The Wire

[Kaos]

I've heard for years how The Wire holds up against The Sopranos as one of the best shows in TV history.  i finally decided to give it a try. 

I've done two entire seasons.  It's not in the same ballpark as The Sopranos. It's not in the same league. It's not playing the same sport. It's not even in the same country. 

I'm not saying it's a bad show.  It's pretty good. It just doesn't have the depth of The Sopranos. It doesn't have the power.

The cast is good. No, it's stellar. Idris Elba, Apollo Creed's baby boy, Petyr Littlefinger, Chalky White, Method, PornStache, Holly Flax... Could go on for a while.

It's a far too-realistic portrayal of the lack of opportunity that faces the inner city, the cluster hump that can be the law enforcement community, the greed and passions that drive both the good guys and the bad.  In that, it's pretty compelling. But it's not The Sopranos.  And frankly, I related more to Breaking Bad than I am this (cue racist comments).      

It's also interesting to see how much technology has advanced in the years since this show started. The beepers and payphones, the typewriters, the briefcase size GPS that magnet mounts to the car.  It's incredible and a bit insane just how much the world has changed technologically in such a short time.    

Two of my biggest problems?  I don't like McNulty at all. Like none. Can't stand the character.  And as season three starts, I'm not buying Avon Barksdale as the top dog in a criminal enterprise. 

I'm going to slowly finish it off, but it's not driving me.  I'll never go back and watch it again like I have and will Tony, Christopha, Paulie, Carm, Puss, Adriana, Meadow, Johnny Sack, Carmine and the rest.

[wesfau2]

Actually agree with you on this.  Seems I enjoyed it a bit more than you, but only by a slim margin.

Was OK...was not on par with the acknowledged champions of the long-form drama series.

[GH2001]

I've heard for years how The Wire holds up against The Sopranos as one of the best shows in TV history.  i finally decided to give it a try. 

I've done two entire seasons.  It's not in the same ballpark as The Sopranos. It's not in the same league. It's not playing the same sport. It's not even in the same country. 

I'm not saying it's a bad show.  It's pretty good. It just doesn't have the depth of The Sopranos. It doesn't have the power.

The cast is good. No, it's stellar. Idris Elba, Apollo Creed's baby boy, Petyr Littlefinger, Chalky White, Method, PornStache, Holly Flax... Could go on for a while.

It's a far too-realistic portrayal of the lack of opportunity that faces the inner city, the cluster hump that can be the law enforcement community, the greed and passions that drive both the good guys and the bad.  In that, it's pretty compelling. But it's not The Sopranos.  And frankly, I related more to Breaking Bad than I am this (cue racist comments).     

It's also interesting to see how much technology has advanced in the years since this show started. The beepers and payphones, the typewriters, the briefcase size GPS that magnet mounts to the car.  It's incredible and a bit insane just how much the world has changed technologically in such a short time.   

Two of my biggest problems?  I don't like McNulty at all. Like none. Can't stand the character.  And as season three starts, I'm not buying Avon Barksdale as the top dog in a criminal enterprise. 

I'm going to slowly finish it off, but it's not driving me.  I'll never go back and watch it again like I have and will Tony, Christopha, Paulie, Carm, Puss, Adriana, Meadow, Johnny Sack, Carmine and the rest.

Love Johnny Sac.

I'll tell him you said hi.

[WiregrassTiger]

I don’t know who these people are. But it does not surprise me to hear that any of you admire Johnny’s sack.

Especially Wes.

[GH2001]

I don’t know who these people are. But it does not surprise me to hear that any of you admire Johnny’s sack.

Especially Wes.

It's real. And it's spectacular. 

[War Eagle!!!]

I really liked the first 2 or 3 seasons...I can't remember as it has been a long time.

I will say this, it drops off dramatically at either season 3 or Season 4. The last season or two were bad IMO.

