The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

Really, haven't all the polls just been leading up to this moment?

Really curious about the results of this one. I went for The Sopranos.

The proper food picture for the wire would be lake trout

Check your head Whiney we already did this poll: Who is HBO's KING DAVID?

Xpost. OTM!

Never got the appeal of the Sopranos. Never saw much behind it, really. The Wire is the best show I've ever and probably ever will see in my life, though.

I'm voting for the Sopranos because i think that the character development is more intense than any show in the history of television, and maybe only beats the The Wire in that because it doesn't have 7 billion characters to slog through in every ep

I don't get people who don't get The Sopranos.

anyone who votes sopranos doesnt know shit about shit

I watched the Sopranos in real time as it aired, with long gaps, while I watched five seasons of the Wire recently over a couple of months so they both feel totally different to me. Right now I have to say the Wire.

most otm thing nabisco ever said was when he observed that half the time the sopranos was just spinning its wheels - lotta great moments, sure, but way too much filler

Half the time? Get real. I disagree, regardless.

sopranos is just better, sorry.

both awesome but the wire at it's worst >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> sopranos at it's worst

superfluous apostrophes amirite

Score one for Pretty Tony

i've only seen season 3 and 4 of sopranos vs. all of the wire, so i'm saying the following with a v. limited perspective.

way too many characters on the sopranos just annoy me--tony (half of the time), janice, a.j., uncle junior, especially paulie (wtf?), others. i think i have a thing against italians and their speech patterns though, so whatever. i like what i've seen of the sopranos more than all the italian mob movies i've ever seen though, whatever that means. like, i kind of hate godfathers i and ii and goodfellas. boooooriiing.

the wire otoh has a v. special place in my heart. i think it's more overtly dramatic than the sopranos, with character development that leaps over the nuances of the sopranos, but it just feels more.. relevant? contracting jobs (who the fuck cares) vs. drug wars, etc. i don't know.

oh boy, ix-nae on the 'speech patterns' comment above which sounds a little weird. i think what i'm getting at is in the italian-americans vs. native-americans on columbus day episode. i.e. i don't care about your bowling-shirt-wearing noveau-riche bada-bing jfk-loving blabla when there are sweeter things to talk about.

also i'd rather see d. west or l. reddick or lester or kima or omar or marlo or d'angelo get half-naked and laid over another half-bald fatass or nj guido scoring and then acting retarded. the combined IQs of characters on the wire >>>>>>>>>> combined IQs of characters on the sopranos.

i'm still going to watch all of the sopranos, because i like it a lot, so in re to my comments feel free to murder me and drop me into a quarry csi-style i mean pry open abandoned project apartments, leave me on the second floor, and re-staple the plywood with a nail gun you bought at home depot.

^
http://i35.tinypic.com/o7ooj9.gif

lol

i almost said goombah

http://news.filefront.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/_42222218_gall_mario.jpg

btw the pine barrens episode of sopranos may be equal to or better than anything on the wire, just for the photography.

Any TV programme is going to suffer when compared to the Wire, frankly.

and the sound design, which was written into the script!

i agree with matt's comment about the collective IQ on the wire - just about everyone on the sopranos has got almost curb your enthusiasm levels of tunnel-vision self-regard

woops xpost

wire pwns will pwn poll no competition

sopranos birthed the genre - dont say oz plz plz - but the wire perfected it w/season and series long narrative arcs

and if you vote sopraons yr a racist

i only saw one episode of sopranos and had no interest in ever seeing it again

i'm racist toward italians and new jersey though

The Sopranos had some truly great episodes. The first few seasons, in particular, were classic. But it also had so many dull and repetitive episodes and the quality went so far downhill, that it absolutely does not deserve to win. The sheer abundance of "Tony has a wacky dream" episodes, should automatically disqualify it.

The Wire, on the other hand, maybe had its ups and downs, but overall was consistently great from beginning to end.

I hope The Wire trounces The Sopranos.

Maybe I should get a new login, cause I wanna vote for both shows. I love'em both equally. I'm a lover not a hater when it comes to these shows.

btw the pine barrens episode of sopranos may be equal to or better than anything on the wire, just for the photography.

― Matt P, Saturday, November 15, 2008 7:49 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

OTM

also for the snakes

the last season of the wire was pretty awful

just putting that out there

btw the pine barrens episode of sopranos may be equal to or better than anything on the wire, just for the photography.

― Matt P, Saturday, November 15, 2008 12:49 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

YES

i mean, not objectively awful, but a pretty big drop-off.

yeah i hated the last season for the most part but the rest of the seasons made up for it. now i can't actually remember if i've seen the sopranos because i don't know how i would have seen it. i just remember something about bears and i'm not sure when or where i watched it but i got bored.

i didnt see the last season of the wire tbh, but i didnt see the last season of the sopranos either

sopranos is funnier, possibly more great moments (in a visceral sense) than in wire, but wire suits me more i guess. mainly the thing i never 'got' wrt the sopranos was how relatable the characters were supposed to be - like, that's supposed to be the strength of the show, right? how human and understandable and universal these subhuman monsters were? idk, i never felt any connection with any of them, and the only characters i had affection for were the funny ones (paulie, ralphie before he killed the stripper, furio before he turned into a puss). the incredible savagery of these ppl stuck with me a lot more than their humanity. that was probably the point to some degree, but it wasn't fun to watch imo~

agreed on s5 wire - tho i thought the last few eps were good

they werent supposed to be likeable! i mean, they were supposed to be charming on the surface, i guess, but they all plumbed the death.

i guess there's something i like more about the sopranos' storytelling, it was more ambitious, more theatrical in a way, than the wire, which was very good at being straight-up layered journalistic narrative but was maybe too unwavering in its tone, or something. and ya, i thought the plain-jane look it had, the unobtrusive cinematography, had something going for it, but i want more sometimes.

also nobody on the wire can touch gandolfini, or falco for that matter. not even close.

(again, that's a format thing, as none of the performers on the wire had nearly as much screen time due to its total ensemble-ness)

thats true ^ but the sopranos just got soooo redundant is the main problem i have

and the wire was so much greater in scope - portrait of an american city ffs!

i guess there's something i like more about the sopranos' storytelling, it was more ambitious

― s1ocki, Saturday, November 15, 2008 11:07 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is just completely insane

xxxpost, yeah, but no one ever can anyone touch Omar.

thats true ^ but the sopranos just got soooo redundant is the main problem i have

ugh yes, this really drove me nuts by season 2 - so many episodes felt like artificial ways of extending the show's lifespan, it made me feel like i was being fucked with - w/the wire every episode felt like it had a porpoise~

http://www.chinahearsay.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/Porpoise1.JPG

the fact that the wire always seemed more ambitious to me was a big point in its favor, but i think i see where slocki's cummin from\

The Wire (the first season of the Sopranos is really the only one that to me competes at this level.) I am feeling lately that Mad Men is getting to this level of TV as well.

mad men is def in the club - tho i thought the same abt deadwood until the supremely wtf ending

mad men - lol really? i guess i need to see that huh

rulez

seen once vs never seen.

i've been meaning to watch it just for the broad w/the big tits

http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2008/1028/page2_g_hendricks2_400.jpg

the perfect woman ;_________;

which do you like better morbs - sopranos or wire?

i guess there's something i like more about the sopranos' storytelling, it was more ambitious

― s1ocki, Saturday, November 15, 2008 11:07 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is just completely insane

― ketchup bro (ice cr?m), Saturday, 15 November 2008 16:26 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you don't get inside anyone's head in the wire - you have to gauge it all from externals, actions, surface effects - but in the sopranos that's all you ever seem to do

i don't mean ambitious in terms of scope, i mean ambitious in terms of art, in the way the story is told. to me the subject matter of a story is always going to be a distant second to that.

you don't get inside anyone's head in the wire - you have to gauge it all from externals, actions, surface effects - but in the sopranos that's all you ever seem to do

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, November 15, 2008 6:14 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that's what i like about it, the character stuff is so intense and hardcore.

yeah. i've always admired gandolfini and falco for turning what was a pretty cheesy premise - "a mob boss with a shrink!" - into a venue for great acting

that said, the scripts eventually seemed more to serve the actors than the actors the scripts

the drug game is better material to dig into because it's a business with a product that people buy. the mafia are a throwback, they really are just parasites, with a main revenue stream of leaning on people in their neighborhood. the sopranos hinted occasionally that starbucks was a greater threat to them than the feds, but the wire never loses sight of the overall material picture.

watching ppl doing what they do while caught up in the gears of an infernal machine is more compelling to me than watching a crew who are too shortsighted to see their way out of some pretty obvious conflicts over and over again.

I like the parasites / throwback thing about the Sopranos - it always felt like they were trying to live up to some great past that wasn't there anymore and that the mob was going to die out when the current generation does.

There was some of this with the Wire - Cutty seeing how different the game had become, Prop Joe lamenting - but it hits you at the end how it's never, ever going to stop and a new generation is always going to be there to take over. Dookie as the new Bubs, Michael as the new Omar, and so on. The newspaper aspect was kind of like the Sopranos, with the business dying out and only a few dreamers sticking around.

the last season of the wire was pretty awful

nowhere near as bad as the gay-vito half-season of Sopranos imo

Sopranos at its best (season 1-2) might be better than The Wire but Sopranos fell off a lot harder by the end. redundant / spinning its wheels comment was otm. big chunk of the Wire final season got ridiculous but it still overall felt like the show had something to say.

i think we have determined that the sopranos = way more "drama nerd" than the wire.

^^^^

I had forgotton about gay Vito. That was terrible. They took what would have made a good episode and turned it into an interminable season that focused completely on a minor character.

This pretty much sums up the problem I have with The Sopranos: they had way too many episodes where it was obvious that they were struggling to find something with which to fill their hour each week.

i voted for the Wire which sort of isn't fair because i've only seen a couple of episodes of the Sopranos and have never really gotten into it. part of the reason is what ade was saying upthread about the unrelatability/inhumanity of the characters on the Sopranos. i kind of feel that way about mad men, too, to be honest. i have thought more than once, while watching a particularly good episode of mad men, "this still isn't as good as the Wire because i don't love/like any of these people." maybe i am reacting against some assumption that keeping sentiment out of a show makes it aesthetically "purer," which for all i know nobody who wrote for the Sopranos actually believed, but i do hate that idea and i think the wire is really brave about emotional stuff. this could all be bullshit, though, because like i said, i haven't seen that much of the Sopranos.

i also bristle at the idea that Gandolfini or Falco are necessarily better actors than those on the Wire! they just got more screen time because there are fewer characters on that show!

i miss the Wire so much.

also the last season is not "pretty awful"! it's just less good than the other four totally amazing ones!

