ot: hbo the wire

[husky99]

Just starting to watch, what do people think?

 

[aceboon]

Depending on which day of the week it is, its either The Wire or Breaking Bad as my GOAT tv series.

 

[JLock819]

100% my favorite show of all-time, which explains why I have all five seasons on DVD. Just started Season 1 back up last week, and I can watch 4-5 episodes in a row without a thought, it's that good. Seasons 1 and 2 are my personal favorites. Every season has a different "theme" so to speak, which is different than a lot of shows out there. It's a shame we didn't get a couple more seasons.

 

[AJC88]

Best show ever made. You'll be addicted midway through the first season.

 

[HuskyBballFan]

Hardcore fans of The Wire are notorious for telling people who haven't seen it that they are missing the greatest show of all time. I found those people annoying until I finally watched the show - now I'm pretty much one of them.

It's not for everybody due to 1) The (somewhat) slower pace. Some relate the show to a novel due to the long story arcs, but I found it made the payoffs more satisfying at the end of each season; and 2) The fact that the show won't hold your hand through the dialogue. The cops talk like cops, the drug dealers talk like drug dealers, etc, and there may be references that you don't understand at first. After a few episodes it will start to get easier.

My advice, assuming you have 60 hours of your life to spare, would be to give it a chance through the end of the entire series, even if you (somehow) don't like the first season. I think the first season on it's own is a great story about drug dealers and the police investigating them. But then each subsequent season introduces an additional element and you realize by the end that the show is really about all of the problems facing American inner cities and why these problems are not likely to go away.

So yeah, it's pretty much awesome.

 

[James]

best season is 4 imo

 

[crownfox2]

Hardcore fans of The Wire are notorious for telling people who haven't seen it that they are missing the greatest show of all time. I found those people annoying until I finally watched the show - now I'm pretty much one of them.

It's not for everybody due to 1) The (somewhat) slower pace. Some relate the show to a novel due to the long story arcs, but I found it made the payoffs more satisfying at the end of each season; and 2) The fact that the show won't hold your hand through the dialogue. The cops talk like cops, the drug dealers talk like drug dealers, etc, and there may be references that you don't understand at first. After a few episodes it will start to get easier.

My advice, assuming you have 60 hours of your life to spare, would be to give it a chance through the end of the entire series, even if you (somehow) don't like the first season. I think the first season on it's own is a great story about drug dealers and the police investigating them. But then each subsequent season introduces an additional element and you realize by the end that the show is really about all of the problems facing American inner cities and why these problems are not likely to go away.

So yeah, it's pretty much awesome.

 

[crownfox2]

Excellent evaluation, especially regarding the dialogue. Initally I was put off by the street lingo probably as I am much older. But once I put in sub-titles I was good to go. This show became like oxygen to me and so it seems to most everyone else

 

[MilliniumPrince]

Greatest series of all time

 

[M_Funkhauser43!]

Greatest television show ever produced. I read "The Wire: Truth Be Told" after I finished watching the series and it brought some really interesting subtleties to the fore: background stories about the real Baltimore street legends that are portrayed or who actually play characters on the show, subliminal messaging in stage sets, and larger points about American society that Ed Burns and David Simon are trying to make coming straight from the horses' mouths.

I thought the show was pure genius when I watched it; reading about all the stuff going on the background brings it to a whole new level.

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

top 5 series ever. excellent show.

 

[M_Funkhauser43!]

Hardcore fans of The Wire are notorious for telling people who haven't seen it that they are missing the greatest show of all time. I found those people annoying until I finally watched the show - now I'm pretty much one of them.

It's not for everybody due to 1) The (somewhat) slower pace. Some relate the show to a novel due to the long story arcs, but I found it made the payoffs more satisfying at the end of each season; and 2) The fact that the show won't hold your hand through the dialogue. The cops talk like cops, the drug dealers talk like drug dealers, etc, and there may be references that you don't understand at first. After a few episodes it will start to get easier.

My advice, assuming you have 60 hours of your life to spare, would be to give it a chance through the end of the entire series, even if you (somehow) don't like the first season. I think the first season on it's own is a great story about drug dealers and the police investigating them. But then each subsequent season introduces an additional element and you realize by the end that the show is really about all of the problems facing American inner cities and why these problems are not likely to go away.

So yeah, it's pretty much awesome.

David Simon said that he considers the show a "visual novel," and I agree that this style makes the payoffs much more satisfying, especially the ones that come after a few seasons of following certain characters.

The show expects a lot out of its audience and it challenges its viewers in ways that no other television program has. A lot of people appreciate being forced to think, to attempt to understand and to wrestle with ethical and moral issues. That's why I think The Wire has so many fans and why its fans are as devoted as they are.

David Simon is to American television what Upton Sinclair was to the American novel.

