The Wire is a better show overall for its complexity and its ability to tackle social issues while remaining fascinating. The Shield however is pure entertainment done very, very well, with some emotional stuff thrown in there. It's also one of the few shows that manages to end brilliantly, so it's got that going for it.
Television The Wire
- Thread starter VanNistelrater
- Start date
Just started over on this a few days ago, finished season 1 tonight. It really has no flaws and i can't imagine it will ever be topped...which is kind of sad.
this!I'm into episode two of season two now.
Didn't think season 1 was all that really. The McNulty actor is kind of poor and his accent is terrible and D'Angelo is a very limited actor too. Some of the other police team are thick beyond belief but mostly well-acted, and the supporting villains are mostly good. The best are the two main villains but they don't get much screen time overall which is weird since they are running everything. Idris Elba really has screen presence, which I hadn't realised before having only seen him in small role films. I like the visualization of the disfunctional nature of the authorities and there are some great characters like the homicide detectives. The tech is very dated now though.
Second season opener was a mess. I had no idea what was going on but I'm sticking with it because I'm determined to watch the whole thing. Overall it's good and worth the watch, but it didn't grab me instantly like True Detective. After the first episode of TD I was blown away with how good it was, not so much with The Wire.
Tell me it gets better.
Didn't think season 1 was all that really. The McNulty actor is kind of poor and his accent is terrible and D'Angelo is a very limited actor too. Some of the other police team are thick beyond belief but mostly well-acted, and the supporting villains are mostly good. The best are the two main villains but they don't get much screen time overall which is weird since they are running everything. Idris Elba really has screen presence, which I hadn't realised before having only seen him in small role films. I like the visualization of the disfunctional nature of the authorities and there are some great characters like the homicide detectives. The tech is very dated now though.
Second season opener was a mess. I had no idea what was going on but I'm sticking with it because I'm determined to watch the whole thing. Overall it's good and worth the watch, but it didn't grab me instantly like True Detective. After the first episode of TD I was blown away with how good it was, not so much with The Wire.
Tell me it gets better.
It gets WAAAAAAY better. My favourite show bar none, but it didn't click for me until half-way through the 2nd season. I especially didn't care for the change of venue after finally getting to grips with what I thought was the show's universe in the first season, but now I am quite happy with the second season.
Btw, find the proper thread. This one's tiny.
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Yeah, but at least you can get it in HD now. 4:3 made the show impossible to enjoy.*
I remember thinking the same as you when I started season 2 first time around, but don't worry - it'll all make sense. All I can say is stick with it and you'll be rewarded. If you get beyond season 2 and still don't think it's that good a show you're a terrible person.
The simple answer is yes, it will get better (or rather you'll like it more). I reckon you have quite similar tastes to Wibble and this is basically how it goes...
[insert anyone who watched it saying it's amazing, but it's a slow burner so have patience]
...
The only real way it gets better is widening the scope each season, bringing in a different element of a failing society and with it bringing a bunch of new characters who each add something unique to the series as a whole. The main thing that changes is as the scope widens your appreciation of every aspect of the series increases exponentially, all the pieces fall into place and it becomes something fundamentally different to practically any other series you've seen.
For example it won't take long to realise there genuinely are no heroes or villains in this, and I don't mean that in the sense that it's not so black and white and you have a fully formed villain that the audience sympathise with e.g. Al Swearengen in Deadwood. It goes a few steps further than that because they genuinely aren't villains and aren't intended to be. They're just a product of a fundamentally broken society like everyone else in it, and the society and city of Baltimore is so fully realised that black and white doesn't even come into it. Similarly when you say some of the police team are thick beyond belief...yeah, there's no maverick genius detective like Luther or Sherlock to come save the day with an inspired observation, they're just people trying to support a family and live their life and do the job to the best of their abilities in a very difficult situation as part of a fundamentally flawed institution.
It takes some dramatic licence like all tv shows but for the most part it is very much grounded in the gritty reality of a city which currently ranks as the 15th worst city in the U.S for violent crime. Back in the mid-60s it was described by the International Association of Chiefs of Police as "the most corrupt and antiquated in the nation with an almost non-existent relationship with Baltimore's African American community." and that hasn't changed much in the past few decades based on a recent case which saw 24 correctional officers convicted for being participants in wide-scale corruption in Baltimore's biggest jail. The corruption incorporated things like drug smuggling and prostitution, with the correctional officers actively taking part in both in collaboration with a gang which essentially ran the jail.
"13 of the accused were guards, who conspired with a violent prison gang to smuggle in contraband, ranging from cell phones to prescription pain pills. Female correctional officers took payoffs to have sex with gang members, including the gang leader, Tavon White, who fathered children with four guards. “This is my jail,” White declared in a January 2013 call, secretly recorded by the FBI. “I am dead serious. I make every final call . . . and nothing go past me, everything come to me.”"
The beauty of the Wire is it captures this kind of violence, corruption and "upside down" world in amazing detail and explores a lot of the underlying themes and causes of it. The creators were both deeply involved in this - David Simon was a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun and Ed Burns was a Baltimore police detective for the Homicide and Narcotics divisions - and they managed to translate their experiences to the screen in all its gritty beauty.
