The Wire

[Seven of Five]

I just finished watching the first season and I'm still scraping my from off the floor. The show is beautifully constructed. Every scene is just dialogue between excellent characters, with occasional background music that mostly derives from car radios.

The first few episodes may have been a little hard to follow; I certainly lost track of a few of Barksdale's gang's nicknames. As soon as the characters are set up and the plot is in motion though, the show just wouldn't put me down. Excellent writing, excellent acting; there wasn't one bad episode. All of the characters had gone through some sort of arc by the end. Why haven't I watched this sooner?

I'm looking forward to season 2. Who else loves this show?

 

[Goliath]

*Raises hand*

Can't wait for the final DVD set.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Absolutely. Without exaggerating, The Wire is the single best show ever on television. From start to finish. Why this show didn't get more critical acclaim (and better viewership) is simply mind-boggling to me.

 

[mimic]

I've seen Season 1-4 and cannot wait to get Season 5. I'd never heard of this show until Newsweek did a piece on it back in January, but was interested enough to check it out. It has, without doubt, become my favorite show and I suspect that will not ever change. McNulty, Bunk, Lester, Bubbles, D'Angelo, Stringer, Omar, Bodie - I love these guys.

 

[Roger Wilco]

^^

Spoiler: wire

There are so many great and memorable characters in The Wire, it would be useless to name them all, but my favourite is Snoop, that scene when she buys the nail gun is as scary as tv can get.

 

[mimic]

Hehe, yeah. There are many I like from later seasons but didn't want to spoil anybody.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Yeah, I thought about using spoiler tags, but is just mentioning names spoilerish? If so, I'm sorry. Or I'll just edit my post.

 

[Goliath]

Why this show didn't get more critical acclaim (and better viewership) is simply mind-boggling to me.

I was under the impression that the show was highly acclaimed by critics. It was recently voted the eleventh best TV show of all time in some list or other.

As for why it didn't get a better viewership--well, not everybody likes cop shows. What's more, I think it may have failed to appeal to much of the cop-show audience by being:

1. Too realistic. I think most people watch TV to escape from reality, not to have their faces plunged into it.
2. Too downbeat. See above.
3. Too complex. The whole "novel-for-television" idea works great if you follow the show closely from the beginning, but it must discourage casual, drop-in viewers.
4. Too slow. The show really takes its time--something which is going to appeal to some people, but not others. It may simply demand a greater investment than most viewers are prepared to make.

(Having recently re-watched it from the beginning to the end of Season Five, I realized that The Shield has also tried to follow a "novel for television" format--but livens things up with a lot of slam-bang action and "cases of the week" to draw in casual viewers. Raymond Chandler once said that when he didn't know how to continue a story, he had someone bust into the room with a gun. The Shield does something very similar.)

5. Too dialogue-heavy. It's a very talky show. And yet, at the same time, it's...
6. Too masculine. The Wire has--what--one main female character--a black lesbian detective?
7. Too black. Season Two is sometimes called "the white season," because of the docker storyline. (It's worth mentioning that this storyline was mostly edited out when the season was shown on BET. So it seems it's not just white folks who prefer to watch people like themselves)

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

VirginMedia finished showing the first season on their onDemand service not too long ago. I had to rush viewing it a little to see the whole season, but I was impressed. It was interesting, even if you had to try a lot harder than with other shows to remember who was who.

The Times had a small feature in their Sunday supplement on it a few weeks ago, they mention one of my favourite scenes from the first season, the explanation of how chess works, for the guys in the projects.

 

[sidious618]

I'm rewatching the show now in anticipation of getting the final DVD set (even though I watched it when it aired).

The show is amazing, no question about it. I feel that it gets better each and every season.

 

[Seven of Five]

I'm glad I'm off work this week, I've been able to make my way up to the fifth episode of the second season. I'm not sure how many storylines/characters are running concurrently at this point but I'm interested in each and every one of them. It's possible that I'm spoiling myself a bit in regards to the speed at which I'm watching it, though it should calm down a bit when I'm back in on Sunday.

To whoever mentioned it - the chess explanation from season one is a classic scene, which I realise may be hyperbole at this early part in the show's run for me. Nevertheless, comparing the centuries-old game with the projects was sublime.

 

[Star Wolf]

Why this show didn't get more critical acclaim (and better viewership) is simply mind-boggling to me.

I was under the impression that the show was highly acclaimed by critics. It was recently voted the eleventh best TV show of all time in some list or other.

As for why it didn't get a better viewership--well, not everybody likes cop shows. What's more, I think it may have failed to appeal to much of the cop-show audience by being:

1. Too realistic. I think most people watch TV to escape from reality, not to have their faces plunged into it.
2. Too downbeat. See above.
3. Too complex. The whole 'novel-for-television' idea works great if you follow the show closely from the beginning, but it must discourage casual, drop-in viewers.
4. Too slow. The show really takes its time--something which is going to appeal to some people, but not others. It may simply demand a greater investment than most viewers are prepared to make.

(Having recently re-watched it from the beginning to the end of Season Five, I realized that The Shield has also tried to follow a 'novel for television' format--but livens things up with a lot of slam-bang action and 'cases of the week' to draw in casual viewers. Raymond Chandler once said that when he didn't know how to continue a story, he had someone bust into the room with a gun. The Shield does something very similar.)

Those probably are the main reason. When Lt Danials and McNulty stops the SWAT team and Avon and Stringer don't pull out machine guns to go down fighting the casual audirence feels cheated.