The Wire is way more ambitious than the Sopranos in terms of the way the story is told, and the 'character' of Baltimore is fully fleshed just as any of the Sopranos' gang, if you like, and this is even before the amount of themes it credibly inserts into a cops and gangs shows.

I love both anyway and wouldn't vote.

Having said all that I think Wire and Oz are more comparable to each other.

The Wire also seems like a more "important" series in that it relentlessly skewered public institutions and policy orthodoxy and all that.

Also the Wire was basically a really long police procedural, and that's one of my favorite literary genres (I am not too embarrassed to admit).

The Wire also seems like a more "important" series in that it relentlessly skewered public institutions and policy orthodoxy and all that.

― Super Cub, Saturday, 15 November 2008 21:07 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sopranos actually led to a shit tonne of IRL Mafia arrests though, due to NJ mobsters deciding to "take advantage" of their new-found fame

lol waht? link?

Sopranos, because it's the series I've actually seen some of. (I plan to watch The Wire, just haven't gotten to it yet.)

voted wire although im alright with sopranos - i cant believe everyone didnt point this out above but maybe after they read him say the shit about italian accents they just tl;dr'd the rest of his post but wtf @ matt p saying that the godfather's i & ii and goodfellas are "boring"

or "zzz" or whatever it was he said

Goodfellas is like the most watchable and entertaining 2 1/2 hour movie ever. I can't fathom someone being bored by it.

Next major ILx poll should be scenes from Goodfellas.

Wire character poll been done?

Race for second maybe?

"shit tonne" ftw

Omar Little vs Paulie Walnuts poll

And I'm trying to find the article about how The Sopranos led to these NJ mob arrests, but "sopranos arrests" just brings up details of how seemingly every Sopranos actor except Peter Bogdaonich has been to prison since the show ended.

i think we have determined that the sopranos = way more "drama nerd" than the wire.

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, November 15, 2008 8:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahaha true tho wire is i guess way more "message board nerd"

I took drama in college but like The Wire more.

You're excommunicated from the drama nerd club 4 LIFE. You can't reapply for re-entry until you've seen Angels in America four more times.

Who doesn't think "drama nerd" when they watch Tony Sirico or Steve Schrippa?

One thing in The Wire's favour is that at least none of the cast have gone on to release books entitled something like "HOW TO BE A BLACK MAN"

how is that in its favour??

i think we have determined that the sopranos = way more "drama nerd" than the wire.

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, November 15, 2008 8:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahaha true tho wire is i guess way more "message board nerd" stuff white people like

― s1ocki, Sunday, November 16, 2008 3:19 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

whiney how is that not true of the sopranos?

man that site was stupid

black ppl love the wire

yah but white people like it too dont you see??

black people hate the wire, its true. the re-runs on bet were totally random

the sopranos takes a soap opera premise and makes it 'tough'
the wire takes a cop show premise and makes made it operatic

wire ftw

other stuff white people like:

I mean, i def agree with that to an extent re the pieces he uses: R&B Autotuners, hipster-house squelches, Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy, Blue Man Group thwaps, even some Animal Collective style noises in the bridges.

But when he puts it all together it's uniquely Kanye. That's why it's great!

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, November 13, 2008 1:11 PM (3 days ago)

Stuff Whine People Like

White people like talking about Stuff White People Like.

i was just makin a joke about how some 20-something whiteys i have met are like OMG WIRE YES OMAR IS THE MAN!!!1 because it's their version of saying "I'm cool with black ppl"

the sopranos has a version too, which is older men working words like "gabbagool" and "mannagge" into everyday conversation.

I'm not talking about any of you, so you can quit pissing your pants now.

too late already pissed my pants when i was afraid other white people might like the same thing as me

The 20-something whiteys from the hilarious 'Williamsburg' neighborhood

There is a kind of suburban, middle class voyeurism thing about the Wire though. "Now I understand what the ghetto is all about."

Watching TV is voyeuristic? Who knew?!

Hey, I'm just trying to throw whiney a bone.

You people are fucking weird sometimes.

"you people" = fans of the wire?

The Wire FTW, of course. The Sopranos always felt very dumbed-down to me whenever it got outside of its comfort zone of a bunch of assholes hanging out shooting the shit. I was always thinking "have the writers ever actually talked to a real therapist/liberal college kid/gay person?" That, and it got repetitive after a while with the "who's gonna be the rat/get whacked this season?"

The Wire always challenged the audience to keep up, and had a great way of making profound shit coming out of an asshole's mouth feel real.

the sopranos has a version too, which is older men working words like "gabbagool" and "mannagge" into everyday conversation.

I'm not talking about any of you, so you can quit pissing your pants now.

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Sunday, November 16, 2008 4:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

it's capicola and mangia u fucken savage

dickens vs. shakespeare?

it does feel a bit apples and oranges to compare something that strikes me as almost a Dreiser like naturalism (people are what they/product of environment) a more distanced ant-farm realism. What's interesting about the sopranos more than anything to me is the almost shocking contempt the show has for its characters. At least that bubbles up from time to time, like genre shame or something.

i was just makin a joke about how some 20-something whiteys i have met are like OMG WIRE YES OMAR IS THE MAN!!!1 because it's their version of saying "I'm cool with black ppl"

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Sunday, November 16, 2008 3:54 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

or maybe hes just a really badass character

maybe it's really their way of saying "I'm cool with gay ppl."

"who are black and badass."

"and carry double barrel shotguns, and have a chip on their shoulder, and a notion of honor and integrity at odds with the corrupt world."

OMG WIRE YES OMAR IS THE MAN!!!1

What's interesting about the sopranos more than anything to me is the almost shocking contempt the show has for its characters.

this is what bothers me about the Sopranos!

I did not vote for the sopranos because I am not cool with italian ppl

http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2008/1028/page2_g_hendricks2_400.jpg

Who is this, apart from my future girlfriend?

somebody get this man an invite to 77 already

maybe it's really their way of saying "I'm cool with gay ppl."

― Super Cub, Monday, 17 November 2008 00:52 (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"who are black and badass."

― Super Cub, Monday, 17 November 2008 00:52 (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"and carry double barrel shotguns, and have a chip on their shoulder, and a notion of honor and integrity at odds with the corrupt world."

― Super Cub, Monday, 17 November 2008 00:55 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

OMG WIRE YES OMAR IS THE MAN!!!1

― _/(o_o)/¯ (deej), Monday, 17 November 2008 01:00 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

DUDE IMAGINE OMAR IN A HOAGIE WITH BACON

AND CHEESE

AND MORE BACON ON THE ORIGINAL BACON

xxxp, Don't tell me she's Curtis.

BARBECUE SAUCE CHICKEN RIBS

i bet thats what xtina h. eats every DAY

I wonder what omar thinks about prop 8.

and tipping

and funny bottle openers

Omar Little won't be on dis ting 2008/09

^^^ caption to that christina hendricks photo??

omar has no interest in whites and titties

^that was an omar quote BTW

...

Your father, God rest his soul, had balls the size of an Irish broad's ass.

I did not vote for the sopranos because I am not cool with italian ppl

― TOMBOT, Sunday, November 16, 2008 8:01 PM

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/451212/2/istockphoto_451212_high_five.jpg

the Wire by a mile, fuck jersey and fuck guidos. it's all about the polacks and the blacks.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:5jto29_ghEnUSM:http://www.thebmi.org/images/WireLogo_Black.jpg

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070616212459AAVbmtp

sopranos because i am fucking sick to death of wire stans.

i guess there's something i like more about the sopranos' storytelling, it was more ambitious, more theatrical in a way, than the wire, which was very good at being straight-up layered journalistic narrative but was maybe too unwavering in its tone, or something. and ya, i thought the plain-jane look it had, the unobtrusive cinematography, had something going for it, but i want more sometimes.

― s1ocki, Saturday, November 15, 2008 5:07 PM (4 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^ yeah. 'the wire', which i love, basically keeps a continuous pace right the way through. it was stronger on narrative, but didn't reach beyond that as often as one might have liked. i'm probably brooding on s05 still, but i admire the lack of thesis in 'the sopranos'. DS's fatalism is going to date real fast.

what everyone who picked the wire said.

One thing in The Wire's favour is that at least none of the cast have gone on to release books entitled something like "HOW TO BE A BLACK MAN"

― Peter "One Dart" Manley (The stickman from the hilarious 'xkcd' comics), Sunday, November 16, 2008 7:53 AM (4 weeks ago) Bookmark

HOW TO ROBS DRUG DEALERS by OMAR

that is so NOT in its favour haha

re-watching the sopranos has confirmed to me how very right i am

DS's fatalism is going to date real fast.

― Just Johnson (special guest stars mark bronson), Sunday, December 14, 2008 1:03 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark

You think we're entering a new era of faith in social institutions?

uhhh obama much?

(jk)

every single supporting actor on the sopranos has released a book on HOW TO COOKA THE PASTA LIKE A MAFIA HITMAN

I voted for The Wire, but if it was a contest between "greatest TV shows of all time" I would have been tempted to vote Sopranos. Sopranos was a great TV show; the Wire seems like a... video-book or something. Sopranos had a lot of filler episodes like TV does. In retrospect the show seems kind of sloppy and unfocused past the first two seasons - lots of loose ends never got tied off, kind of like in most TV shows, and for that matter real life. The Sopranos is a better show to watch one episode every week or two while The Wire is the book you can't put down.

I own a few seasons of each and that is exactly how I re-watch them: With the Sopranos, I can just pop in a great favorite episode every once in a while; with The Wire, I start at Ep1 and keep watching it until the season is done (usually taking me about a week).

yes, i believe that was the point behind dom's comment. xp

not really recalling 'filler' eps of 'the sopranos'.

it wasn't trying to do a tight, 19th-century-novel, everything-connects narrative.

the only ep i can remember not liking was the one where mike figgis was all like, "I know, let's use handheld cameras!"

not really recalling 'filler' eps of 'the sopranos'.

last two seasons had loads - or it was just more like two thirds of an episode on many occasions was aimless and achingly obscure. obv there were great ones too - i really enjoyed the last half of the final season.

was that the inexplicable "tony's gambling problem" episode? xp

to be fair, there was stuff i never really liked on the sopranos--anything having to do with the entertainment industry or christopher's movie or that shit. but it hardly dinged the show as a whole.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow, a landslide... didn't expect the margin to be this big. But then again, I'm 1/16th Sopranos vote...

http://www.morganleahrecords.com/wallpaper/other/fuck%20yeah%201600x1200.png

holy turnout

we did it jen, we stole his base

daaamn

I'm calling for a

http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/pki0004l.jpg

whaddayagonnado

anything having to do with the entertainment industry or christopher's movie or that shit

ben kingsley episode was lols but i guess it was sort of ill-fitting

WOAH

As someone who to feel that The Sopranos is a well-assembled but ultimately pointless and awful and insanely overrated show, I would like to applaud fifty-eight seventy-thirds of you for your judgment.

