The Wire Thread

[Thants]

11:20 is late. I hope there's an iplayer repeat. Fucking ridiculous programming.

[Juniper]

Very much looking forward to finally seeing this

 

T-Minus 25 minutes

[Section_31]

I never watched Twin Peaks purely because girls seemed to like it, which means it must have been shit. In fact I can imagine Loraine Kelly saying she must 'nip home' to set the video to record Twin Peaks. I always assumed it was the Lost of the 90s.

[Stu Monty]

How can Noos not have watched most of the output of Stone & Parker; this does not compute in any way. Get watching South Park and stick with it you retarded Yorkshireman.

 

Also, for those who might look to ditch The Wire early: there is lesbianism in it midway through the first season.

[Remmie]

I hate the idea that something becomes less enjoyable once it becomes popular, surely you want more people to watch something as brilliant as the wire? It's the same pathetic attitude with bands that people cry about them selling out when they become popular. Your just annoyed that other people get to like your trendy little obscure passion, I cannot abide or empathise with this attitude.

[Torvald Utne]

I hate the idea that something becomes less enjoyable once it becomes popular, surely you want more people to watch something as brilliant as the wire? It's the same pathetic attitude with bands that people cry about them selling out when they become popular. Your just annoyed that other people get to like your trendy little obscure passion, I cannot abide or empathise with this attitude.

 

it's more the realisation that you like the same things as fat sandra in accounts

[Section_31]

I hate the idea that something becomes less enjoyable once it becomes popular, surely you want more people to watch something as brilliant as the wire? It's the same pathetic attitude with bands that people cry about them selling out when they become popular. Your just annoyed that other people get to like your trendy little obscure passion, I cannot abide or empathise with this attitude.

 

I was only taking the piss to be honest, I've been like a public library with my boxsets these past two years, the more people who are into them the better.

[WaltonRed]

Nowt wrong with being a snob, Remmie I used to like you until everyone else started.

[Remmie]

Nowt wrong with being a snob, Remmie I used to like you until everyone else started.

Snobbery is for life, not just for christmas.

[Remmie]

Have you seen The Corner mini-series Paul? Its fantastic. Right up there with The Wire - kind of like a little spin off.

 

Generation Kill disappointed me. Having said that, it took me 2 goes with The Wire, so maybe I need to try again.

Hey screw you Hamstrung, I recommended The Corner to Paul way before you! Heheh.

 

The main actor kid in it is also in a film called Fresh, which is a class film about a kid involved with gangs. It also has Samuel L Jackson as a badass chess playing sucker!

[Paul]

I hate the idea that something becomes less enjoyable once it becomes popular, surely you want more people to watch something as brilliant as the wire? It's the same pathetic attitude with bands that people cry about them selling out when they become popular. Your just annoyed that other people get to like your trendy little obscure passion, I cannot abide or empathise with this attitude.

Totally agree.

[Thants]

May I mention again Breaking Bad.

 

Here

 

You really won't regret it. I've only seen the first series of the Wire but I enjoyed this more. Just.

 

Actually scrap that for the UKers, it's NTSC only. Soz.

[greenoak]

The Shield v The Wire

 

I have to say I loved shield 1 - 3 but after season 4 it just got stupid. It all seemed so forced. Season 5 was terrible. Adding Glen Close then the twitching guy whose name I could not remember and machirs wife dating dutch then giving up mackie. Sorry lost interest at that point.

 

But The wire moved to new topics and was insanely good in all seasons

[Paul]

Both brilliant.

 

But if i was picking very,very picky i felt the Wire is a bit more contrived.

 

David Simon has a view on US inner-cities which he pushes a little.

Trying to write this without spoilers but although i actually agree with him on the benefits of the "Dutch approach" in Series 3 i felt it was a tad unrealistic.

Similarly he was a Union Rep as a journalist & the union officials in series 2 or the "good" journalists in series 5 are portrayed a lot more sympathetically than the brilliant warts'n'all characterization of say the coppers.

