THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: CookedHaggis on 22 Jul 2007, 16:47
-
Reading this blog (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2007/07/the_wire_is_unmissable_televis.html) over at the grauniad (http://www.guardian.co.uk/) got me thinking about The Wire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire_%28TV_series%29). Again. Currently I'm working my way through series three, where the dealers and police get cut with politicians. It's really, really good. American TV (in contrast, I think, to most other media) does seem to be going through something of a renaissance (The Sopranos, Deadwood, Weeds, Battlestar Galactica, House to name but a few) and The Wire is the pinnacle of this.
It's a shame the UK can't produce anything to touch it, but I suppose that lower budget and especially different broadcast practices (20 episode seasons really come in to their own when dealing with epic, complex, interweaving artistry) don't help. Still, for all the hype around the success of The Office (and Ricky Gervais in general) UK television has been (with the notable exception of the fantastic The Thick of It), at best, mediocre over the last year or so. Great shows like Shameless or even (deviating from fiction) Have I Got News For You seem to have lost their touch, much hyped dramas such as Jeykll are crap and seemingly the only contemporary shows to consistently pull in the plaudits has been Doctor Who (can be fun, but despite the praise seems very uneven) and Life on Mars (which I haven't seen). What happened to great UK comedy programmes or even things like the Beeb's adaptation of Pride & Prejudice? Are there any "must watch" UK TV show right now?
So, yeah, American TV is amazing right now, British TV isn't. What gives?
-
Hooray! I've been telling people here to watch the Wire for ages. They just don't listen. Just wait 'til you get to season 4 - holy shit! I've watched it once by downloading it (sorry David Simon, I know you hate that, but I'm not prepared to wait over a year for it to screen in Australia and I really truly am hanging out to buy it the instant it comes out on D.V.D.) and it's so powerful and moving that I haven't been able to steel myself to watch it a second time yet, even though it's so fucking good. What's your favourite season? Mine's season 2, though after I've watched 4 a few more times they'll probably be neck-and-neck.
-
Get the D.V.D.s. You won't regret it.
-
The Wire is indeed the greatest thing on television.
But as for British TV being lousy, I say unto you: what about Peep Show?
-
Life On Mars, from what I've seen of it, is pretty awesome.
And Never Mind The Buzzcocks, tomselleck69.
-
The Wire is indeed the greatest thing on television.
But as for British TV being lousy, I say unto you: what about Peep Show?
Ok, I forgot Peep Show, my bad. Still, series three wasn't as good as one and two. I mean, the whole dead dog thing was indeed eye-scrunchingly funny and the marriage of embarrasment was a nice twist on the "boy lust after girl, boy eventunally gets girl, boy and girl live happily if comically ever after" formula of most comedies, but they do seem to be slipping away from the original painful plausibility to a more surreal, even "wacky" slant. The internal monologues are always gold though.
And Buzzcocks...yeah, it's good and I like Simon Amstell, but it's hardly got the sharp satirical edge that Have I Got News... used to have. It is, well, "merely" funny, rather than something truly exceptional - there's no real bite or substance behind the jokes.
So, we have The Thick of It and Peep Show. It's hardly a lengthy list though, is it?
Inlander: I think my favourite season so far is the third one. I'm loving the sheer scope it encompasses in taking in the political dimension alongside the original police and the streets, and Stringer Bell, Omar and Bubbles have got to be some of the best characters on TV (even, to go all hyperbolic, in fiction). I'm still not sure if I liked season two more than one...I was kind of thrown that Jimmy basically stayed on the boats the entire time (loved that they had the balls to do that though) and i never quite found the dock arc as enthralling as the drugs trade (I appreciate Simon's skill in continually changing things up and bringing in new themes and elements, but I think I just find the questions and issues raised in the projects more compelling than the unions). Having said that, the last few episodes of the season were phenomenal, with some of the best direction of any TV show I've ever seen (absolutely blown away by the sequence with Frank and Nick talking in front of the power station..very Scorsese).
And you should watch The Wire tommy, because the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who love The Wire and complete idiots.
-
but...but...Doctor Who is kinda good. That's a British show. We get it in here in Canada, and I like watching it when I can. Oh and that 5 part miniseries about gates going to prehistoric places was interesting. So interesting that I seem to have unfortunately forgotten it's name.
I'm really unsure of my grammar in that last sentence.
-
There does seem to have been in increase in quality US shows as of late, but I've never given this "Wire" a try... perhaps I will at some point. It's too bad our cable news networks are absolute garbage though.
Also, someone tell NBC to bring back Studio 60. Pleeeaaaase.
-
Cape Wrath was pretty damn good!
-
It is my opinion that The Wire is the best television show that has ever been on the air ever. Period. It's brilliantly acted, written and directed. My husband and I named our dog McNulty, and my dad (entirely by coincidence because my parents smile and nod when you tell them to watch something and then don't do it) calls him McNutty. I'm partial to the 1st and 4th seasons (though truly, I love them all). The 1st season was just so, so, so fabulous at sucking you into the story and establishing the characters and getting you excited. It was the original, the beginning of the series, and it rocked so hard that even with the teeniest tiniest of fan bases, HBO gave it another season. And the 4th - well, I'm a reformed middle school teacher, so I'm kind of partial to the education story line. Randy is my very favorite new character from last season :) And the 2nd season, with the Russians, ruled! The guy who played Sergei, Chris Ashworth? I went to high school with him - it's kind of cool to watch as his career develops. And then the 3rd season, with everyone converging on Stringer, especially Omar (BEST. CHARACTER. EVER.) and Brother Mouzone... Plus I love Bunny Colvin so much as a character, and the Hamsterdam story was awesome; and we got to see a lot of Carcetti, the sniveling bastard...