 

[NaughtybyNapier]

Hardcore fans of The Wire are notorious for telling people who haven't seen it that they are missing the greatest show of all time. I found those people annoying until I finally watched the show - now I'm pretty much one of them.

It's not for everybody due to 1) The (somewhat) slower pace. Some relate the show to a novel due to the long story arcs, but I found it made the payoffs more satisfying at the end of each season; and 2) The fact that the show won't hold your hand through the dialogue. The cops talk like cops, the drug dealers talk like drug dealers, etc, and there may be references that you don't understand at first. After a few episodes it will start to get easier.

My advice, assuming you have 60 hours of your life to spare, would be to give it a chance through the end of the entire series, even if you (somehow) don't like the first season. I think the first season on it's own is a great story about drug dealers and the police investigating them. But then each subsequent season introduces an additional element and you realize by the end that the show is really about all of the problems facing American inner cities and why these problems are not likely to go away.

So yeah, it's pretty much awesome.

The drug dealers talk like drug dealers except when they are handed contrived, tendentious scenes like this, in which case YOU have to hold the show's hand through the dialogue (spoiler-ish):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bR3T1eThJU

JMHO. I'm sure people probably believe that it's a classic scene and all.

Sheeeit, I loved The Wire, too, but I almost gave up on it after 5 episodes because it did not live up to the impossible hype heaped on it.

Looking back, though, I think I liked Seasons 1 and 3 the best, not in that order.

Okay, Wire sycophants, pile on me now. But here's my response:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUjh9Id6Id8&feature=related

 

[M_Funkhauser43!]

The drug dealers talk like drug dealers except when they are handed contrived, tendentious scenes like this, in which case YOU have to hold the show's hand through the dialogue (spoiler-ish):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bR3T1eThJU

JMHO. I'm sure people probably believe that it's a classic scene and all.

Sheeeit, I loved The Wire, too, but I almost gave up on it after 5 episodes because it did not live up to the impossible hype heaped on it.

Looking back, though, I think I liked Seasons 1 and 3 the best, not in that order.

Okay, Wire sycophants, pile on me now. But here's my response:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUjh9Id6Id8&feature=related

In this "sycophant's" opinion, that scene is one of the show's best. I don't appreciate it as much for the metaphor for drug dealing as I do for how it helps bookend the arc of one of the show's main characters. Here's the payoff to that scene coming much later in the show (SPOILER):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YECcGWN5aY

 

[NaughtybyNapier]

David Simon said that he considers the show a "visual novel," and I agree that this style makes the payoffs much more satisfying, especially the ones that come after a few seasons of following certain characters.

The show expects a lot out of its audience and it challenges its viewers in ways that no other television program has. A lot of people appreciate being forced to think, to attempt to understand and to wrestle with ethical and moral issues. That's why I think The Wire has so many fans and why its fans are as devoted as they are.

David Simon is to American television what Upton Sinclair was to the American novel.

M-Funk,

I really mean no offense, but I've been up all night work, so I might not be able to modulate my tone as carefully/politely as I'd like:

Anyway, that highlighted statement seems absurd to me. I bring it up only because it is symptomatic of the type of overblown rhetoric to which HuskyBballfan alludes but then consciously succumbs.

I really don't understand what people think is so difficult to follow about the show. You'll spend more time wondering how Daniels maintains his posture than you will puzzling over his meaning when he employs super-abstruse police argot like "dropping bodies."

On the political side, I think people may take David Simon the commenter on the show a little too seriously at the expense of the show itself and its highly ambivalent attitude toward the individuals and institutions it portrays. It's not THAT subversive - it's not the first work of literature or film or TV to toy with good bad guys and bad good guys and what not. I think the show's strength is in the characters and sense of place, but I fail to see anything of a similarly enduring strength within any political message it espouses. It's amazing to hear Simon the interviewee so blithely undermine Simon the writer of such imagination with his shockingly stale radicalism.

 

[NaughtybyNapier]

M-Funk,

Sorry. I don't really want to continue arguing with you or single you out. I apologize if I'm coming as off as passive-aggressive or if it seems like I attacked you and then want to run away.

I just have a lot of thoughts about the Wire and I've never really had a chance to hash it out with one of the zealots ( just kidding!) But I don't mean to hash out all that now in ten different directions. Like I said, I haven't slept yet.

Again, I love the Wire too. It feels really tough watching the characters I linked to and then the guy in the one you linked to. I won't say anymore for spoiler-reasons.

What were your favorite seasons?

 

[NaughtybyNapier]

M-Funk,

I really mean no offense, but I've been up all night work, so I might not be able to modulate my tone as carefully/politely as I'd like:

Anyway, that highlighted statement seems absurd to me. I bring it up only because it is symptomatic of the type of overblown rhetoric to which HuskyBballfan alludes but then consciously succumbs.