 

I thought the way that the Sopranos combined middle-management,middle class fears with the fact that his job was actually a criminal butcher was superb.

 

Also the Wire wrapped things up a tad too much for me... From the ending to the Russian in "Pine Barrens" the Sopranos left a lot more open.

 

Would be interested to hear your views on where The Wire shaded it as they are both staggeringly excellent pieces of work.

The thing to remember about The Wire is that it is an unashamed commentary on inner city America and therefore the ending reflects the depressing fact that nothing ever changes. As for your comments about the union guys and journalists, I disagree. Scott Temperton is a fucking snake in Season 5 and the dockers are corrupt as fuck. All characters in The Wire are multi-dimensional and usually flawed in some way - even the most sympathetic like 'Kima, Bebe, Omar or Bubbs.

 

Hamsterdam and McNulty's solution to turning on the tap again for the BPD do seem silly and contrived initially, but then the point is that the guys immersed in the shit are desperate to buck the system and make things better. Simon is saying that no matter what you do nothing can change - and that's born out in the show.

 

As I said, personal preferences are all about taste, so I have no problem with someone preferring The Sopranos (or even fucking Neighbours, for that matter). However, my assertion that The Wire is the greatest is not based on taste, but on ambition and the ultimate realisation of that ambition, as I said above. The Wire is the only thing ever made for the medium that is written like a novel - something previously considered unimaginable, never mind commercially viable or magnificently realised. When that is combined with the naturalistic dialogue that literally drops the viewer into a ready made world and the universally amazing acting that makes all the characters, no matter how minor, seem real, then I believe that The Wire is unsurpassed in its greatness.

[Paul]

The Shield v The Wire

 

I have to say I loved shield 1 - 3 but after season 4 it just got stupid. It all seemed so forced. Season 5 was terrible. Adding Glen Close then the twitching guy whose name I could not remember and machirs wife dating dutch then giving up mackie. Sorry lost interest at that point.

 

But The wire moved to new topics and was insanely good in all seasons

Wow. Opinions, eh? I think The Shield just gets better, season by season. The things I love most about it are the pace (which is utterly fucking relentless), the complexity of Vic's Machiavellian manoeuvrings and the constant sheer dramatic tension. As for Glen Close and Forest Whittaker, I thought they took it to new levels, with Close in particular doing the best work of her career, in my view.

[hamstrung]

I've got that downloaded but haven't watched it yet.

[Catch22]

The thing to remember about The Wire is that it is an unashamed commentary on inner city America and therefore the ending reflects the depressing fact that nothing ever changes. As for your comments about the union guys and journalists, I disagree. Scott Temperton is a fucking snake in Season 5 and the dockers are corrupt as fuck. All characters in The Wire are multi-dimensional and usually flawed in some way - even the most sympathetic like 'Kima, Bebe, Omar or Bubbs.

 

Hamsterdam and McNulty's solution to turning on the tap again for the BPD do seem silly and contrived initially, but then the point is that the guys immersed in the shit are desperate to buck the system and make things better. Simon is saying that no matter what you do nothing can change - and that's born out in the show.

 

As I said, personal preferences are all about taste, so I have no problem with someone preferring The Sopranos (or even fucking Neighbours, for that matter). However, my assertion that The Wire is the greatest is not based on taste, but on ambition and the ultimate realisation of that ambition, as I said above. The Wire is the only thing ever made for the medium that is written like a novel - something previously considered unimaginable, never mind commercially viable or magnificently realised. When that is combined with the naturalistic dialogue that literally drops the viewer into a ready made world and the universally amazing acting that makes all the characters, no matter how minor, seem real, then I believe that The Wire is unsurpassed in its greatness.

 

Very good points.

 

Especially,that's an excellent point about it being the 1st TV show written like a novel.

The Sopranos was still always TV.

I do agree it was therefore truly ground-breaking.

 

I also accept your defense of the ending. Wrapping it up does show his view that nothing ever changes.