Let's pretend I deliberately omitted the word "tends" from that out of sheer Sopranos-hatred

i cant really judge anyone for voting for the wire, it's a great show and horses for courses, but man is nabisco ever off tm right here.

That's right, s1ocki, just sit there and let me CHALLOPS you

well-assembled but ultimately pointless and awful and insanely overrated show

wasn't gonna say it (at least not unless it won), but yeah.

this shit is fucking ridiculous

You are all awful people.

yes, i believe that was the point behind dom's comment. xp

― s1ocki

for some reason i misread his comment but it is a good point

I don't ask anyone to agree with me that The Sopranos was alarmingly dumb/awful, I just kinda want to wave that opinion in people's faces to make them vexed and indignant. It's like contrarianism, except there's no shred of pretending involved.

Someone needs to try the ketchup with the relish.

― Go Go Padgett Binoculars

lol

oh no an idiot on the internet has a stupid opinion: how vexing.

really cannot believe the turnout here, or the margin.

I could never get into The Sopranos. I watched the first five episodes and then just never bothered to go back. It didn't seem bad, I just didn't connect with it.

nabisco's just flaunting his otm all-star status these days... careful dude, we can take that away just as fast

playing with fire: master and commander: oh how I enjoyed this movie

more like tldr all-star status.

take the high road dude

Ha, caek, I was just thinking about that thread: Sopranos and that movie are totally two things I will stubbornly/smugly go on forever refusing to believe can possibly be considered good.

^ We all need such things, it's just fundamentally healthy

somebody's got a case of the mondays

To be fair, I think The Sopranos is for sure way better than Master & Commander (though I think that about a lot of things)

http://cards.littleoak.com.au/196970_nabisco_footballers/nabisco.gif

"The More You Eat Cookies"

on the cookies

I voted for the Wire, btw, but I haven't seen Sopranos, so you maybe want to discount that.

nice, just 75 more to go

i mean 85

if you give a nabs a cookie, he'll ask for some milk

i've still only seen The Wire s01e01

dont you mean The_Wire_s01e01.torrent

hahahaha

I'm pretty sure if I had only seen one episode of each my opinion would be exactly the same. It's simple enough to say I have far more of a connection with the themes and characters in The Wire than I'll ever have with anybody in The Sopranos. If my life was a little different maybe I'd get the Sopranos as much as I do The Wire, but I doubt it. I don't care how cool Dad's job is, it's still a show about Dad. Dad shows are boring.

I voted for The Wire, but felt conflicted doing so. Not that I'm a streetwise fellow, but The Wire seemed to have an uncanny verisimilitude which transcended not only the medium of television, but most contemporary fiction period. Ah, but for delicious storytelling and characterization, The Sopranos set the bar so high for pretenders to the throne that this past decade has been a joy to behold in terms of TV drama. And I would've voted Tony, if not for seasons 4 & 5 derailing the series somewhat before the brilliant final run. FWIW, I know I've extolled its merits on other threads, but even as a (slightly) inferior stepchild of these shows overall, The Shield selectively combined the most effective elements of each series to bow out in the best final run I've ever seen.

pillbox i was gonna stomp on this jagger-ish "transcended not only the medium of television, but most contemporary fiction period" bs but then saw you're a shield man so we cool.

Final season of The Shield > Final season of The Wire

I feel bad for people who have become less down with The Wire because they know all these "Wire Stans"

ugh people like it now

like, they like it a lot

because I totally understand starting to lose respect for something for no good reason at all besides encountering a sudden outcrop of people who say they love it but the way they love it has absolutely nothing to do with why you think it deserves to be loved (and/or totally insincere checking douche patrol, stabbing is the answer)

I would say my opinion of the sopranos was painted in this way before I even watched an episode, e.g. 2002: wow I have been given the opportunity to sit in on this big conference room meeting with serious thinky govt dudes in suits and shiny officers who are going to talk about the future of united states intelligence analysis technology, look at that guy down there, he is in charge of some amazing shit, what? oh he's starting the entire meeting by talking about the last sopranos episode. between this experience and the theme song which people keep making me listen to I think I'm gonna go ahead and hate this show.

final season of king of queens > final season of the wire

final season of ed, final season of october road, final season of weeds

xpost: Yeah, for having such great closing songs throughout the series, they sure mucked up an otherwise fine opening sequence with that terrible, terrible music.

i like the sopranos' opening music, but it isn't as good as the shield's opening music.

re wire stans: fair enough, some of my best friends are wire stans.

what i have in mind is this entry in the guardian's '12 biggest douchebags of the year' list:

"The 'hopper' in The Wire who shot Omar

How could you do it? HOW COULD YOU? You ruined everything!"

fuck that noise.

seriously I was all ready to love gandolfini but my first sopranos episode watching experience had a lot of ground to cover just to get to 0 after being exposed to some of the fanclub - I have yet to meet a huge Wire fan who disgusted me. I think living in the balt/wash area adjusts in both directions for fanbase - the ppl I encounter who love Tony are poseurs by default and the ppl I encounter who love Omar generally are able to point to an aspect of their own life and say "they did this part exactly how it is"

ima level with you: here in cambridge, cambridgeshire, i don't meet many people who have come up like omar, or like big t. there's dom, i guess.

thank you, for leveling with me.

"The 'hopper' in The Wire who shot Omar

How could you do it? HOW COULD YOU? You ruined everything!"

fuck that noise.

!!!!!!!!!!!

We only have three more eps before we finish. :(

a totally unrelated question: which will "age" better? will anyone be watching these shows ten years from now?

not suggesting that effect their quality now, but curious if whether the supposed realism of a show like The Wire will "date" it, or at least reveal the seams in its' worldview.

probably one for a b'more to answer, but a lot of the wire seems to apply as much to the 80s and 90s as right now. eg the towers that the barksdales run in s01-02 had actually been demolished sometime in the 90s?

dunno,

Sopranos is about the human mind and depression and family, all of which never change. The Wire is very built into the contemporary drug trade, media, unions, slang, all of which can be wildly different in 10 years time.

(also, the sopranos is coming up for its tenth anniversary, 'the wire' for its seventh -- they seem to be holding up ok.)

lolz Tombot doesn't have kids = can't appreciate Sopranos. okay

other boring shit about dads: the Bible, Hamlet, etc.

the ppl I encounter who love Tony are poseurs by default and the ppl I encounter who love Omar generally are able to point to an aspect of their own life and say "they did this part exactly how it is"

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 10:04 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You don't know any Catholics, huh?

well, im not suggesting certain things "never change"--but is the sopranos more a self-contained universe? and is the Wire dependent at all upon an effect of "oh wow THAT'S how it really is" for it's emotional or thematic weight?

the is Wire dependent at all upon an effect of "oh wow THAT'S how it really is" for stuffwhitepeoplelike.com

is the Wire dependent at all upon an effect of "oh wow THAT'S how it really is" for it's emotional or thematic weight?

no

ok. just asking! (i've only seen 1.5 seasons)

sopranos is about a lot of irl shit too, though! it's not totally self-contained.

i reckon people, maybe especially non-americans, do watch 'the wire' partly to learn about the world in some sense. no shame in that.

yeah i don't mean to suggest that the Wire isn't about the way things are; i just think sometimes people are overly simplistic in their characterization of the show's realism.

also the impact of its realism is not timebound--for one thing, institutions do shape people's lives and the way the Wire represents that remains powerful even if the institutions have changed. also, i just watched season 2 and the real thing that it represents seems like a fundamental shift in American history.

institutions do shape people's lives and the way the Wire represents that remains powerful even if the institutions have changed

this, for me, is why i voted for The Wire.

not suggesting that effect their quality now, but curious if whether the supposed realism of a show like The Wire will "date" it, or at least reveal the seams in its' worldview.

― ryan, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 11:44 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sopranos is about the human mind and depression and family, all of which never change. The Wire is very built into the contemporary drug trade, media, unions, slang, all of which can be wildly different in 10 years time.

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 11:48 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The Wire will have more historical weight when the era it directly depicts has passed, and will help future generations better understand what happened. The Sopranos will be a latter day artifact of the 20th century pop culture fascination w/ the mob, but it'll be secondary to a lot of superior films. In my opinion.

not to be all TIME WILL VINDICATE MY PERSONAL TASTE but since it was brought up, i mean

to clarify, i think the Wire is realist in its commitment to represent something about the world but the representation itself is dramatic; it's not necessarily formally realistic. i'm thinking of things like D'Angelo, Wallace, and Bodie's discussion of the chess game in season 1; those moments are less about what a person might actually say if they were in this situation and more about how can a dramatic monologue economically encapsulate some larger insight. moments like that are where people might locate the Wire's "thematic weight"
if they're interested in that.

also i don't care what year it is people are watching season 4, they are going to cry and have violent nightmares.

also some dude otm

institutions do shape people's lives and the way the Wire represents that remains powerful even if the institutions have changed

sopranos also represents this idea. (the family being an institution.) and both shows use changes in criminal behavious as an analogue for changes in capitalism -- an old idea but an effective one. series 2 of 'the wire' is pretty exceptional in being directly about changes in capitalism (a lot of the time).

and both have a big waterfront development thing going on.

but the sopranos does all that and has some female characters too.

some dude pretty much OTM (except for maybe secondary to a lot of superior films part.)

"but the sopranos does all that and has some female characters too."

Uh yeah so does the Wire.

okay, yeah, i know very little about the Sopranos. i maintain that the Wire is more generous emotionally because it loves its characters and it's okay with the viewer loving its characters, but that is based on a comparison with, like, three episodes of the Sopranos, so i don't really know what i'm talking about.

