released since 2015, you might wanna keep your argument to sopranos being the best narrative television pre-2015

it's like arguing that lukas graham is the worst artist on the planet: you may have a strong argument but I don't think you've met lil pump yet

but hey what do i know about television anyway

i don't even own a....ehhh too on the nose

i like that simon introduced evangelion into the idea of a poll bc several of my favorite narrative shows are anime and any time i find myself thinking "the sopranos is good but it's no revolutionary girl utena" i have to go kick my own ass

the sopranos is no tenchi muyo!

The sopranos is noh

Gandalfini as TS is one of them rare casting incidents that all actors should dream of, like getting a role you were born to do and are at the perfect stage of your life to make it resonate like a mf through the ages, like Alec Smiley for example. There is too much iffy mediocrity or above averageness in The Wire for to not start curdling and seeming a bit 2nd rate as time goes on. imho of course.

yeah we would not be having this conversation is david proval got cast as tony, no offense intended to mr proval