(However,for the Sopranos, has any TV show before ever been brave enough to be so like real life in it's treatment of no endings for many stories? Most of the time in life we dont know what happens to people after our brief involvement with them ends or what the true motives of the people we deal with in work or socially, actually are).

 

Frank Sobotka is portrayed as being corrupt for alturistic reasons which is a very rosy & inaccurate portrayal - Union leaders are corrupt for selfish,human reasons just as businesspeople are or indeed coppers who he portrays as such. At least however the dockers have human flaws.

 

Season 5 is probably the real issue though... the contrived plot you mention & the 1-dimensionalness of the Baltimore Sun characters:

Scott Temperton is a cunt with no redeeming features unlike any previous character.

Whereas Gus Haynes & the female trainee are flawless, by the very high standrads of the rest of the Wire.

& Admittedly its only a brief cameo part but the old crime journalist is clearly Simon as he sees himself.

 

Truly great show but i think (maybe due to success?) season 5 especially needed a stronger editor-in-chief.

[Total Longo]

I never watched Twin Peaks purely because girls seemed to like it, which means it must have been shit. In fact I can imagine Loraine Kelly saying she must 'nip home' to set the video to record Twin Peaks. I always assumed it was the Lost of the 90s.

 

Lost is ace. Irritating beyond belief, but still ace.

[greenoak]

The Wire is just awesome. It really is the ultimate TV series, you care about so many characters. I have never watched a tv series as many times as this.

 

Your view of the characters changes as the seasons progress, I loved Ziggy from season 2. A total dickhead by so sad. And the very end of season 2 with Nick walking along a road and music finally kicking in was genius.

 

Its the lack of music that adds to the power of the images, but when it is added you understand why.

 

I recently downloaded The Corner, which is so desperate, and sad.

 

I just hope new viewers allow it the time it needs, but with bbc showing it every night so late I dont think they will get it, you cannot beat watching via the boxset.

 

I can see easter being another wire marathon.

[greenoak]

Oz is also worth catching.

 

Now that really is brutal tv.

[mattyq]

Watched about 20 mins and fell asleep. It was pretty good but i was knackered. I'll give it another go tonight

[Kurt]

The only bad thing I cansay about The Wire is that it`s finished. By far the best thing i`ve ever seen. There are so much about it that you discover new things everytime you see it.

 

Just bought the first season of The Shield, and although it was ace, it was not in the same league as the Wire. Sopranos I never got into. Mostly because I have never been much of a tv viewer, so guess I need to get it on dvd so I can watch at my own convenience. The fact that it`s beeing talked about as better or almost as good as the wire means that i have missed the boat on that one, and needs to get on it.

[Total Longo]

The only bad thing I cansay about The Wire is that it`s finished. By far the best thing i`ve ever seen. There are so much about it that you discover new things everytime you see it.

 

Just bought the first season of The Shield, and although it was ace, it was not in the same league as the Wire. Sopranos I never got into. Mostly because I have never been much of a tv viewer, so guess I need to get it on dvd so I can watch at my own convenience. The fact that it`s beeing talked about as better or almost as good as the wire means that i have missed the boat on that one, and needs to get on it.

 

It's a must. Sort yourself out Kurt, lad!

[Anubis]

Section - that's a heap of wrongness. Twin Peaks is fucking ace and I demand you devote some future time to watching it.

 

Watched The Wire last night as I've never seen it before. I have to say I was distinctly underwhelmed by the first episode, but as it was an introduction you can understand that. I'll stick with it and see where it goes.

[Section_31]

Section - that's a heap of wrongness. Twin Peaks is fucking ace and I demand you devote some future time to watching it.

 

Watched The Wire last night as I've never seen it before. I have to say I was distinctly underwhelmed by the first episode, but as it was an introduction you can understand that. I'll stick with it and see where it goes.

 

I wasn't that arsed about the Wire until I'd watched season one for the second time, as others have said it's the ultimate slow burner.

 

I actually think people watching it on a weekly basis will lose a lot, the episodes need to be watched close together IMO.