I really don't understand what people think is so difficult to follow about the show. You'll spend more time wondering how Daniels maintains his posture than you will puzzling over his meaning when he employs super-abstruse police argot like "dropping bodies."

On the political side, I think people may take David Simon the commenter on the show a little too seriously at the expense of the show itself and its highly ambivalent attitude toward the individuals and institutions it portrays. It's not THAT subversive - it's not the first work of literature or film or TV to toy with good bad guys and bad good guys and what not. I think the show's strength is in the characters and sense of place, but I fail to see anything of a similarly enduring strength within any political message it espouses. It's amazing to hear Simon the interviewee so blithely undermine Simon the writer of such imagination with his shockingly stale radicalism.

Perhaps an example would clarify (somewhat) what I mean. Take Hamsterdam. It's hilarious, it provides a great foil for that season, and, sure, it raises some "interesting questions" about the War on Drugs, but I don't think - even within the context of the show - that it represents a serious solution to it. And Bunny, it's rogue, "dignified" champion (Simon's would-be double), pursues his project with a pretty clear, career-suicidal knowledge of its futility.

He knows it's a pipe dream (pun intended), but he also knows it won't work. Now, you'll say - and by "you'll" I mean Simon - that if the pernicious institutions of America just gave peace a chance then it could work. But in interviews, the earnestness with which Simon explores the idea of Hamsterdam - in contrast to the whimsical way it is used in the show's narrative - illustrates the significant gap between the critical and creative instincts in the same man.

I hope I'm not being too inflammatory. Sorry to have hijacked.

 

[HuskyBballFan]

M-Funk,

I really mean no offense, but I've been up all night work, so I might not be able to modulate my tone as carefully/politely as I'd like:

Anyway, that highlighted statement seems absurd to me. I bring it up only because it is symptomatic of the type of overblown rhetoric to which HuskyBballfan alludes but then consciously succumbs.

I really don't understand what people think is so difficult to follow about the show. You'll spend more time wondering how Daniels maintains his posture than you will puzzling over his meaning when he employs super-abstruse police argot like "dropping bodies."

Obviously it will be easier for some and more difficult for others. But I can tell you from experience that my 30 year old brother and sister-in-law watched with subtitles until they got the hang of it.

Here's an example which is by no means a spoiler of any kind. There is a scene where Snoop is purchasing a nail gun from Home Depot. It's easy enough to figure out what's going on in the scene (she's purchasing a nail gun from Home Depot), but if you understood more than 20 percent of the words that she speaks during that scene on the first watch, you either grew up on the west-side of Baltimore or you're a heck of a lot more "hip" than the rest of us.

 

[M_Funkhauser43!]

M-Funk,

I really mean no offense, but I've been up all night work, so I might not be able to modulate my tone as carefully/politely as I'd like:

Anyway, that highlighted statement seems absurd to me. I bring it up only because it is symptomatic of the type of overblown rhetoric to which HuskyBballfan alludes but then consciously succumbs.

I really don't understand what people think is so difficult to follow about the show. You'll spend more time wondering how Daniels maintains his posture than you will puzzling over his meaning when he employs super-abstruse police argot like "dropping bodies."

On the political side, I think people may take David Simon the commenter on the show a little too seriously at the expense of the show itself and it's highly ambivalent attitude toward the individuals and institutions it portrays. It's not THAT subversive - it's not the first work of literature or film or TV to toy with good bad guys and bad good guys and what not. I think the show's strength is in the characters and sense of place, but I fail to see anything of a similarly enduring strength within any political message it espouses. It's amazing to hear Simon the interviewee so blithely undermine Simon the writer of such imagination with his shockingly stale radicalism.

No offense taken, though your own rhetoric could use a bit of toning down too. You also seem to blow a hole in your own argument using the example of one poster in this thread and how he wound up buying into the hype.

First off, when I said that the show challenges viewers, I didn't mean that it made itself difficult to follow. The muddling of good guy/bad guy roles is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to "challenging viewers," and The Wire is, as far as I know, the first cops and criminals show to do so. I never said anything about literature or film, but television doesn't typically question the sanctity of American institutions such as the police force and the government. I'd be interested to know of other television shows that do because I'd like to see them as well.

Also, what other show on television has ever dealt with the kind of subject matter with which The Wire deals? Watching kids dealing drugs on street corners, junkies shooting up and teenagers being executed by their peers hasn't typically been the kind of programming most viewers tune into to fill their leisure time. On that level, The Wire is not an easy or comfortable show to watch.