I haven't seen the Wire (yet) - is it really male dominated...? One of the best things about the Sopranos is the totally amazing female characters/acting (Carmela, Janice, Livia, etc.)

i don't know, the female characters thing is my only criticism of the Wire. it has female characters of course, but it's way less successful at representing women's lives than men's. i always figure simon genuinely has trouble doing that and knows it and kind of stayed away from it.

the family being an institution

i think the Sopranos uses the family more as an idea. and by the end of the end on the Sopranos, i didn't give one shit about any of the characters except for Christopha. the Wire seems to have richer characters

Shakey, there are female characters on the Wire and some of them are great, and the actors are all fantastic, but the show doesn't seem to me to be about women's lives in the way it's about men's.

there are no female characters in the wire as strong as carmela or livia. one other aspect of s05's relative badness is they basically wasted amy ryan.

I'm not getting that impression (about characters) through seasons 1 and season 2 (so far)---The Wire could be seen as radical (again, so far) in that it DOESN'T allow any great characters...people seem pretty much caught in the ant-farm.

Kima would be the exception, and maybe this is bullshit of me, but it seemed to me that it was easier for the creators to write her because she's a lesbian.

there are great characters on the Wire that is crazy talk!

Well it's not a show about characters. None of the characters are as strong as Carmela frankly.

it seemed to me that it was easier for the creators to write her because she's a lesbian.

wtf

there are no female characters in the wire as strong as carmela or livia.

None of the characters are as strong as Carmela frankly.

i dunno, i feel like 90% of the characters on the wire are more interesting/strong as carmela or livia

also, another possibly dumb question:

sopranos = postmodernist?
wire = modernist? (i said above it reminded of Naturalism in the Dreiser mold, almost)

i know how that sounds, but so many of the other female characters appear mainly through their connection to the male characters, as girlfriends + mothers. desire for women seems to be so central to the way characters are written on the wire...kima fits in with that better than most of the other women on the show. i fully acknowledge that this could be total bullshit.

xpost to Shakey

eh its okay I was just perplexed at what you were getting at. (Again, I haven't seen the Wire yet)

"i dunno, i feel like 90% of the characters on the wire are more interesting/strong as carmela or livia"

In this case, I think strong = developed.

and both shows use changes in criminal behavious as an analogue for changes in capitalism

^^ the reason i love the wire and only like the sopranos is due to the structure of both 'businesses'. talking about the drug game, you can't help but deal with the nature of capital cos it's a parody of a business ('buy for one, sell for two'). your customer is degraded and addicted but the methods run in parallel to real business ('i may be just a gangster i guess -- but i want those fuckin corners')

the mafia system is pre-capitalst, it's basically feudalism. the sopranos' money was always vague. i guess in one sense it left the show 'free' to dig into family and psychology and all that stuff. i've said all this before somewhere, probably on this thread.

the wire never had any fucking dream sequences either

other boring shit about dads: the Bible, Hamlet, etc.

Both about sons, surely?

I'm not doing the comedy being-a-dick thing anymore, but part of my Sopranos issue is that despite loads of watching it I never really felt like it was about anything, or about anything that wasn't sort of mundane and badly captured; I tended to feel like it was just telegraphing Great Dramatic Significance and self-seriousness atop drama that was actually quite conventional, even hackneyed, and difficult for me to care about or even relate to due to the weight of Great Dramatic Significance being loaded onto it.

people spend a third of their lives dreaming, y'know

dreiser is not a modernist, so no fkn way.

sopranos is kind of "postmodern" in that it makes big references to godfather/goodfellas.

but 'the wire' is straight-up pre-modernist storytelling. as is 'the sopranos' really.

I mean there isn't one character in the Wire who gets as much screen time as Carmela gets. Her arc is a centerpiece of the entire show. Maybe McNulty gets that kind of development in the Wire, but he's basically the only one and the entire fourth season basically ignores him.

they're both great shows and "which has better characters" is a pointless argument. for me it boils down to the wire's journalistic realism style vs. the sopranos' more personal, idiosyncratic and IMO more artistically accomplished approach and i will probably always lean towards the latter.

yeah, enrique is right. lol dickensian aspect, but i would compare the wire formally to the nineteenth century realist novel + to shakespeare.

horseshoe otm about everything in this thread

the different characters don't get as much on screen time as Carmela, sure. i agree with that

the wire never had any fucking dream sequences either

― kuntrie/hardrock-tributes (goole), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:28 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ultimately this is all you really gotta say

esp re: this

i maintain that the Wire is more generous emotionally because it loves its characters and it's okay with the viewer loving its characters, but that is based on a comparison with, like, three episodes of the Sopranos, so i don't really know what i'm talking about.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:20 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

Kima would be the exception, and maybe this is bullshit of me, but it seemed to me that it was easier for the creators to write her because she's a lesbian.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:23 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahaha horseshoe on the money with life in general

the wire isn't really journalistic realism!

xpost ade, your post about not finding the sopranos characters human is basically what i've been stealing all through this thread.

aw you guys. <3

the mafia system is pre-capitalst, it's basically feudalism. the sopranos' money was always vague.

this is an interesting point - but I think there's a number of situations where its made clear how they make their money (like when they "bust out" the Scatino guy's sports store). It isn't about a product, its about predatory behavior, pure and simple. They find someone gullible enough to get involved, and then they take everything. Its not really capitalist in that there's no market forces involved, beyond maybe competition between the crews/families.

x-post

the wire isn't really journalistic realism!

no but that's it's "style"

i've only watched seasons 1-4 of the wire, so maybe i'm setting myself up, but the last episode of the sopranos was some straight up i don't know how to end this, so it's gonna end all weird Don't Stop Believin/onion ring/dream sequence bullshit. i don't see how the end of the wire could be any worse

btw i dont think you have to hate one to prefer the other! anyone writing off the sopranos for dumb reasons like it's about mobsters or it has dream sequences is really missing out!

Seriously, though, post-being-a-dick, if anyone can explain to me better than the countless slavering articles over the years what the meat of the Sopranos was, beyond a run-of-the-mill family-and-work drama about people who happened to be really unpleasant, I would appreciate it in a seeking-to-understand-not-argue kind of way

it's about the drug trade in baltimore

season 5 is worse than the previous 4, but i maintain that the end of season 5 recovers and i cried like 5000 times in the last two episodes.

xpost to Que

it's gonna end all weird Don't Stop Believin/onion ring/dream sequence bullshit

so wrong

so wrong

how was that a good ending of a TV show?

...

what the meat of the Sopranos was

its about a man who corrupts and/or destroys everyone he comes into contact with. Like Le Strada.

oh yeah, let's have THIS conversation

what kind of question is that? you think all shows should end with a 20-minute montage sending off the characters?

Bobby 'Bacala' Baccalieri: I mean, our line of work, it's always out there. You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?

hey i'm just saying, i'd love for someone to try and explain it to me

yeah everything Bubbles related in s5 is like niagara falls for me

i <3 s1ocki

The idea that the Sopranos would have been better if it ended with them going "TONY IS DEAD, LOOK HERE COMES THE RUSSIAN FROM SERIES 3 WITH A GUN AND HE CAPS HIM! AWESOME!" is fantastically wrong-headed.

The idea that the Sopranos would have been better if it ended with them going "TONY IS DEAD, LOOK HERE COMES THE RUSSIAN FROM SERIES 3 WITH A GUN AND HE CAPS HIM! AWESOME!" is fantastically wrong-headed.

That's not what I'm saying.

yes it is... admit it

its about a man who corrupts and/or destroys everyone he comes into contact with

Okay, I like this, and will keep it in mind if I ever rewatch any of the series, though I can't escape the feeling that everyone he comes into contact with is already corrupted before the start of episode 1

xpost - I don't think that's what Que is suggesting in the least

actually it is... admit it

Yeah you get to watch him corrupt them FURTHER though!

For 70 + hours! WOO HOO!

ending of sopranos = total "hey dudes this is a TV show, get over it" among many, many other things. it's great!

to me the sopranos is basically about family & depression & the way people relate and the way that fundamentally people do and don't (more often the latter) change. the commentary on capitalism, the american way, business etc is there but it's not REALLY what the show is about. its lens is really different than the wire's... so much that comparing them is kind of apples and oranges, you end up comparing subject matter and not the art itself, which to me is kind of a dead-end.

i think the ending David Chase served up after all that time we spent with Tony and Carmella was a weak cop out. i loved the 2nd to last episode with AJ and the pool and the fire and stuff. but the last episode, and the last sequence in particular just rubbed me the wrong way. and no, russian flashback mobsters and/or montages are not what i'm suggesting either

smart people defending the sopranos in this thread have made me kind of want to watch it now. i love edie falco.

the wire is my jesus, though.

everyone he comes into contact with is already corrupted before the start of episode 1

No. DR. MELFI duh. He corrupts his children, for another example (at the beginning AJ doesn't even know he's in the mafia). He ruins Artie Bucco, who up to then has been a hapless civilian resterateur. He corrupts/kills/otherwise ruins multiple characters who are introduced throughout the show. Tony draws everyone into his web and makes them all complicit in a whole host of horrible things by virtue of their casual greed, their gullibility, or their desire to be like him/live vicariously through him (ie, Melfi, or Christopher). Its about the banality of evil and how its enabled by all kinds of little innocuous compromises and self-centered behavior.

ending of sopranos = total "hey dudes this is a TV show, get over it" among many, many other things. it's great!

― ryan, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 17:43 (32 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"That's the question I get asked more than any other. It drives people crazy: 'Where's the Russian? What happened to the Russian?' We could say, 'Well, he got out and there's a big mob war with the Russians,' or 'He crawled off and died.' But we wanted to keep it ambiguous. You know, not everything gets answered in life. They shot a guy. Who knows where he went? Who cares about some Russian? This is what Hollywood has done to America. Do you have to have closure on every little thing? Isn't there any mystery in the world? It's a murky world out there. It's a murky life these guys lead. And by the way, I do know where the Russian is. But I'll never say because so many people got so pissy about it."

i find the failure of change, and redemption of any sort, to be immensely crushing in the Sopranos. in it's way it's incredibly dark.

god i love that "i do know where the Russian is"...that's hilarious!

"i think the ending David Chase served up after all that time we spent with Tony and Carmella was a weak cop out."

I agree with the caveat that if Season 3 or 4 had ended that way, I would have loved it. Instead it reinforced how completely bereft of ideas the final 30 someodd episodes had been.

i think my reaction to both is, in the end, a moral thing -- the wire is about people figuring things out and the sopranos is about people never figuring things out

i find the failure of change, and redemption of any sort, to be immensely crushing in the Sopranos. in it's way it's incredibly dark.