[Kaos]

It's still moderately engaging.  It's not a "have to" watch but I am slowly working through it.  I will say that I've skipped past several episodes by watching while working and not really paying attention.  

The only reason I came back to this forum now was something I just saw on the screen.  

Back in one of my past lives I owned a furniture store.  I sold and rented furniture, appliances, electronics, jewelry and other accessories to the same basic caste the show represents.  I've delivered furniture to places like those where Bodie, Namond, Michael and those guys lived.  That's where I made my bones, barging up into those places and demanding my money or my stuff. I'd never do it now, but I used to be fearless with that.  I'd be out until the law said I couldn't at 9 pm.  Housing projects, Section 8 apartments, boarded up row houses.  I was ruthless. But I was fair.  Those people learned that if they treated me right, I'd do right by them.  But if they didn't?  Stuff or money. Period. 

On the episode I just saw there was a brass and glass triangular etarge in one of the project houses.  I used to buy those things in bulk from a foreign import company for about $10 each and sell them at $59.95.  And if you didn't have that cash on hand, I'd let you take it home today, rent to own, for just $2.99 a week for 12 months.  Just $2.99. Anybody could afford that!!  If I ordered a hundred, I'd sell them all in two weeks.  I couldn't keep them in.  And then when I got the black, brass and glass (triangular or circular) for the same price the market would bear $79 and $3.99.  I probably sold 2000 of those flimsy things.  

It was so weird to see it on that show in a house that looked like one we would have delivered to back in the day.  



Also crazy to think that I was so nutso to be banging around in those areas with a roll of cash I'd collected and sometimes a van full of electronics.  But back in those days?  I didn't care. 

[Kaos]

Finished it.  

Observations: 

1) Season 4 was the best.  Season 5 -- like Season 6 of the Sopranos and Godfather III -- went off the rails.  It was peppered with character behaviors that didn't ring true to the personalities established over the first four seasons.  

2) It didn't have the same emotional resonance as the shows I consider great, but it did manage to touch me when Bodie was unceremoniously popped.  

3) The show was so much better when not centered on McNulty.  

4) The kids prez taught very closely mirrored the situation I found when I taught.  You're giving kids homework and they're heading off into who knows what when they leave your class.  Two stories:  
a) I got a call from a kid I coached who was in the ninth grade at 2 in the morning.  He was locked out of his house and had nobody else to call.  He'd walked a couple of miles to a payphone to call.  Against my better judgment I went and got him. We found his dad in metro booking in a town 50 miles away, busted for drugs.  His older brother had gone to a party in another town. One of his younger brothers had climbed a drainpipe and was sleeping with his girlfriend. His youngest brother (11 or 12 I think now) was riding around with some drug dealers in a different town. His mom, who worked in a nursing home, had gotten her paycheck and driven to the casino to blow it.  She finally got home about 7:30 am.  This was a "good" kid from a "good" family.  
b) I really tried to help those kids and some I hope I did.  I can think of two.  I can also think of another one who I worked really hard to reach and I thought I was making progress.  Until somebody broke the window out of my truck, stole everything in it -- including a pair of Oakley sunglasses that my girls had saved for and bought me.  Couple of days later I saw him wearing them at the gas station.  He said they just looked like mine, but were his.  A day after that I found the glasses lying next to my truck, stomped into pieces. 

5) I didn't appreciate the stupid inclusion of Munch from Homicide in a bar scene.  Screw a crossover. 

6) The show did a really good job of showing the spiral of hopelessness that drags so many kids down.  How do you convince a kid who knows nothing but surviving on the street, whose parents came up in that same environment, that he should pay attention in history class?  This is off-topic a little, but I hear the chucklehead democrats howling about the plight of the immigrants.  Until we can solve the problem of the vast hopeless class that exists already in this country, we don't need to be opening borders to a flood of more broken people -- particularly when they don't intend to assimilate.  

At the end of this series, I came away with a sense of resignation.  The circle is unbroken and nothing we're doing now is going to fix it.