Who am I kidding? I adore this show, top to tail, and I cannot wait for the next season to start.......
-
I finally watched The Wire. The first season is just incredible. I recommend it to absolutely everyone.
The rest of the seasons are also fine but I think the very first one is incredibly special.
-
Man I really really really need to get HBO.
-
Welcome to the club, tommy!
-
What a fucking show. What. A. Fucking. Show.
Seriously, it is the best tv show I'v ever watched. Forget your Sopranos, The Wire surpasses it in just about every department.
I actually want to be McNulty. The guy's a fucking asshole but he's the coolest motherfucking asshole on the planet.
-
I actually like Homicide better (same creators and whatnot) but that's mostly just due to Andre Braugher. The Wire is really an achievement, though. Far superior to the Sopranos.
-
I actually want to be McNulty. The guy's a fucking asshole but he's the coolest motherfucking asshole on the planet.
I actually found him an annoying, destructive bastard. I think you're supposed to though. Fellow Britlander Dominic West does a reasonable job with the Irish/American accent I think but maybe yanks thought otherwise? The episode where he had to pretend to be British was pretty amusing. Of the Po-lice I liked Lester, Bunk, Landsman, Daniels and Pryzbyelewski the most. On the street, pretty much any scene with Stringer Bell, Omar or Bubbles was excellent.
I think I might re-watch Season One again just because it was so good. The scene where Bunk and McNulty dress a homicide crime scene with absolutely no dialogue aside from the repeated exclamation of 'Fuck' in different intonations is brilliant. You can watch it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQbsnSVM1zM) even if you haven't seen the Wire, there are no spoilers.
-
I actually like Homicide better (same creators and whatnot) but that's mostly just due to Andre Braugher. The Wire is really an achievement, though. Far superior to the Sopranos.
I agree with everything in this statement. Except maybe the "far superior." The best moments on the Sopranos were as good as The Wire but The Wire was a little more consistently brilliant. I really need to get the Wire on DVD at some point.
-
Fellow Britlander Dominic West does a reasonable job with the Irish/American accent I think but maybe yanks thought otherwise?
I thought he did alright. It was actually learning that he was English that made me attuned to the inconsistencies in his accent, not hearing the inconsistencies and wondering if he might not be American.
-
The scene where Bunk and McNulty dress a homicide crime scene with absolutely no dialogue aside from the repeated exclamation of 'Fuck' in different intonations is brilliant.
There are masses of Baltimore cop/crime in-jokes in the Wire. The show's co-creator David Simon, who wrote the (true crime) book upon which Homicide was based, explains this scene thus:
The five-minute scene offers no explanation for itself beyond the physical activities of the detectives as they address the crime scene and the almost continuous use of the word fuck in all its possible permutations - an insider's homage to the great Terry McLarney, a veteran Baltimore murder police who once predicted that Baltimore cops, in their love of profanity, would one day achieve a new and viable language composed entirely of such.
It's worth reading Simon's book Homicide: a year on the killing streets. Apart from being a fascinating and entertaining read, there are many overlaps between it and Homicide, the series, and the Wire: for instance, the very first (pre-credits) scene of the first episode of the first season is pretty much word-for-word a real anecdote Simon overheard and recounts in the book. More fun facts: Sergeant Jay Landsmann was a real police officer - and in fact he plays Lt. Mello from season 3 onwards. There was a real police informant and addict in Baltimore named Bubbles. The deacon who appears as a minor character from season 3 onwards is played by Little Melvin Williams, who was in his time a drug king-pin in Baltimore and the target of a wiretap investigation on which the series' other creator, Ed Burns, worked when he was a cop, and which inspired much of the Wire.
Oh, and the morgue seasons in the first season were filmed in the actual Baltimore city morgue.
-
I have to agree with Harry on this.
I have spent about six months of my mandatory military service working with homicide, narcotics and underage crime detectives in my home district (which is one of the most crime-ridden districts in Israel). Take the obvious cultural differences aside, that show is pretty much one-to-one how it was.
-
underage crime detectives
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ACV929RDL._SS500_.jpg)
? ? ?
-
(http://i1.iofferphoto.com/img/item/191/006/56/ghostwriter.jpg)
? ? ?
-
Add heroin, prostitution and pedophilia and you've pretty much covered it.
Also, our soundtrack were the mosques of Ramla. It has corners and everything.
-
I have to say I disagree with you on the British TV not being so good lately thing. And I think the length of seasons is totally personal preference, I actually like them a lot shorter, than drawn out like the American ones always seem to be.
-
The Ed Burns who worked on the Wire is also a producer of the miniseries "Generation: Kill" about a recon company of Marines in Iraq War II. I recommend it for anyone who likes the Wire. It's not quite as accessible, but I think it's pretty good.
Also, you get to see Ziggy play a character similar to Ziggy but not as fucking dumb.
-
Indeed, Generation Kill is great. And I know some dudes in the service who swear up and down that it accurately depicts what it's like to be out there day-to-day (see: lots of sitting around) The AV Club is keeping up a blow-by-blow blog (Loblaw Lobs Law Bomb!) up on it.
-
You guys have successfully convinced me to watch The Wire. I won't say I haven't thought about it but I just haven't gotten around to it. Actually I think you may be right about britTV. The thing is I enjoyed things like Spaced and Black Books and Doctor Who. Only one of which is still on. :(
I did really enjoy Life on Mars :mrgreen: though and Ashes to Ashes, although no where near as good, isn't awful either...I guess.