― ryan, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 5:45 PM (29 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's UNBELIEVABLY dark.

I'll also admit that the ending of the Sopranos struck me as a good example of what I mean by ladling Great Dramatic Significance onto something that is not great or dramatically significant, in the knowledge that viewers were ready to accept that significance as a given, as something already earned, and pore over it. Once again, I couldn't figure out what was there, and it felt a bit "and then someone shoots Tony."

(Hahaha but per the misreading of Mr. Que I'd probably have found it powerful if it ended with a POV shot of AJ across the table making a horrified "gun going off at dad's temple" face -- that'd have stuck with me, especially since in all discussion of what happened at the end, I don't think I saw many people discuss the emotional logistics of dad's head blowing up all over your onion rings, right in front of you.)

and it makes SO much sense that david chase suffers from depression... ive never seen a show, or a movie for that matter, that deals with mental illness so intimately and intelligently.

and it is ABSOLUTELY about all the other things s1ocki mentions - the depression/family angle is what it all gets filtered trhough. Which is necessary in that it allows the viewer to identify and empathize with the characters, even as they're doing absolutely horrible things to one another.

x-post

He corrupts/kills/otherwise ruins multiple characters who are introduced throughout the show. Tony draws everyone into his web ... by virtue of their casual greed, their gullibility, or their desire to be like him/live vicariously through him.

I think I'm kinda considering casual greed and desire to live vicariously through a mobster as pre-corruption, but like I said, this angle appeals to me, so if I ever re-watch I will do my best to look at it as a Faust story! (For some reason the family angle never connected with me in the least, but I'll admit to having that unfair withdrawal-of-empathy "I find these people unpleasant to spend TV time with" reaction, which is prudish and not really rational of me.)

for the record, i've only made it thru most of s3 of the sopranos, but i watched the final sequence on youtube and i thought it was pretty much perfect. hilarious, too, in a meta sense, transparently designed to dare fans to gnash their teeth and charge the message boards.

Side question having nothing to do with my not-liking Sopranos: why is that hilarious or cool?

its funny to think of a force of evil as being depressed - that's pretty genius characterization too.

But the reason I think the Sopranos is framed as the story of one man's relationship with his therapist (show begins and ends with Melfi, really) is because of the Faust-y angle. Its openly discussed over the course of the show - why she continues to treat him even though he never gets "better" = because she gets a vicarious thrill, she's morbidly curious/fascinated by it. Just like the audience.

x-post

but i watched the final sequence on youtube and i thought it was pretty much perfect. hilarious, too, in a meta sense, transparently designed to dare fans to gnash their teeth and charge the message boards.

ending of sopranos = total "hey dudes this is a TV show, get over it" among many, many other things. it's great!

man, i really hope this isn't the case. it seems kind of stupid to spend all this time/life/energy working on something and then you get to the end and think to yourself: you know what. fuck it. it's just a TV show. let's have some onion rings.

in some ways Melfi is the one character who is never entirely corrupted by him - she's the only one who resists/says "no" to him (at the end of the series when she says she'll no longer see him), and survives.

it's the 90s guy in me, but i like that the sopranos acknowledges the amount of fantasy regular folk like melfi's friends (ie bho viewers) invest in the criminal life. the wire could have done this but does not. i don't think there are any hbo viewers in the show. (this doesn't make the sopranos better, im just sayin.)

the ending of the sopranos is immense. jesus! the only bit i'd change is meadow parking the car.

in some ways Melfi is the one character who is never entirely corrupted by him - she's the only one who resists/says "no" to him (at the end of the series when she says she'll no longer see him), and survives.

Hahaha just like the non-audience, free of morbid curiosity! I am just goofing around here, but your last two posts could be read as an argument for why it makes someone morally superior to not watch the show. (That doesn't include me, I watched it, I just didn't enjoy it.)

xpost - I mean, I was thinking a lot yesterday about how much we always love to see people troll the public, as if by loving it we are "in" on the joke and not part of the public being trolled -- I'm not sure it's a good thing that we congratulate people for feeling important enough to thumb their noses at the very people who are the reason they are important in the first place....

did you watch and not enjoy the ENTIRE SERIES?

i dont think the end of the sopranos is trolling, or a fuck-you to the fans, at all.

yeah me neither

its very consistent with the rest of the show in terms of suspense, pacing, reference points, etc.

it's more like an affirmation that this show was never about neat closure, like it or not

Yeah, s1ocki, I'm just responding to the argument above -- I was sufficiently convinced they thought it was a solid dramatic ending, though I'm not sure I'd agree.

Also I would estimate that I saw ... more than half of total Sopranos episodes, from the beginning through the end, with most of the drop-off happening around two-thirds of the way through the series? I would blame my dislike on irregular viewing, except that there were times I'd see whole continuous seasons and like it even less.

i think the thing that kind of makes me feel the opposite is the longstanding i am serious film guy obsession w/ mafia movies -- ya guys i agree godfather is unimpeachable classic but its such an overdone thing at this pt. and yeah i know they added a lot of fresh twists because obv great writing and i do think its a good show but that doesnt change the fact that the mob boss gangster movie cliche is pretty unoriginal

― K DEF FROM REAL LIVE (deej), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 6:48 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that's totes unfair, gangster shit is as old as movies and ppl are still finding new things to do with it and really you could use the same argument against the wire with its cops & robbers premise... both shows just take the genre as their starting point.

― s1ocki, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 11:26 AM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yah its not fair to the degree that someone shouldnt dismiss a show bcuz of it, im just explaining the reason behind my preference for the wire -- not claiming anyone has to agree w/ me here. sorry if that sounds cop-out-y

i dont think the wire really has a cops and robbers premise. its an entire city, cast of thousands. it 'more than transcends' cops + robbers shows -- and also i should point out cops and robbers + drug trade has a much more proportionate impact on more ppl than this single strain of italian mobster films which are hugely represented in critically acclaimed cinema thruout the years

im just not that interested in ppl using that template still -- the wire feels a lot more original for that reason, to me

melfi is basically saying, "fuck you, you'll never change, go enjoy the rest of your life" because she realizes tony is just there looking for justification more than cure, which she probably knew all along but finally just told him to go away.

Tony's there for all sorts of reasons. His rationale for continuing the relationship changes throughout the show, but its primarily him adopting different angles to try and break her facade and make her complicit in his life.

i dont think the wire really has a cops and robbers premise. its an entire city, cast of thousands. it 'more than transcends' cops + robbers shows -- and also i should point out cops and robbers + drug trade has a much more proportionate impact on more ppl than this single strain of italian mobster films which are hugely represented in critically acclaimed cinema thruout the years

― K DEF FROM REAL LIVE (deej), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 6:09 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya man, i just cant get with the whole More Important Subject thing... just dont judge art that way... however, in terms of personal pref, totally horses for courses and i could see how an arresting subject matter could draw you in more

also "subject is broadly similar to several critically acclaimed films" is kind of a weak criticism

yah i dont mean to imply this is always the case or that an unfamiliar context is necessarily a bad thing -- like sometimes something totally alien to my experience can draw me in even more -- but in this case its already so heavily used as a context in Serious Film history that it sorta predisposes me to not being enthusiastic about it

i think for me personally tbh the whole "cynical story, likeable characters, + sliver of hope for some of them" thing with the wire probably is the key factor in it winning over the sopranos and its entirely unlikeable bunch and the show's hopeless outlook for them.

also your name is omar little

also "subject is broadly similar to several critically acclaimed films" is kind of a weak criticism

― s1ocki, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:15 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont think so per se! i mean the reason ppl complain about autotune isnt because one artist used it but because so many are using it

i wouldn't call the final sopranos 'trolling' or a 'fuck you' but i think they knew what kind of reactions they'd get from some quarters

i mean even marlo stanfield is more "likeable" to me in some ways than anyone on the sopranos except for a couple of exceptions, imo.

wow if that is the case i will probably not make it thru the sopranos. :(

i dont think so per se! i mean the reason ppl complain about autotune isnt because one artist used it but because so many are using it

― K DEF FROM REAL LIVE (deej), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 6:17 PM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so if someone made this incredible song with autotune you'd still complain about it?

lol well there is hope for one character, i think, and it's a pretty good ride nonetheless xp

haha no but i like the sopranos xp

i dont know, i mean the sopranos characters are despicable but they are likeable at the same time, in the sense that they are mostly charismatic and draw you in and you want to see what they'll do next. dont worry horseshoe you can handle it

I'm not sure it's a good thing that we congratulate people for feeling important enough to thumb their noses at the very people who are the reason they are important in the first place....

most artists worth their salt do this though, don't they? to wrest creative control back from the distracting and usu conservative expectations of fans, even if they may have had a role in creating them. And sometimes, like possibly w/ sopranos, it may just be about staying true to the art and not primarily abour screwing with people. this must be diff in some way i'm missing im thinking.

so true though that it is natural to align with the artist and get some vicarious thrill in thinking that lol everyone else must be so totally perplexed right now, even if that imagined group is really some marginal minority and you're actually trolling next to nobody with an army of blinkered & self-satisfied dicks.

man, i really hope this isn't the case. it seems kind of stupid to spend all this time/life/energy working on something and then you get to the end and think to yourself: you know what. fuck it. it's just a TV show. let's have some onion rings.

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 17:56 (23 minutes ago) Permalink

I love endings like this!

I also love onion rings

so is everybody expecting the Wire to end all neatly wrapped up like a nice little package? I'm just curious.

the sopranos characters are despicable but they are likeable at the same time, in the sense that they are mostly charismatic and draw you in and you want to see what they'll do next

Alluded to this above, but I suspect this right here is the nugget at the core of other stuff that doesn't work for me -- I don't get this charisma or drawing-in at all, and am having a hard time thinking of even one non-Carmela character from the show I would not take the stairs to avoid riding an elevator with

it already ended xp

it already ended

so is everybody expecting the Wire to end all neatly wrapped up like a nice little package? I'm just curious.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:23 PM (13 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

its already ended bro. u should really see it

its already ended

btw

the show ended

xp

shakey i would not read this thread tbh, if you really want to see it, which you should

btw the wire ended months ago

the show ended fyi

hey guys how do u think the wire will end??

omar little eatin an onion ring

in a dream sequence where stringer bell appears as a fish

musical number

lolz its on my list of things to see guys, don't worry

what was that movie with gandolfini -- romance and cigarettes? i thought that was pretty good. had lots of musical numbers

I was far less upset by this thread spoiling the end of the Sopranos than I was the Wire. I stopped watching Sopranos about season four, keep meaning to finish, but just don't feel bothered.

what are some great onion ring moments in television

that fukkin times article giving away the wire spoiler is still blowing my mind -- who the fuck does something like that

Can you really spoil the end of the Sopranos? The screen goes black, that happens at the end of everything

I did not know Tony dies. Although it wouldn't have been hard to guess.