The third way that the Wire challenges viewers is by posing to them the following question: if you measure a society by how it takes care of its most marginalized citizens, how does America stack up? That's really at the heart of Season Four. Did America declare a war on its own citizens when it launched the War on Drugs? That's one of the show's major themes. Whether or not you agree with David Simon's politics is not the point here; the point is that the show asks big questions like those above. I don't know of another television show that asks its viewers to consider a concept as big as American nationalism the way the Wire does.

I'm sorry if you find any of this haughty or pretentious, but it's what I get out of the show. Moreover, it's good drama because, from what I've heard, read and experienced, it's real.

 

[M_Funkhauser43!]

Perhaps an example would clarify (somewhat) what I mean. Take Hamsterdam. It's hilarious, it provides a great foil for that season, and, sure, it raises some "interesting questions" about the War on Drugs, but I don't think - even within the context of the show - that it represents a serious solution to it. And Bunny, it's rogue, "dignified" champion (Simon's would-be double), pursues his project with a pretty clear, career-suicidal knowledge of its futility.

He knows it's a pipe dream (pun intended), but he also knows it won't work. Now, you'll say - and by "you'll" I mean Simon - that if the pernicious institutions of America just gave peace a chance then it could work. But in interviews, the earnestness with which Simon explores the idea of Hamsterdam - in contrast to the whimsical way it is used in the show's narrative - illustrates the significant gap between the critical and creative instincts in the same man.

I hope I'm not being too inflammatory. Sorry to have hijacked.

Um, Hamsterdam isn't a pipe dream. Switzerland, based on a measure passed by 68% of voters, distributes prescription heroin to users and provides sterile environments in which to use. Previous safe zones for heroin distribution and use in Bern and Zurich succeeded in lowering drug-related crime in those cities, but they also drew heroin addicts from further afield where there was less tolerance, making that tactic unsustainable.

Furthermore, the larger point of Hamsterdam is to argue that anyone in an institution of power who challenges the War on Drugs will be immediately shown the door. Suggesting legalization of drugs cost one Baltimore mayor his political career.

 

[Cheddie]

Absolutely fabulous show. Great writing, and great casting. They pulled in a fascinating array of different actors for the show, many of whom are making their mark throughout TV. (Clark Johnson, who played Gus on the Wire, has become a great TV director. Just noticed in the past week that he directed an episode of "Homeland" - also a very good show - and "The Walking Dead.") BTW - Snoop is supposed to be in Hartford at the Wadsworth!

 

[alexrgct]

Here's my take on The Wire.

In some respects, it's a bit overrated, IMO. The cynic in me says I can save you 60+ hours of your life by telling you:

• America's cities are dying, especially those whose economic base used to be heavy industry.
• City leadership is more interested in holding onto power in their eroding fiefdoms than they are fixing the problems.
• The War on Drugs is a huge, embarrassing failure.
• Inner city schools are a glorified holding pen for kids until they turn 18, and No Child Left Behind made things even worse.
• Unions have been rendered ineffective by internal corruption and from attack by the state.
• Newspapers are a dying industry, and lack the courage and conviction to cover the news in a responsible way anymore.
• We are all complex and flawed in our own special ways.

So if you knew all of that already, I don't know that you're going to be fundamentally enlightened by the series.

Here's what I will say. The show is (mostly) very well written and directed, and it develops an endearing set of characters. There are no heros or villians, just people who have bad and good qualities. Some characters you root for more than others, but all have moments of weakness or worse. Additionally, Baltimore itself is a character in the series in a very real and endearing way. I wish someone would make a similar show set in Detroit.

Overall, good show, will affect you emotionally, just not as enlightening an experience as I'd hope for out of the "greatest series ever." Very much worth watching, though.

 

[BlueMAB]

NOT SAFE FOR WORKNOT SAFE FOR WORK

 

[Vuce]

Just starting to watch, what do people think?

One of the best shows of all time.

 

[NaughtybyNapier]

Obviously it will be easier for some and more difficult for others. But I can tell you from experience that my 30 year old brother and sister-in-law watched with subtitles until they got the hang of it.

Here's an example which is by no means a spoiler of any kind. There is a scene where Snoop is purchasing a nail gun from Home Depot. It's easy enough to figure out what's going on in the scene (she's purchasing a nail gun from Home Depot), but if you understood more than 20 percent of the words that she speaks during that scene on the first watch, you either grew up on the west-side of Baltimore or you're a heck of a lot more "hip" than the rest of us.

Lol. Yeah, I got you.

My main objection is to the idea that The Wire "does things" other shows just can't or won't. I don't think that's more true for The Wire than it is for the 5 - 10 other truly classic shows that have emerged in the last 15 years. You're obviously, right, though, too. That scene expertly introduces the character, is very funny, is "authentic" in it's own, all while being 90% unintelligble (at least Snoop's part).

I just don't like the condescending notion that the Wire is the only work of art that's ever been "demanding." Just arguing against that generic idea - which I feel like most you aren't defending anyway.