-
See, I think the exact opposite. All the good shows on American TV are on HBO (Deadwood, The Wire, haven't seen [/i]Sopranos[/i]...too much of an investment). There is of course Mad Men and Battlestar Galactica (which I think is good, but exhausting to watch) on basic cable, and Pushing Daisies on network TV. But that's maybe 8 shows. It seems you forget that American TV has over 400 Channels, easy. And while I enjoy me some trashy TV ( Wife Swap the various house flipping shows on TDC, TLC et al.) I often long for TV that doesn't assume I'm retarded or on a sugar high. I like watching Ross Kemp's show on gangs, and all the BBC documentary series, and, to be completely honest, I really like watching Top Gear. I'm not a car person, but it's so entertaining.
y I liked the first season of Life on Mars, but the show went into a steep nosedive in the second season and had one of the most disappointing finales I can remember seeing. And I disagree with the person who said Peep Show hasn't been as good lately. I think the first three seasons are, overall spectacular, and while the later ones can be hit or miss, when they hit, they hit motherfucking HARD. Plus, repeat viewings of the episodes oftentimes end up being funnier than they were the first time around, which is rare in a lot of comdies.
-
however i don't reside in america so we onyl get the half decent shows imported...and then for somereason screened at ungodly hours
i have jsut bought my third season of the wire and am now losing sleep because of it
-
Also, The Wire and Deadwood struggled every single year of their existance for funding because ratings were so low. Stands to reason, of course, that the best TV shows are barely appreciated in their time. Meanwhile, people can't get enough of dancing with the fucking stars.
-
I just got into The Wire. A bit into season two, it kinda reminds me of what Law and Order would be like if Law and Order was seriously brilliant and full of awesome characters and really well written. Deadwood was also incredible. The day it was canceled was a tragic day for television.
-
When my wife and I were on our honeymoon, she had trouble sleeping and we ended up watching bad British TV in the wee hours of the morning. Some shows were good and entertaining - Hotel Babylon and Cold Feet (although since all the titles were in Finnish, it was hard to figure out what they were called) - but some were, like you're saying, just awful. One had hairdressers fighting ninjas in the streets. If anyone could tell me what was going on there, I'd really be astounded. It made no sense at all.
-
Cold Feet does have very good writing. Of course, the only reason I know this is because my girlfriend has been obsessed with the show since it appeared on Bravo some years ago.
Also, I can't forget about Black Books, which, though sadly over, had a great three seasons. Also, Russell Brand's Ponderland is some of the best TV out there now, anywhere.
-
Not a whole lot on TV right now is good. Ever since the great HBO series ended (Sopranos, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, The Wire and even Rome) there just hasn't been much of anything worth watching. Lost is still pretty excellent and I have high hopes for the final two seasons, Generation Kill is apparently a rather good mini-series and that new vampire show on HBO sounds potentially cool. As far as I can tell, that's kind of it. Is there anything on right now that even approaches the excellence of those now defunct series?
-
Mad Men out on the AMC.
I also like the Shield, but it's sort of pulpy and at this point Vic Mackey has squeaked through so many incredibly difficult situations it's sort of becoming routine and I don't know how they're going to end the series right.
I don't get to watch much brit TV, but what I do get to watch are brit mystery / Inspector series. What I generally like to do is pick out a character who's brought in early in the story to help the Inspector in some way and say "that's the guy who done it!". I'm nine for eleven so far (never forget) Come on Inspector Lynley, don't be so thick. Or at least don't inhabit a world that's so obvious.
-
Oh right, I forgot about Dexter. It is pretty great from the few episodes I've seen. I'm not a huge fan of House but that's probably because I'm not a fan of medical shows in general. Mad Men looks good too. I guess I just feel like a golden age has come and gone.
-
I totally agree on the Inspector Lynley point above. If you like that you might try renting the Agatha Christie mystery stuff. Its good and pretty true to the books (which I love).
God save wttw. :) Which is what I watch that on.
-
Spooks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spooks) is a pretty good British TV show, it's about a team of MI5 agents and is like the British equivalent of Alias without the craziness.
-
So I'm going through the first season again (that's as far as I got, only sporadically kept up with the series after that) but I still can't watch McNulty's scenes with his kids. But it's still great writing, I guess. He's so absorbed in the job that he doesn't see anything wrong with bringing an (admittedly harmless) junkie or a hardened stick-up man along with them during visits. Or using them as fucking surveillance. I think Tommy's right, he's a crazy asshole. But as Landsman said, that's what makes him good police.
And I'll just say again that anybody who really liked the first season of the Wire should check out Homicide if they haven't already.
-
So it's a month later, and I just watched the final episode of the series. I teared up there in a few places, especially the last Bubs scene. Perfect ending, almost literary in the way it ushers out major characters while establishing that minor characters will take their places, in very overt ways. McNutty lives!
Anyhow, enough of that. What was everyone's favorite scene from the Wire, would you say? I know you've got one. For me, there are two, both of which feature Bill Rawls, the hack Police Boss. The first is in season 1, after the undercover debacle, when Rawls takes McNulty aside and tells him that even though he fucking hates the guy, even he cannot blame McNulty for what happened. When I saw that I knew that the Wire was a show of a different caliber - up until that point (and hell, after that point) Rawls was painted as a shitty boss and a self-serving boob, but in that moment he was shown to have something approaching a conscience. The second scene was in season 3. A split-second reaction shot of Bill Rawls in a gay bar. My biggest laugh of the year.
-
Geez man, do you have any idea what you're asking of us here? Damn!
I'm just about to go on a binge and watch the whole thing from episode 1 of season 1 to episode 10 of season 10 - as soon as I get my season 1 D.V.D.s back from my friend who's had them forever (I'm gonna make back-ups to lend out from now on). I'll have answers for you then.