I can't think every time I think I get hungry and I think about the hunger

don't forget to eat

it's not conclusive that tony dies

^^^true

i'm not a sopranos dude but slocki owns in this thread and almost makes me wish i was~

I don't think you can really "spoil" the end of the Sopranos, there's too much deliberate ambiguity built into it.

But the onion rings. . . Seems like that comes out of nowhere.

Did you mean: greasy onion ring moments in television

onion rings symbolize Tony's deep-fried self-loathing

http://www.imdb.com/keyword/onion-ring/

Just #1

http://www.sacmag.com/media/images/sacmag_2/best%20of%20sac/guy.jpg

Guy draws everyone into his web and makes them all complicit in a whole host of horrible things by virtue of their casual hunger, their gullibility, or their desire to be like him/live vicariously through him. Its about the banality of evil and how its enabled by all kinds of little innocuous compromises and self-centered behavior.

haha

http://media.herald-dispatch.com/blog/tuned/uploaded_images/Tony-Soprano-770177.JPG

Guy searches for the restaurants serving the best french fries, onion rings and hamburgers

lolololol

i'm not a sopranos dude but slocki owns in this thread and almost makes me wish i was~

― cankles, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:38 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm

there are no female characters in the wire as strong as carmela or livia. - Let's not forget about Snoop here, possibly my favorite television character ever (tied with Bill Haverchuck, actually). It would be hard to compare her on any level to the ladies of The Sopraons, as her gender was almost incidental to the awesome paradox of chill stoner/totally fucking ruthless nihilistic sociopath. That fact that she was female only underscored the absolute originality of the character.

what are some great onion ring moments in television

― cool app (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 1:31 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Homer proposed to Marge with an onion ring!

this is dodgy, but what horseshoe says about kima does also kinda apply to snoop -- more so really. not saying she's a weak character, just that the show does sort of miss a lot of the female experience/male-female relationships.

snoop's also a really minor character in terms of screentime and general plot importance

yeah i love snoop, ronnie, beadie!, kima less so, but none of them really compare to carmela, it's a matter of screen time and emphasis

xp

yeah, kima and snoop are strong as hell but let's face it, they are basically dudes.

The Wire isn't really about characters, so it's a minor miracle that so many of them are so engaging.

(and of course i don't mean they are dudes b/c they are strong, but you could have changed the characters to be male without re-writing almost anything)

It would be weird if a dude Snoop asked Michael how his hair looks.

fwiw a lot of the more minor female Sopranos characters are as genius in their own way as the more central ones - Svetlana (the one-legged Russian), Gloria Trillo, Meadow's roommate (major lolz with that one)

the Wire definitely could have had some more fleshed out female characters, but the gender thing is ultimately kind of circumstantial...Sopranos is about a family/community full of men and women in (roughly) equal numbers...The Wire is largely about several different professions and walks of life that are traditionally pretty male-dominated.

It would be weird if a dude Snoop asked Michael how his hair looks.

― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 2:49 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not really

fwiw a lot of the more minor female Sopranos characters are as genius in their own way as the more central ones - Svetlana (the one-legged Russian), Gloria Trillo, Meadow's roommate (major lolz with that one)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 8:50 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ro!!!

the Wire definitely could have had some more fleshed out female characters, but the gender thing is ultimately kind of circumstantial...Sopranos is about a family/community full of men and women in (roughly) equal numbers...The Wire is largely about several different professions and walks of life that are traditionally pretty male-dominated.

― Tom Botantino (some dude), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 8:51 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cuz the italian mafia isnt traditionally male-dominated?

oh shit yeah, Rosalie is great. Angie Bonpensierro too

the Sopranos is way more centrally about a mafia guy's family/home life/love interests than The Wire is abuot a cop/drug dealer's same.

actually all the wives are pretty great (Ginny Sack) with the perhaps glaring exception of Mrs. Lil Stevie Van Zandt.

the Sopranos is way more centrally about a mafia guy's family/home life/love interests than The Wire is abuot a cop/drug dealer's same.

― Tom Botantino (some dude), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 9:02 PM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya but not because it's not about a male-dominated culture.

you're kinda saying the sopranos has more good female characters because it has more good female characters.

i was clear about what i said, don't be dense.

im just saying how does that jibe with the argument that the wire isnt a cops and robbers show but about this sprawling great city with thousands of characters if none of them are women?? (not that you're making that argument, i dont think.)

the scope of the sopranos goes beyond the trade to the family to include the women in that world--but that's an artistic choice, not a consequence of the subject matter, so i think it's valid to call wire out on that. is all im saying

The Wire is a slice of city life that consists largely of roles traditionally filled by men, with a relatively minor amount of wife/girlfriend/daughter/mother home life included in it. The Sopranos has a main character who is male but has tons of different relationships with female characters. The 2 shows are framed very differently and allow for different kinds of stories, and it's pointless to 'call out' The Wire on that unless you think Simon & Burns said "ooh we don't like writing dialogue for women, let's focus on the boys here." They could've gone deeper into McNulty's marriage and various philanderings, but then it would've been a totally different show.

yeah the sopranos is a show where the lead character is almost defined entirely in some respects by his relationships with women

I can only imagine what Ma McNulty might have like.

*been like

unless you think Simon & Burns said "ooh we don't like writing dialogue for women, let's focus on the boys here."

is it me or didn't some Wire voter suggest this very thing upthread somewhere

i have many things to say about that, but i don't think it's like that!

it's pointless to 'call out' The Wire on that unless you think Simon & Burns said "ooh we don't like writing dialogue for women, let's focus on the boys here"

right, that's why there are historically so few good roles for women in hollywood, because people actually say that out loud

and ya, no duh it would be a different show if they included more female characters and they were written better!

i don't know, the female characters thing is my only criticism of the Wire. it has female characters of course, but it's way less successful at representing women's lives than men's. i always figure simon genuinely has trouble doing that and knows it and kind of stayed away from it.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 5:20 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

listen i will write a long post about it soon! (i know, y'all can't wait)

It's not a shocker that writers work around their weaknesses.

but i'm saying if they did write around using more female characters, they didn't do so to the detriment of a plausible gender ratio. if there were NO female cops, lawyers, campaign staffers, dealers or hitpersons in the show, it'd be worth considering, but that's not the case. i totally admit that female characters should be something you can put in the Sopranos' plus column, but to use it as a knock on The Wire kinda gets into, like, telling a casting director for a European period piece that they need more minorities.

that seems like an insane comparison to me.

it's a knowingly extreme comparison.

rhonda pearlman was not a bad character

WIRE BABEZ POLL

rhea perlman was an amazing character

lol

d'angelo's mother was strong as hell, tbf.

Namond's mom in season 4 was awesome

she was. she and kima are the strongest.

"she" meaning briana.

i would kill namond's mom with my hands.

I feel like "get out there and deal those drugs like your daddy did" would have a very different effect in the sopranos than it does in the wire

on the viewer, I mean, not in the world of the show

oh i despise namond's mom too but you can't deny she was a woman on a mission

FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE

I can't imagine anybody in the sopranos generating that powerful a reaction, because they live in a self-contained fantasy universe

yeah horseshoe you sound like you're trapped in a dream sequence or something--are the flames a metaphor?

ha i am quoting Clue. sorry, i'll settle down.

oh shit yeah, Rosalie is great. Angie Bonpensierro too - don't forget about Ginny Sacramoni and her hidden stash of chocolate bars!

I can't imagine anybody in the sopranos generating that powerful a reaction, because they live in a self-contained fantasy universe

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 9:41 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you are aware we are talking about made-up tv shows here right

dude I drank a beer with delegate watkins

ha part of why i am so intense about the wire is that some of the characters seem crazy real to me, especially in season 4. but i am insane.

no i feel the same way so i am just as insane

stop sitting so close to the tv. if it completely fills your field of vision that's an easy mistake to make.

you got sonned by tombot s1ocki -- delegate watkins!!

a beer!!

rhonda pearlman was not a bad character

― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 3:28 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i agree with this and i don't think any of the female characters on the wire are bad. they're just not as complex/compelling as the men, by and large. i will admit that part of what made me think this was a weakness on Simon & co.'s part was an offhand comment he made about the actress who plays Shardene in a season one episode commentary, which is a kind of slim to hang that charge on. some dude seems right, too, that part of it is a function of the world represented in the show, but it did wear on me eventually that i felt like so much amazing characterization of male characters happened and there was really no comparable light shed on the women.

briana's greatness derives in large part from how good that actress is. she's playing a strong role, but she's basically playing a mother. not that there's anything wrong with that, but its not specified by much beyond the fact that she's domineering and she loves her son.

lol slocki

we're going to have to have a Rome vs. Deadwood poll eventually, you realize

not until I've watched all of Deadwood though. just been catching episodes here and there. is it just me or is the bad guy from live free or die hard/hitman not all terrible as an actor?