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As for the realism of the show, I think Obama's talk with David Simon is a great watch. http://time.com/3761066/obama-the-wire-david-simon/
Naah...don't think I can be arsed, especially if I'm called an old curmudgeon like Wibble.
Not really!...Thanks, I'll be sticking with it.
It gets better, but if you didn't like Season 1 at all I doubt you'd like the rest.
Finished season 2 last night and ended up liking it. I'll miss the Tom Waits version when I start season 3 but looking forward to getting into it.
Season 3 is the peak IMO. Pure entertainment.
The Wire. So so good. Best ever for me.
Season 3 has some of my favourite lines:
"Yo. Motherfecker, what is that?"
"Robert Rules say we got to have minutes for the meeting, right? These the minutes."
"Nigga, is you taking notes on a criminal fecking conspiracy?"
The general consensus with Season 2 is if/when you do a re-watch it may end up being your favourite season.
The HD version really adds to the overall experience.
I've rewatched Season 1 in HD, makes such a difference and I find I'm noticing thing that previously went under the radar. I really can't decide if it's this or The Sopranos for the best TV show ever.
For me The Wire beats The Sopranos to that crown.
That's no slight on The Sopranos, but The Wire is just in a league of its own for the sheer depth and breadth if it.
@Brwned's post above explains it very well.
Still love The Sopranos though, watching it again at the moment as it happens.
Was talking about Idris Elba with two colleagues today, one who has seen the Wire, the other hasn't. That line was the first one that came up when we were reminiscing and trying to explain how cool he was. Season 3 also has the saga with Method Man and his dawg if I'm remembering correctly, brilliant stuff.
Half-way through season 5 and I've got to say that this serial killer thing and the way McNulty has been acting is fecking ridiculous. I can't buy any of it which is a shame after season 4.
Yeah that's a fairly common opinion of season 5. I would have preferred a better build up to McNulty going insane and starting the serial killer stuff, but in general from a character point of view I still buy it.
Freamon joining in too, Bunk not doing anything is just too much to swallow. There's no explanation why McNulty went from happy family guy to feck-up so quickly either. Right from the off he's back to the old ways.
The best thing about this season so far was the five second 'sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit' from Senator Davis.
The guy is an alcoholic. I had no problem with that scenario.
It's pretty obvious though - the guy just can't balance normal life with doing proper police work. Agree the the whole plot is stupid though. Maybe if season 5 hadn't been cut to 10 episodes they could have developed it in better ways. Anyway there are still some amazing moments, especially like you mention any scene with Senator Davis in it.
Agreed, Freamon joining in was the character development that irked me right. Either he should have stopped McNulty or it should have taken a lot of convincing to make him go along with it. But the McNulty thing I accepted easily; once he throws himself into serious case work he becomes a mess personally. That drive and focus takes him to the brink, and he can't seem to get anything else in his life sorted, and so deals with it by hitting the booze, and of course screwing around. Going from family man to screw-up didn't seem more strange than going from screw-up to family man in the first place right.
Agree with the Freamon and Bunk aspects being a bit 'off', but it's perfectly believable from McNulty's standpoint (for the reasons Cassius and 2cents have given).
I just didn't like how abrupt it was. Right from the beginning of the first episode he's back into it which, given how settled and changed he was before, is a little unsatisfactory. I'd have liked to have seen a slower descent but he seems to have just not given a shit about Beadie and the kids as soon as he became a detective again.
Yeah, that's probably related to the unfortunate shortening of the season from 12/13 episodes to 10.
McNulty's descent in Season 5 was saddening, the dude had a happy life and messed it all up 
McNulty's descent in Season 5 was saddening, the dude had a happy life and messed it all up
The ending of the series shows that hes done fecking around though; he's thrown off the force (which was the main catalyst for his problems it seems), and his little scene with Beadie on the stairs seems to imply she's going to give him another chance.
Thank you for that!
I am currently re-watching the HD remasters and am halfway through season 5 and forgot about the ending.
I think The Wire is the best show I have ever seen on TV.
There isn't a weak character in the whole thing. Even the minor figures are compelling.
Wasn't Bodie's death the main instigator in McNulty's spiral to alcohol abuse and a descent back into brainless impulses? He was directly responsible for Bodie dying and it sort of seemed like the last straw which set the time bomb ticking again. I haven't seen it in a while though, so my knowledge here is a little rusty. Season five was still very good, it was just so very bland in comparison to how amazing the rest of the show was.
I wouldn't buy that because Bodie was a nasty piece of work.
McNulty definitely had a soft spot for Bodie.
Nah, Bodie was a decent guy. He got on with McNulty as well as Herc and Carver.
Bodie getting clipped by Marlo's crew was caused by McNulty, Poot tells him when he fake indicts the corner that it was because he was seen talking with the police.
Bodie getting clipped by Marlo's crew was caused by McNulty, Poot tells him when he fake indicts the corner that it was because he was seen talking with the police.