Um, SPOILERS from here on, I guess.
For now, though, I can say categorically that the most haunting scene of all for me was from the last season, when Michael's made his break with Marlo's crew and he's dropping Dukie off before going underground, and Dukie's trying to reminisce with him, and says "You remember that time . . ." and then describes a scene from the beginning of season 4, and Michael can't remember it. Just that one little moment highlights the massive psychological trauma suffered by these kids drawn into the drug trade.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2WyBRwoElM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2WyBRwoElM)
-
Season 4 has a number of really good moments. The child actors they got are all really good.
The scene where Wee-Bey mans up and does the right thing for his son at the end of the season was really great. Randy's last scene with Carver was pretty wrenching.
Honestly, I take back what I said about Homicide being better earlier in the thread. Homicide, for being as daring as it was for network television, definitely had some pretty mediocre episodes and bad casting decisions, especially in the later seasons. I don't believe there's a single bum note in the entirety of The Wire's run. Even the weakest parts, like the season five newspaper storyline (which got a pretty heavy drubbing from the press - doth the lady protest too much?) had some great moments and bits of writing.
Man, this show is so good.
Given the field's so open with scenes, what was everybody's favorite supporting character? I don't mean a secondary character like Omar or Bubs, who aren't stars of the show but are nonetheless fairly prominent. I mean characters who are pretty well defined despite not having any scenes really being about them specifically. My favorite would probably be Slim Charles, the right hand man of Avon Barksdale in the third season, and Prop Joe in the fourth and fifth seasons. It's shown that he's as cold of a murderer as any of the gangsters in the show, but he's nonetheless shown to be such a consummate professional that you have to root for him. When a hit job gets botched in the third season he doesn't hesitate at all to fess up to his (perceived) mistake despite what consequences could follow from it. He's unfailingly loyal, lacking in hubris and foolish ambition, and he's not afraid of anybody, but it's clear he's not a sociopath like Chris Partlow, who is alike him in many ways. The AV Club described him as a "samurai", and I think that's pretty apt. His last scene had me cheering.
Anybody? Snoop? Blind Butchie and his associates? Brother Mouzone? Clay Davis?
Come on, sheeeeeeeeeeeit, I want to talk about this show with people. I came to the party late.
-
I think my favourite "supporting character" is Chris. He's just so outside the box compared to all the other gangsters - the way he dresses, the way he's so softly spoken. Sometimes I catch myself thinking of him as "gentle", but then I remember what a cold-blooded killer he is. But then, even when he's killing someone - except for that one notable occasion - he tries to make it as calm a process as possible, including for the victim. I guess he kind of takes the same attitude you would when putting down a dog. It makes him seem nicer than all the other gangsters somehow - which is absurd, because he's probably the most ruthless killer in the whole show.
Also, I forgot about this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2h9mCZuVG4) little scene. So good!
-
May not be my favorite scene, but I really like the begining of All Due Respect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Due_Respect_(The_Wire_episode)) (2nd episode, 3rd season). Where right before Omar takes Barksdale's stash - posing as a veteran returning from the hospital - one of the "guards" in the stash house tells his friend how he was approached by an "old white guy" and was asked "where the Poe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe_House_and_Museum) house is".
Of course, the paper bag speech by Major Colvin is brilliant. Also credited to Ed Burns.
-
Season 4 sees the arrival of Kellerman (played by Reed Diamond), who's one of the most significant characters in the show, while season 5 brings in a new M.E. played by Michelle Forbes, who also brings something really cool and interesting to the show. In these two seasons they also start exploring the inner lives of the characters in some really interesting ways, with Pembleton struggling with his faith and Bayliss exploring his sexuality. These seasons also have the ongoing Luther Mahoney storyline, which was pretty good and which resulted in a classic "fuck you!" from the writers to the network.
Of course, there are also a few dud episodes, but with the network by that time asking for "full" seasons (20-odd episodes) that was bound to happen.
-
The show suffers a bit from network televisionitis, but yeah, the Luther Mahoney storyline is a good one. As with many things on Homicide, you can trace a direct lineage from it to the Wire, and other edgy cop shows to come, particularly the Shield.
Richard Belzer's Munch (based on Jay Landsman) gets a little tiring at times, but in general he never truly breaks the tone of the show (I'm looking at you, Hiro from Heroes) but I disagree with Tommy in that I think all the character actors are excellent, even fucking Daniel Baldwin. Yaphet Kotto is commanding even when he's got nothing to do.
But to answer your question, the show is good and stays good up until Andre Braugher's departure, he's not in the last season. At that point the show had something of an identity crisis.
-
I forgot to mention that after season 3 you start to get Pembleton and Bayliss working more as a team in the box, which if you appreciate good character acting and writing is really great to watch.
-
It's true, watching the Wire does make it impossible to enjoy any other police show ever again. Though if the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ever makes Phoenix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(TV_series)) available on D.V.D., that might change.
-
Anyone who by implication says that Midsomer Murders is not an accurate well-written account of the British police procedural system is a damn dirty liar.
I mean, this ... this Wire series obviously is some kind of americanised Midsomer Murders clone, right?
Right.
-
For fans of the show (probably not for people who haven't seen it) /film has an immense 3 1/2 hour podcast (http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/12/10/filmcast-ep-29-hbo-the-wire-series-review-guests-alan-sepinwall-and-myles-mcnutt/) on the Wire, featuring Alan Sepinwall, who is probably the most prominent and respected TV blogger on the internets (you can find his write-ups of currently running shows here (http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/) as well as commentary on the 1st season of the Wire in spoilerific and spoiler-free versions for those just catching up with the Wire, as well as reviews of Seasons 4 and 5) Good stuff!