Timothy Olyphant is great, especially in Deadwood! He doesn't make the greatest choices in what roles he takes though - but I can't wait to see him in the second season of Damages.

is it just me or is the bad guy from live free or die hard/hitman not all terrible as an actor?

hahaha--maybe this should be a poll. the wife argued about if he was a good actor or not when we were watching Deadwood. she hates him, i think he's okay.

the wife and i argued

he's extremely one-note in 'deadwood', but i wouldn't say bad exactly. they demoted him from leading man to ensemble player right quick.

his one note take on Bullock gets a little old towards the last season i would have to say

deadwood kind of sucks... rome much better

yeah deadwood got real bad real quick

it was no 'lovejoy'

deadwood kind of sucks... rome much better

― s1ocki, Thursday, 18 December 2008 16:04 (17 minutes ago)

this is a nonsense

s2 deadwood > s1 deadwood >>> s1 rome > s3 deadwood (rip) >>>>>>>>>> s2 rome

deadwood season 1 is pretty dope, season 2 still really good, season 3 is pretty wtf. i think they spent 80% of the last few episodes focusing on brian cox's theatre troupe.

it was no 'lovejoy'

― special guest stars mark bronson, Thursday, 18 December 2008 16:19 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Deadwood severely lacked Hothouse Flowers

i got so fucking sick of that theatre troupe. and i feel like they did nothing with the storyline either.

it was a setup for s4

i'm sure it was--i guess i liked most of seasons 1 & 2 but that last season, jesus

it was also about an order and an economy becoming entrenched enough for culture to arrive, about deadwood becoming a place on the map. plus, dramatic writers love writing about actors, whadyagonnado

brian cox slinging gay innunedo in a brogue at swedgin was much better television than all the 'major dad is a psycho capitalist' business

i think john from cincinatti showed what deadwood dude's true colours were

dude just wanted to surf

and rome season 2 is totally awesome! i'll take degenerate marc anthony and saucy cleopatra over frownyfaced sheriff olyphant any day...

or all that stuff with jeffrey jones wanting to take walks with his buddies or whatever

i watched the sopranos episode with omar last night and i thought of this thread

imagine how rad a crossover would be... tony starts doing business with marlo... the cops get a hold of it!! one episode set in each respective location...

and that is all we are allowed to say about that before things get too custos-y.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harlem_Globetrotters_on_Gilligan's_Island

detective munch could be in it!!1!

xpost

man if the writing on rome s2 wasn't a huge step down from s1 the costumes sure as shit were

i have nothing to say to that.

i have never not liked the clothes on a show before! but there i was, watching, thinking 'holy shit what do they have these people wearing?'

i think the clothes, like most everything on Rome, were so accurate that I could almost smell the show. Deadwood same way btw - about smelling the characters.

yeah it should be a smellovision poll

Was Deadwood the one where everyone was always all "you have to watch it for the language and dialect, they're so unique and almost Shakespearean?" Because that does sound up my alley, but on the other hand (a) it is Deadwood and (b) I don't often get along with westerns.

i dunno, nabisco, aside from some stuff in season 1 w/wild bill hickok it doesn't really feel like a trad western in any way.

the language is amazing

the amazing shakesperean awesomeness of the language, or whatever, was fun at first but i eventually got really, really weary of it.

it feels like the language got denser as the series went on, if that makes sense. Farnum's language and raps and stuff=the highlight of the series for me.

nothing like a good western-style shakesperean rap!

they have those at subway now right

in the first season the language was really natural in a way, extremely well written but not show-offy in a noticeable way. the second season is where it started to get just a little bit too mannered, season 3 was admirable for being so weird but i can't say i enjoyed it, exactly. it mostly had to do with the dialogue.

yeah i really got into the dialogue and the ideas at play about social order etc -- how people make a character of themselves in public, how language responds to and creates power. i can see how this would be really unenjoyable to ppl but i loved it.

I am torn between my love of weird mannered dialogue and that thing where all western-type programs just remind me of boring middle-school field trips to local forts and sites of Indian massacres.

xpost - haha okay, "Foucauldian western" is possibly an exception I can make

we all remember when hal called falstaff a 'cunt-crazed maniac'

yes they swear a lot too! tee hee

lol ive never watched rome nor had the desire to but a fashion design friend of mine went fuckin crazy on it for using spaghetti straps on some of the costumes

cunt-crazed maniac

sub-Gregory Corso at best

in the commentaries milch goes on this long rambling riff about westerns and hollywood and the hays code and how it fucked up our perception of the west. the 'laconic cowboy' was an invention since everyone knew, or used to know, that cattle people and miners and settlers and all that were outrageously verbose, like every other victorian, even tho they were filthy. the same kids writing those amazing civil war letters home grew up and went west, etc.

i don't know if i buy it or if it's even true but it's interesting

yeah i kinda always figured it was true

i think i have to watch deadwood, if it's all about mannered dialogue. it's a good thing tim olyphant is dreamy.

he's got this perfect hollywood grill that sticks out completely

trixie's use of cursing seemed oddly forced to me and overdone. but I loved the dialogue for the most part.

Ok, so I've been watching The Sopranos in order because I'd only ever seen the occasional episode and hadn't seen it properly and this thread reminded me I needed to see it all. It's not as good as The Wire, because of all the stupid dream sequences etc. but up until the end of season 2, it's still almost perfect. And then, without knowing, the start of season 3 is fucking odd. The pacing is all wrong, the storyline just seems rehashed (oh, so another person not as important as tony but still important is more ruffless and crazy and seems unsure of tony's position etc) and most importantly, the livia episode! I never knew what had happened (spoiler: .............................she dead) so watching that scene of just rehashed livia quotes put on a fake body was the creepiest and oddest experience i can remember on fictional television. I'm sure there are great episodes coming so I'm going to continue but, really, people think this is better than The Wire?

oh, so another person not as important as tony but still important is more ruffless and crazy and seems unsure of tony's position etc

is to 'the sopranos' what 'what? the top brass want to shut down the investigation? just as we're getting close?' is to 'the wire'.

ha, ok, i totally agree.

I think it's better, yes. Keep watching, because season 3 is the best of the lot, I think. I never believed in any of the Wire's characters (even though I do like it a lot) in the same way as I believed in The Sopranos - still, what the fuck do I really know about any of these people, living in Cardiff?

yeah, it was more about me wanting to comment on how creeped out i got after watching that scene with tony talking to old livia clips was than anything.

yeah it is a shame that scene is so weird. i'm amazed nobody noticed that her parting keeps changing sides.

"season 3 is the best of the lot"

Totally and completely untrue.

ya fully untrue.

i'd say 5 at this point.

watch something like the opening montage of season 6 and compare it to the workmanlike filmmaking of the wire and it amazes me that anyone would thing the latter is a better show.

and if you think the sopranos is good despite "all the stupid dream sequences" you might as well give up now.

unfair, or at least missing the point to compare cinematography of these shows - sops eps were often used as showcase portfolio pieces by whatever director was doing that particular ep, so full of arty swoopy stuff - they usually kinda wanted to be film-like, the wire never did (i.e. the wire knows it's tv, wants to be tv, i.e. is better tv)

i'm not talking about cinematography.

i'm talking about visual ideas, staging, editing, direction. if you think it's better tv to throw those things out the window you might as well acclaim three-camera sitcoms as the best of tv.

the wire didn't throw those out the window, the sopranos just had more obvious cinematic tics.

i mean you can compare the two if the wire was trying to do the same thing as the sopranos, but it wasn't so in the end the comparison on those grounds is a little off-base. i think at some point it's just a matter of personal taste. do you prefer the style of the sopranos or the style of the wire? plus i think a lot of the preferences come down to characters w/r/t these two shows. it makes total sense why someone would prefer the wire imo!

you are obviously biased OMAR

naw it's just buggin' me how ppl dismisss the sopranos so out of hand when it so clearly, to me at least, such a monumentally fuckin awesome work of art

watch something like the opening montage of season 6 and compare it to the workmanlike filmmaking of the wire and it amazes me that anyone would thing the latter is a better show.

i no what u mean and maybe agree with u in general but i think "workmanlike" is really unfair here. like, just thinking of there's a shot in the third season of the wire where it goes from something static and tv to swooping out to track all the beer cans on the roof of the western that was really beautiful. the wire had fewer of these moments but they were there its not like its 2.5 men or w/e

shit gettin heated

slocki is so blatantly o the fucking m here.

my real complaint with visual stuff re: the wire is that the symbolism was pretty heavy-handed like just super-composed shots of ppl being framed by metal detectors in the FBI building or those under the overpass drinking shots

unfair, or at least missing the point to compare cinematography of these shows - sops eps were often used as showcase portfolio pieces by whatever director was doing that particular ep, so full of arty swoopy stuff - they usually kinda wanted to be film-like, the wire never did (i.e. the wire knows it's tv, wants to be tv, i.e. is better tv)

completely untrue about 'the sopranos' which was pretty consistent tbh anyway. one of the sops' main directors, tim van patten, also directed on the wire. anyway it's complete, ahistorical bs to say there is a 'cinematic' look and a 'televisual' look and ne'er the twain shall meet.

the idea of preferring mediocrity because it's somehow realer tv is bizarre dude, it's approaching rockist levels of misguided authenticity worship

wait slocki if you're not talking about cinematography what are you talking about?

ALSO WHY ARE YOU CALLING THE WIRE MEDIOCRE I'LL KILL YOU

to prove a point

morbs bait xxxpost

the shows are trying to do two different things, and their visual characteristics reflect that. I think there are duff moments in the Sopranos for time to time, but overall, it is a pretty amazing piece of work. Sopranos might be bit more rewarding on 4th or 5th rewatch than the Wire, but both shows are just too good to really put into an 'either/or' context.

basically it's a good thing that tv has busted out! in the same way that it was a good thing that, some time in the 1910s, people figured out that you didn't have to shoot people feet-to-head; or, in the 1920s, that you could move the camera.

xposts

when people say 'cinematography' they usually mean it like it's an additional extra, rather than the actual texture of the thing we're talking about.

i am genuinely interested to know what you meant, slocki! i am stupid about this stuff.

mise en scene?

oh okay i think it's what enrique said. i agree with Lamp that there was a lot that was artful about the way the wire looked. i guess the differences are down to the formal stuff that got discussed upthread; i agree that the differences aren't about movies v. tv.

(i will say that i grew to kind of hate david simon listening to a season one commentary where he sneers about tv and basically spends a lot of time belaboring how the wire is so very not tv like. both false and made him sound like an insecure dick.)

yeah, enrique is right. lol dickensian aspect, but i would compare the wire formally to the nineteenth century realist novel + to shakespeare.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:31 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u know its interesting that u say this since simon actively resists comparing the wire to shakespeare--even going so far as to say that sopranos is hbos shakespearean tragedy--he thinks of the wire as a greek tragedy, and in place of gods u have the institutions that ruin mens lives.

yeah well fuck the things he says about his show he is disingenuous!

all right maybe he's right. i know more about shakespeare than about greek tragedy.

my classics professor agreed with him but classics professors think everything is a greek tragedy

lol indeed.

but i think he is otm.

i don't think the wire OR the sopranos is v. shakespearean but the sops is moreso. but let's not get into 'what makes shakespeare shakespearean?' thing.

yeah i have been trying to think about what i meant by that and i can't really fix on anything. maybe i just meant "stagey."

i always thought of it as the sopranos' characters determined what happened and ultimately their fates while in the wire they had that greek god system of 'no matter what you do you're fucked'.

that won't hold up to the most cursory of glances tho

no i think that is a big part of the sopranos, the character = fate thing.

i always thought of it as the sopranos' characters determined what happened and ultimately their fates while in the wire they had that greek god system of 'no matter what you do you're fucked'.

yah idk nobility in the face of futility was a pretty big thing in the wire

pretty big think in greek tragedy too!

idk jack shit about greek tragedy tbh, but i don't think you can sub 'society' for 'the gods' THAT easily. js.

not society but the institutions. running theme in (what little i know of) greek tragedy is that the mortals are but playthings for the gods to dick around with for whatever reason. humans can't do anything about it, and yes, it is more important about how you act in the face of futility (cue jstor search for marlo wanting his name to echo for eternity lolssertation).

yeah there's something that's bothering me about the analogy. i know simon stays on message in interviews about his fatalism, but what happens on the show is people shaping institutions and being shaped by them. it's not like the institutions are floating above everyone, inscrutably controlling destinies.

some characters seem to fit the greek tragic model* better than others. omar more than jimmy, for example. or both fit them and not. like, bubbles killing sherrod is all tragic reversal, but overall bubbs's storyline bears witness to the fact that the choices he makes matter.