Until something better shows up its still my all time favorite. When I pull out the DVD the wife rolls her eyes.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I tried watching S1 on DVD and gave up after three or four episodes. Yes, it's very high quality but I'm so completely uninterested in the inner workings of police bureaucracy that I just found I didn't care about any of the characters and when I don't care about that, my interest goes right out the window. I liked The Corner by the same writer/producer so maybe if he'd focused more on the drug dealers, I'd have preferred that? Every time they switched to the squabbling cops, my attention started to wander. Then again, cop shows are a tough sell for me; it's a wildly overexposed topic.

Maybe someday I'll give it another shot. In the meantime I have my hands (and Netflix queue) full catching up on Mad Men, Dexter, Six Feet Under and eventually The Sopranos.

 

[Star Wolf]

I tried watching S1 on DVD and gave up after three or four episodes. Yes, it's very high quality but I'm so completely uninterested in the inner workings of police bureaucracy that I just found I didn't care about any of the characters and when I don't care about that, my interest goes right out the window. I liked The Corner by the same writer/producer so maybe if he'd focused more on the drug dealers, I'd have preferred that? Every time they switched to the squabbling cops, my attention started to wander. Then again, cop shows are a tough sell for me; it's a wildly overexposed topic.

Maybe someday I'll give it another shot. In the meantime I have my hands (and Netflix queue) full catching up on Mad Men, Dexter, Six Feet Under and eventually The Sopranos.

Well I guess the thing is the he already made The Corner and with the Wire explored more then the Corner Boys. It also looked at the dying middle class workers way of life, the professional candidates, media and public education classes.

But the Pit boys who moved to the Corners were the core of the show. From Dee giving chess lessons to his lieutenants as Bodie understands his status as a corner boy, to the first loss the audience cares about more then a just another red name on Homicide's board. 'Where's Wallace, String?' We saw how Wallace lived and beside the chance that he might 'get got' by a Chris or Snoop we understood he lived no better, no worse, then a Foot Locker salesman. We get to see McNulty's and our astonishment on how String lived because the kingpin's life had not been shown. And during the last season when we get a series of cameos to close the stories on many of the characters over the years I saw a shoe salesman and thought 'what about Wallace'.

 

[Tomato]

Why this show didn't get more critical acclaim (and better viewership) is simply mind-boggling to me.

7. Too black. Season Two is sometimes called "the white season," because of the docker storyline. (It's worth mentioning that this storyline was mostly edited out when the season was shown on BET. So it seems it's not just white folks who prefer to watch people like themselves)

QFT. Too many black people. The EP's mentioned that it is ridiculous about how many quality black actors they found and how TV can't seem to even have a couple of token black people.

The acting in this show is heads above anything on TV. I easily put it the best TV series I have ever seen. Better than the West Wing, better than B5. Without giving too much spoilers there was a scene in S3 which was borderline shakespeare and the Wire going in S2 with that story line was the best decision and shows how daring they are.

Even the emmy's snubbed it which makes sense but truly a shame. I hope that Generation Kill gets more viewers.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I tried watching S1 on DVD and gave up after three or four episodes. Yes, it's very high quality but I'm so completely uninterested in the inner workings of police bureaucracy that I just found I didn't care about any of the characters and when I don't care about that, my interest goes right out the window. I liked The Corner by the same writer/producer so maybe if he'd focused more on the drug dealers, I'd have preferred that? Every time they switched to the squabbling cops, my attention started to wander. Then again, cop shows are a tough sell for me; it's a wildly overexposed topic.

Maybe someday I'll give it another shot. In the meantime I have my hands (and Netflix queue) full catching up on Mad Men, Dexter, Six Feet Under and eventually The Sopranos.

It's a strange show. Every person I knwo who's watched it (including me) had a hard time with the first, i want to say, 5 or so episodes. Then, magically, somehow, the show just floors you about halfway through, not through some twist, it just happens organically, and one day you realize, wow this is amazing.

Best show I've seen in the last decade.

 

[Goliath]

It's a strange show. Every person I knwo who's watched it (including me) had a hard time with the first, i want to say, 5 or so episodes. Then, magically, somehow, the show just floors you about halfway through, not through some twist, it just happens organically, and one day you realize, wow this is amazing.

Yes! That was my experience, exactly.

I wonder what the problem is with those first few episodes?

 

[Star Wolf]

It's a strange show. Every person I knwo who's watched it (including me) had a hard time with the first, i want to say, 5 or so episodes. Then, magically, somehow, the show just floors you about halfway through, not through some twist, it just happens organically, and one day you realize, wow this is amazing.

Yes! That was my experience, exactly.

I wonder what the problem is with those first few episodes?

I saw a review on a Wire yahoo group about Generation Kill. They were saying the same things about Generation Kill, as opposed to immediately falling for the cops and drug crews in the Wire.

In the Flashpoint thread I was saying it was deadly to a TV show to start with the emotional baggage in what was being advertised as a para military shoot them up. The Wire may be too real and not 'TV' enough for its own good. The cops never shoot and when the corner boys fight its with baseball bats or pistols which don't sound like battleships when they are fired. The preconcieved notions we have are missing. While we expect an amped up product because its a premium cable show we get stripped down to the characters. And all of the characters are bad. From the high brass to the police middle management to the adulterous street cops and DAs. The most 'noble' character we meet at the beginning of the series may well be the murderer who won his case by witness tampering.