-
Not all brit tv sucks, the new series of Spooks and that new drama survivors are pretty good.
-
For fans of the show . . .
Thanks for that, it was pretty interesting to listen to while I was working. Though, was it just my imagination, or did they spend three-and-a-quarter hours talking about the Wire and not mention Bunk even once?!
-
Wasn't just you. No mention of Daniels either!
-
I just got a Seasons 1-5 in China, I will watch it when I get back to Sydney.
-
This show is so damn good! It's pretty near flawless. I'm part way through season 2, trying my best to catch up and seriously tempted to watch more instead of writing the paper's that are worth half my grade this semester. Seriously, everything about it is brilliant and I'm truly sad it's off the air and I'll only be able to watch three more seasons of it after this one.
-
Season 4 is maybe the best season of TV ever made. I thought nothing could top Season 1, but Season 4 was just... amazing. Season 5 was kind of disappointing, but it has grown on me.
-
Damned if I'm going to let this thread slip off the front page like that.
-
Well played, sir.
Has anyone seen The Corner yet? It was showing on FX in the UK not long ago and i didn't get a chance to see it. I heard that it was pretty much the same cast as The Wire so i have high hopes for whenever i do get the chance.
I do know that it is in fact from 2000 for anyone who may have suspected otherwise.
-
The Corner is very different in tone from the Wire. It's still rewarding viewing - though grim, as it doesn't shy away from depicting the ravages on the human body of long-term drug addiction - but if you go into it expecting to see the Wire: the prequel you'll be disappointed. It does indeed have many of the same actors as the Wire, but none of them in the main roles and all of them in very different roles from those they play in the Wire. Clarke Peters, for instance, who played Freamon in the Wire, plays a drug addict in the Corner.
Unlike the Wire, the Corner depicts only one aspect of the "War on Drugs" , namely, the lives of the addicts and their families and friends, so don't expect the wide-ranging examination of city life that you get in the Wire. Also, the Corner is filmed as a mixture of faux-documentary and slice-of-life human drama, so it doesn't have any of the great dramatic sweep of the Wire. It's altogether a more small-scale, intimate examination of inner-city life.
It's a good series, and worth watching, but you might not find it as gripping or as entertaining - for want of a better word - as the Wire.
-
Hey Britons, now you've got no excuse not to watch the Wire: apparently the Beeb is going to start showing it nightly on B.B.C. 2, from first episode to last, starting on the 30th of March. That's next Monday. Do yourselves a favour!
In other news, late last year the Australian Broadcasting Corporation finally released season 1 of their acclaimed early-nineties police procedural Phoenix on D.V.D. This might be of interest to Wire fans because it also follows a single police investigation over the course of the entire season, step-by-step and in deeply authentic detail. Sure, a lot of the production techniques and stylistic choices have aged poorly, but it's definitely worth checking out if you're interested in this kind of thing.
-
I'm putting this back on the front page to tell all the Australians who may not know that ABC2 will be showing season one Tuesdays at 9:30, starting tomorrow.
I am going to piss off so many people by making sure absolutely everyone knows about it over the next thirtysomething hours.
-
Oh good, I'm glad someone else did this for me!
I read in a review that they're showing seasons 1-3, which sort of makes sense in that that's basically the complete Barksdale storyline, but I'd be surprised if they don't end up showing the others, too. Channel 9 might still have the rights to Season 5 as, to the best of my knowledge, they haven't screened it yet in Australia (they've screened all the other seasons, though so late at night and with so little fanfare that you probably missed them). Also, ABC2 is showing the first two episodes back-to-back, which is probably a good idea as the first episode is a bit bumpy. I don't know if they're going to continue doing that throughout the entire run.
Has anyone else noticed how TV reviewers and other people are finally starting to talk about this show? I think a lot of people have caught up with it since it came out on DVD. About time!
-
It would be a real shame if they don't show all five. I enjoyed the first three seasons the most by far, the Hamsterdam plotline was the peak for me, but when you take the show as a whole it absolutely needs those last two seasons. Aside from perhaps a little too much schmaltz in season four, one character who was a bit too stereotyped (the academic) and that plot in season five being perhaps a little far-fetched I don't think they could have been made any better, and they're completely necessary for broadening the scope to the level needed and emphasising the cyclical nature of life in West Baltimore. Even those criticisms are things I'd have barely noticed in almost any other piece of art, it's a testament to The Wire's incredibly high standards across the board and the amount of time it's prompted me to spend thinking about the programme that I even registered them.
-
I've watched each of the seasons at least three times, and some of them four or five times, and for some reason I could never really get into season 3. It just never quite seemed to get into gear for me, it never seemed to quite get up to those incredible Wire heights and I couldn't see why so many people count it as their favourite. But just recently I watched the whole series all the way through from season 1 episode 1 to season 5 episode 10 for the first time and I finally got season 3. I realised that, in effect, the Hamsterdam story is the B-plot; the real story is the decline and fall of the Barksdale empire. And when I watched it like that, as the culmination of three seasons' worth of storytelling, it was amazing.
As for season 5, it's clearly the weakest of the lot but it does have rewards and, as with all season of the Wire, it only gets better with repeat viewing. I like to think of the serial killer storyline as something of a satire on other, lesser cop shows, with their obsession with over-the-top serial killers: the only time the Wire features what a villain who'd be recognised as a serial killer in the conventional sense, and it's all made up!
-
* Warning: this post is chock full of spoilers. *
I think I saw it in reverse to you so to speak, because the first time I saw it I enjoyed Hamsterdam but a huge part of my attention was given over to all the "that's fucking brilliant" moments related to the Barksdale plotline. The dream team of Brother Mouzone and Omar with their fantastic Western-styled face-off, Avon being brought down, Bell and Bunny meeting in the graveyard, neither Stringer nor Avon being able to look at Brianna when she brings Avon the accusations over D'Angelo's death (possibly the best single scene they ever did) and of course Stringer's death. You really couldn't ask for a better end for the Barksdale story, the whole thing is superbly crafted. On subsequent viewings I found myself drawn more to Hamsterdam and Bubbles, and trying to think through what was going on with Hamsterdam as a ghetto within the ghetto.
I never thought about the serial killer plot like that. Although I'd hazard that it might be The Wire criticising itself as much as other cop shows. One of the reasons I think season five is so crucial to The Wire when taken as a whole is because it's where they most directly apply their lense to the media and it's role in what happens, and The Wire is part of the media. I never felt like they gave themselves an easier ride than anyone else, critiquing their own biased viewpoint and the limitations of their medium while they were ripping apart the war on drugs, urban economic decline, the education system and just about everything else.
-
Thread necro from beyond the grave!
So I am three episodes into Season Five and mostly I was hoping to get other people's opinions on the "serial killer" plotline, especially re: it's plausibility.
As far as I can tell based on other places I've read (mostly Alan Sepinwall's INCREDIBLE blogs on The Wire: thank you so much John for linking to them, they have really really helped me pick up on all of the connections and callbacks and myriad characters and significant stuff I never would've got on my own) that the general mood towards that storyline was that it was a complete misstep for the show and based on everything that had come before was completely out of tune.
I however see it as being completely in line with McNulty's character, and even when Lester joins in at the end of Ep.3 I think it still makes sense, as both characters' most basic attribute is a willingness to not only fuck everybody else over, but also to throw themselves on the fire in service of getting their man. Remember that when we first met Lester he'd been shuffled away to the pawn shop unit for doing pretty much the exact same thing years earlier.
My only gripe with it is that it all seems a bit rushed and there is a tad lacking in the subtlety ('there's a "b" in "subtle"?') department, which to me is an unfortunate but also understandable side effect of being cut down to ten episodes in Season Five, while still expanding the scope out to include the newspaper as well as the cops, dealers, politicians and so on and on and on.
-
I think I've said it in this thread before somewhere, but I've always liked to think of the "serial killer" plotline as a satire on other American cop shows, almost all of which are utterly obsessed with serial killers.
Also Dovey, how's your emotional state post-Season 4?
-
(mostly Alan Sepinwall's INCREDIBLE blogs on The Wire: thank you so much John for linking to them, they have really really helped me pick up on all of the connections and callbacks and myriad characters and significant stuff I never would've got on my own)
N/P. Sepinwall writes about a lot of great shows, but he made his name on the Wire stuff, for good reason. He's in the middle of a labor of love going over the seasons of the Wire and posting a second set of reviews that reevaluate the show for those who've already seen it, because The Wire is just the kind of show that gets better on second viewing. When you're done with that check out Sportnsight, which is for me far and away the best thing Aaron Sorkin has ever done, West Wing be damned (Sorkin apparently hates Sepinwall for being a big critic of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). I think he also had some good commentary on In Treatment.
I however see it as being completely in line with McNulty's character, and even when Lester joins in at the end of Ep.3 I think it still makes sense, as both characters' most basic attribute is a willingness to not only fuck everybody else over, but also to throw themselves on the fire in service of getting their man. Remember that when we first met Lester he'd been shuffled away to the pawn shop unit for doing pretty much the exact same thing years earlier.
My only gripe with it is that it all seems a bit rushed and there is a tad lacking in the subtlety ('there's a "b" in "subtle"?') department, which to me is an unfortunate but also understandable side effect of being cut down to ten episodes in Season Five, while still expanding the scope out to include the newspaper as well as the cops, dealers, politicians and so on and on and on.
Maybe you haven't gotten to this yet (and it's not really a spoiler) but the main gripe that Sepinwall had was that the Newspaper storyline really does feel like score settling on David Simon's part, coming out of the journalism business a bitter idealist the way he did and seeing the fourth estate reduced to ruin. It's a valid complaint, especially when you compare the Newspaper storyline characters to characters from other seasons of the show. They don't feel nearly as fleshed out - the editors are well and truly idiots, the white guy is an opportunist, Clark Johnson is the principled Simon stand-in, etc. As savage as the Wire universe was there were very few real villains (at least until Marlo Stanfield enters the picture) yet the paper administrators have no redeeming qualities at all. Perhaps that's a function of the squashed time limit (though past seasons had just as much plot and never felt nearly this constricted).
But if you're worried that all this will mean the game ending on a muddled or bad note, I wouldn't.
-
I've watched season 5 a few times now and I think there are more subtle shades in some of the newspaper characters than they're given credit for. The editor (can't remember his name, but he's played by the guy who was Mel's husband in Flight of the Conchords) strikes me as being someone who deep down knows he's peddling bullshit, but has decided to toe the company line to save his own skin. Gus Haynes meanwhile is not entirely, I feel, the golden saint he's usually described as: early in the season there's a scene where he completely brushes Templeton off by saying something like "That's good, stay hungry" - and this is before he's even started to have doubts about Templeton's work. I get the sense that Haynes clearly plays favourites and that if you're not his favourite it would be very frustrating trying to work under him and get yourself noticed.
Of course it's very arguable that these kinds of subtle shades of grey come almost entirely from the actors and/or directors rather than from the script.
-
Yep Harry pretty much said what I was going to. I generally think that any gripes about the newspaper storyline and it's applicability to the goings-on in a real newspaper can be applied to any other area of the show. There are certain aspects and events which have been amplified or simplified for storytelling expediency, and generally most characters have direct analogues with other characters on the show, particularly within the police hierarchy. It's worth thinking about the portrayal of a character like Bill Rawls or even Daniels in the first season and comparing that with the roles newspaper characters play with regards to their institution.
Sepinwall repeatedly states that the complaints leveled at newspaper characters have more to do with reviewers and writers being more familiar with a newsroom than a police station or a drug corner and so inaccuracies are more apparent and takes the veneer off of what they previously saw as The Wire's infallible adherence to facts. The Wire was never 100% accurate, it's just most people never knew better, and it was still many orders of magnitude more accurate than anything else out there.
For the record I work in a newspaper's editorial department and seen the effect of the decline of print media (including two rounds of redundancies that went through the entire company in the past two years) and so have witnessed first-hand idealistic journalists have to make do with some very limiting realities. So when the editor makes his "do more with less" statements or dismisses Gus in their debate over the education series, I have a lot more sympathy with him than maybe most do who simply see him as another bureaucrat standing in the way of the truth in the vein of a Burrell or pretty much any of the political characters who aren't Carcetti.
John is right that they are pretty one-dimensional but in my opinion even though they pretty much serve as conduits for a viewpoint but I don't think those viewpoints are as concrete good/bad as it might seem.
-
I don't get to watch much brit TV, but what I do get to watch are brit mystery / Inspector series. What I generally like to do is pick out a character who's brought in early in the story to help the Inspector in some way and say "that's the guy who done it!".
Ebert called it (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050306/GLOSSARY/50309011/1005).
-
If you are in New York this Saturday and you've got some money to splurge, you are one lucky motherfucker:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/play-paintball-with-the-cast-of-the-wire-this-satu,41925/ (http://www.avclub.com/articles/play-paintball-with-the-cast-of-the-wire-this-satu,41925/)
-
Bump bump bump to say that Sepinwall has finished his Wire recaps with the end of season 3 as of a few months ago (convenient as I am rewatching the series with my girlfriend (her first time) and just finished s3 last night) over at his new blog at HitFix.com. The "veterans" versions (including s4+5 spoilers) can be found here (http://www.hitfix.com/tv/the-wire-season-3-veterans/headlines/recaps). He also conducted an interview with George Pelecanos on his contributions to the series, particularly his always brilliant-and-heartbreaking penultimate episodes right here (http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/the-wire-george-pelecanos-talks-about-middle-ground).
EDIT: I'd just also like to talk a little about Season 3 in general, which I found very flat and unsatisfying the first time I watched it, but am certainly more convinced of this time. I think part of the reason I didn't enjoy S.3 the first time around was because a lot of it is actually laying groundwork for the two seasons to follow (a ballsy move by Simon and co., considering they didn't actually know they were getting a Season 4 while they were making S.3, and indeed wouldn't get it for 22 months) by introducing Tommy & the City Hall plotlines and Marlo & his crew and Cutty & his gym and setting Prez up for his exit from the BPD and his switch to teaching, as well as a lot of other characters and situations that will reverberate on down through the rest of the series (Slim Charles, looking deeper into Prop Joe's organisation, Omar realising that he needs to continue his vendetta against the Barksdale crew by himself, leading to his gradual decline and fall in S.5, heck there's even a brief bit of newspaper intrigue).
I think it also helped that I am watching the seasons in much closer succession than the first time I saw them, meaning that not only do S.3's connections to S.4 and S.5 become more clear, but the way that S.3 is a culmination of a lot of what happened in the first two seasons carries a lot more weight as well, meaning something like the scene where Brianna confronts Stringer and Avon about the possibility of D's death being a murder, or pretty much any scene with Avon and Stringer together have all the tension and subtext come through clear as day.
Season 3 of The Wire is the mathematical center of the show, but it's also the dramatic center, with most of the plotlines serving as bridges to past or future events. Viewed this way, the Hamsterdam plotline begins to make a lot more sense as well, in that The Wire is largely a story about the inescapable and cyclical nature of institutions, be they political institutions, or ingrained methods of doing police work, or The Game. And Hamsterdam (and to a lesser extent, Stringer's ideas about running The Game) is an example of what happens when someone attempts to step outside of that cycle and use counter-intuitive methods to better the lot of the people in The Game (or in Stringer's case, simply insulate himself from the inherent dangers of the current way The Game is played, dangers which eventually get him killed). It is important in the overall structure of the series that this comes in the middle, after an awful lot of business-as-usual before it, and an awful lot of the same after it. Particularly in the way that Hamsterdam itself falls, due largely to many separate parties all assuming the worst about each other- despite the fact that secretly and without each others knowledge, they're all looking for a way to keep Hamsterdam running, if only they could insulate themselves from the negative press. Seasons 1 and 2 do an awful lot of contending that the world doesn't necessarily need to be the way it is, Season 3 shows us how that this is true, and then 4 & 5 confirm the true nature of things, often ramped up to extreme levels with Marlo's ever-growing pile of bodies or Season 5's musical chairs with the Police Commissioner position.
-
First of all I'd just like to high-five you for the Sepinwall mention. Sepinwall's newbie reviews are what convinced me to watch the entire series, which I finally did over the course of something like two weeks this summer because I had way too much fucking free time.
I don't think I really have time for an in-depth response right now because I should be studying for my BC Calc test tomorrow, but...
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that season three was flat and unsatisfying, but I definitely do agree with you that part of the reason it may seem so was that it was less of a self-contained story (seasons 1 and 2) and more of the sprawling portrait of a profoundly fucked city (and world) that The Wire turned out to be. The first two seasons focused pretty much entirely on one "faction" plus the police, while season three brought in a whole bunch of new players who didn't always seem quite relevant to the rest of what was going on (i.e. my man Cutty).
That said, I still loved season three. Stringer Bell ended up as probably my favorite character, and the episode in which he died may be my favorite of the series. His death scene and the scene between him and Avon on the balcony are both pretty mindblowing. And I'd say it is indeed the most hopeful of the seasons, with Carcetti, McNulty, and Cutty all ending on pretty high notes. And Bubbs has a new protege. And, even though Hamsterdam didn't exactly work out, it at least demonstrated that, if the self-perpetuation machine that is every institution in The Wire can ever get their collective acts together, there are ways to make things better.
One thing that did kind of annoy me (even though I know it was intentional) was how petty and basically incompetent Avon seemed in season 3, especially compared to Stringer. I know, I know, he's just a gangsta and all that, but after seeing Avon in season one it was pretty painful to watch Avon in the later seasons.
Still, I'd say that it's definitely better than season five. Season five, while still great, probably suffered from the reduced episode count. For one thing, the newspaper storyline never really went anywhere, and the Sun people were pretty black and white (Klebanow and Whiting are idiots, Scott is a tool, Gus is the marvelous maverick maven of newspaper). Simon also took the cyclical theme a bit two far in the portrayals of Sydnor as McNulty 2.0 and Mike as Omar 2: Electric Boogaloo, IMO. Sydnor seemed like too much of an upstanding dude to be a McNulty, and while Mike as Omar at least makes sense, he didn't really need to be a direct reincarnation with the same mannerisms and everything. But hey artistic license and all that.
Seriously though I need to study for my test now.
EDIT: Oh and here is an only semi-relevant but potentially interesting new project that Dominic West is working on. (http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-wires-dominic-west-to-star-in-mad-menesque-bri,47626/)
-
It's pretty saddening that aside from a few exceptions, the principal actors of the Wire haven't done much good high-profile work elsewhere. Idris Elba's gotten cast in Tyler Perry films but he also just wrapped up the second series of his cop-on-the-edge (think Prime Suspect, Cracker, etc.) show Luther, and the first series was delightful. Aside from playing a villain opposite another floundering HBO actor in an execrable Punisher film, Dominic West hasn't done much. It's nice to hear that he's getting the chance to anchor another series.
-
Speaking of which, Cutty showed up in a brief cameo in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia recently! That was the cause of much double-takes among me and my girl, particularly because we had just finished S.3 a few nights earlier.
-
I just started watching the first episode. Holy shit, even the pre-credits scene was good. And having (a cover of) a Tom Waits song for the theme doesn't hurt.
-
Honestly, for most of the first episode I was really just trying to figure out who was who and what the fuck was going on. But then it started to click and became fantastic.
It really is a shame about many Wire alums not getting the work they deserve. Although Wendell Pierce (Bunk) and Clarke Peters (Cool Lester Smooth) have been kept in the David Simon stable for Treme. Although I honestly didn't like Peters' Big Chief Lambreaux story in Treme that much.
And re: Cutty, he didn't get too much to do in It's Always Sunny, but I did enjoy his muttering "pregnant" at Dee.
Oh, and Aidan Gillen (Carcetti) is playing Littlefinger in the HBO A Game of Thrones adaptation. Which makes me unspeakably happy.
-
Honestly, the rest of the episode was disappointing after that. They really nailed that first scene, but the need to do plot after that limited the rest of it.
-
I just started watching the first episode. Holy shit, even the pre-credits scene was good. And having (a cover of) a Tom Waits song for the theme doesn't hurt.
They do a different version every season. The original is one of them... Either two or three, I can't remember. Season four's is sung by the child actors and five is sung by Steve Earle.
-
Season 1 is the Blind Boys of Alabama, season 2 is the original, season 3 is the Neville Brothers, season 4 is a bunch of kids, and season 5 is Steve Earle. The versions for seasons 3 and 4 were recorded especially for the show. All versions except Steve Earle's are on the soundtrack C.D.! Steve Earle's version is on his own album that came out in the same year as season 5 screened. (But his version is the weakest of the lot.)
-
Steve Earle's version is on his own album that came out in the same year as season 5 screened. (But his version is the weakest of the lot.)
:psyduck:
-
Nah it's true. My ranking of the various versions goes in order of which season they were used in, funnily. Except maybe I'd switch around the original and the Blind Boys version. They're pretty close. Ideally you'd take the music of the Blind Boys version and have Tom sing on it.
Honestly, for most of the first episode I was really just trying to figure out who was who and what the fuck was going on. But then it started to click and became fantastic.
Absolutely, me too. I definitely appreciated Season 1 a lot more the second time, when I wasn't worried about trying to remember who each character was and just focus on plot. The Wire is a show which really rewards re-watching. It actually makes a lot of the shocks and twists of the show resonate deeper when you know what is going to happen in the lead-up, as opposed to feeling like you've been spoiler'd. The second (and third and so on) time around you'll catch the foreshadowing and all the groundwork laid down to make events fall into place, and see it unfolding in excruciating slow motion. As Freamon says "every piece matters".
-
I've actually only rewatched part of the first season, as I only finished the series for the first time a few months ago, but I can see how that would be the case.
For the music, the Blind Boys of Alabama and the original Tom Waits versions are both amazing. I think I slightly prefer the original. I liked DoMaJe and Steve Earle's takes as well. Personally, my least favorite version was the Neville Brothers. All that banging. Season three, while one of my favorites, was the only one that I fast forwarded through the credits.