*i don't really know what this model even is lol

xpost

ya, y i said it didn't hold up if you looked too hard. i guess the argument could be that personal choices matter for the person, but at the end of the day nothing anyone does can affect any large scale change because you can't beat the department, city hall, or the game. schools will never get better, leaving the kids stuck in a still desperate situation, even if the occasional namond gets a helping hand out. drug laws can't be changed, and the department is stuck trying to give good PR to the hall rather than encouraging good police work.

otoh, avon/stringer doom was very much due to their characters.

schools will never get better, leaving the kids stuck in a still desperate situation, even if the occasional namond gets a helping hand out. drug laws can't be changed, and the department is stuck trying to give good PR to the hall rather than encouraging good police work.

this is why i think the show's fatalism is a problem tbh. i don't mean this in a pollyannaish way, just that things haven't always been this way, and won't always be either.

i think the fatalism aspects aren't so much about 'och well, this is all it will ever be, don't it suck'. the desperate fatalism, i think, is meant to shock and infuriate us into paying more attention to just what's going on. it also ups the drama within the show.

i guess i feel like the show shows you the unintended inertia of institutions but i don't think it actually says schools will never get better or drug laws can't be changed. (i seriously don't think it gets into the latter at all, does it?) this is maybe a pollyannish read of the show, though.

it's true it's not good at showing you that things won't always be this way. and yeah, it seems like simon's project is to use fatalism as a corrective.

drug laws can't be changed. (i seriously don't think it gets into the latter at all, does it?)

It's a pretty big part of season 3 with hamsterdam. royce genuinely looks into legalizing the zones until the's all 'oh wtf was i thinking' - basically the city hall and the game can't be reformed etc...

lol dunno jack about greek tragedy but am trying to remember what fritz lang says about it in 'le mepris'...

re: hamsterdam, yeah okay. i just feel like there are complex reasons in the show for why change doesn't occur, when it doesn't. some of it seems beyond control and some doesn't. like why carcetti fails as mayor--some of that is about the intractability of politics and some of it is about carcetti himself. like how he can't bring himself to ask the governor for money even though the city desperately needs it.

this is insanity

that is otm, yes

xxpost i do think the greek tragedy element flies out the window a bit once city hall comes in and the upper authorities are fleshed out and humanized, though still unable to do much of anything.

tho the greek gods played out their wars using puny human pawns, so maybe understanding the powers that be doesn't make a difference?

"this is why i think the show's fatalism is a problem tbh. i don't mean this in a pollyannaish way, just that things haven't always been this way, and won't always be either."

Can't agree on the 'fatalism'. By showing the processes of what goes wrong I see an intention to be a part of the changing of things.

that would be quite a vain and historically unfounded intention! im not sure if the show's creators would subscribe to it anyway.

it's not a bad thing for drama to tell us something about 'real social conditions', it's just that that can't be the main pitch.

Well, I definitely get a sense of 'these are the problems, maybe one of you viewers will have a solution or two to them'. That's a reason as to why comparing Sopranos to Wire in the first place doesn't make any sense, really.

otoh the focus on reality is unfortunate, there is a big element of chance to this show as well (beyond anyone's control so it undermines what I'm saying a bit).

ok, after the initial couple episodes, i have to say the sopranos season 3 turns into about as great a television i've ever seen. <3 pine barrens and <3 the singing fish toy thing.

I am so w/s1ocki on the Sopranos love but haven't started in on the Wire yet even so I will be very surprised if these lopsided poll results are even halfway justified, the Sopranos is so so great on so many levels.

Yeah, the margin for the Wire victory is way too fucking large. It's a definitely a much closer battle.

i'm w slocki and i think history will be on his side as well

They're both amazing, but the Sopranos has more going on in terms of rewatching certain episodes. Tons of wink winks and inside jokes.

The Wire is full of "wink winks and inside jokes"!!!

i don't think it's worth debating with "OldHamSweat"

there's a lot of things that I could say right now that I am not gonna say

it's not the winks that make it worth rewatching, it's the writing & acting. once you know how things play out so many scenes are so much more layered, characters' actions and motivations so much deeper. such a rewarding re-screen.

Good Wire game - count the Peckinpah refs.

once you know how things play out so many scenes are so much more layered, characters' actions and motivations so much deeper.

^^^totally co-sign this (which I was kinda ref'ing w/the quote above in a fairly oblique way I guess - that line gets repeated in a number of different scenes by different people at different times and its use and repetition reveals a lot of layers)

part of it is that characters in the Sopranos - esp the major ones - are rarely communicating openly and honestly (is Tony ever honest with anyone about anything, really?) and the dialogue is more often than not a really amazing excercise in misdirection, irony, flattery, manipulation, etc.

it begins

what does

"it"

slashfic

omar and tony team up to fight crime?!

me watching the Wire is what.

not totally blown away by the first three episodes but I'll assume it gets better

nope, those are the best three

I knew it

it begins

what does

me reading the thread is what.

"is"

is begins

hot dogs

hot dogs begin

"slashfic"

slashfic

http://i43.tinypic.com/2l9nrih.jpg

Oh man, got the complete series today. Am in high heaven right now.

It begins. . .

Way way late on this, but to me The Sopranos is about a lot of things, but its main concerns were: parenting and the raising of children, mainly in the ways Tony was affected/shaped most obviously by his mother but also importantly by his father and the way he and Carmela shaped their own children, and to what degree anyone can be expected to overcome their parentage. This of course extends to many threads throughout the series... Uncle Junior and even Paulie as father figures, Tony attempting to "re-mother" himself with Melfi, Ralph's influence on Jackie Jr, the relationship between Tony and Christopher, Christopher's father... I think that's the richest and deepest vein in terms of the show's thematic concerns. And that, of course, ties into another major concern of the show, which is whether/how much people can change, and at what point(s) they can reasonably be expected to do so. Other things I think the show is about/dealt with extensively: depression, therapy, dishonorable people attempting to be honorable (this if what the mafia is, essentially), corruption, heritage/cultural pride (obviously Italian here, but I think it might apply beyond that). And it was also about the love between Tony and Carmela, especially in the later years. People who complain about the show spinning its wheels or doing nowhere are only watching on a surface level, and yeah, I realize how pretentious/arrogant that might sound, but I think every episode had a purpose or theme or joke or something it was conveying... To write any of them off, I don't get.

Don't tell me The Wire is "clearly" the superior or richer show, goddamnit.

sing it, sister.

i think there's a little fronting in about 70% of the OMG WIRE IS THE BEST SHOW EVAR opinions I read on borads and hear IRL

The wire is the clearly superior and/or richer show.

116 Ilxors can't be wrong. . .

almost done with Season 1... its pretty good, as far as cop shows go. Still seems to have a lot of the same problems as most cop shows ("You're off the case McGarnigle!" "No you're off YOUR case, Chief!") in terms of heavy-handedness (lolz innercity kids using crack deals to do math problems! DO U SEE) and character stereotypes (the determined heart-of-gold cop, the noble criminal, the confused young kid caught up in a world not of his choosing, etc.)

I dunno, I'll rent some more but if the acting/character writing doesn't seriously pick up by season 2 I'm gonna say fuck it.

smart move

part of what it comes down to for me is that i don't mind the cliches The Wire indulges in nearly as much as the cliches The Sopranos indulges in

its the other way around for me. I have a very negative, visceral, gut reaction to cop shows and particularly "hero cop" roles.

in every cop show ever

^^^let's count the number of these that the Wire indulges in

i love cop shows

12. lesbionic supporting-actress cop who bails the principal male cops out of life-and-death jams

^^^haha

Hakim Bey's 80s essay on cop shows kinda turned me off of them forever

i think people have "cliches" confused with "signifiers of a genre"

^^^

I.... guess? Care to elaborate?

no, it's totally a cop show cliche when a bunch of cops start running around trying to solve crimes and stuff

makes me roll my eyes every time

no, it's totally a cop show cliche when a bunch of cops start running around trying to solve crimes and stuff

that's not what I said at all but thx for the strawman argument

you really need to discern between joshin' around and vicious attacks on your person

i hate it when cop shows involve criminals and also crimes

quality criticism goin on here

i'm not really disagreeing, there's some eye-rolling moments in The Wire, particularly in the first year (the chess scene, ugh), i just think the show is still really worthwhile for a lot of other reasons. like i said, though, obviously how you feel about a show's given genre trappings is gonna figure into it differently for different people.

i can understand why you'd feel the cliches of cops performing mundane cop tasks on a show about cops might seem to be a little too "cop" but season 1 is like the 4th best of the 5 seasons and the next three get increasingly doper

I think some of this is a byproduct of the overhyping of the wire... it gets talked about with such a reverent tone, about how radical and complex it is, ppl make it sound like joyce's ulysses made flesh, then you watch it and it's just a well-done policier, it's like, uh, okay.

edward otm.

I was thinking about starting a thread about people who are OMG FRONTING with the Wire

almost done with Season 1... its pretty good, as far as cop shows go. Still seems to have a lot of the same problems as most cop shows ("You're off the case McGarnigle!" "No you're off YOUR case, Chief!") in terms of heavy-handedness (lolz innercity kids using crack deals to do math problems! DO U SEE) and character stereotypes (the determined heart-of-gold cop, the noble criminal, the confused young kid caught up in a world not of his choosing, etc.)

i thought the wire was original, and cool, in presenting Jimmy McNulty not as a kind compassionate cop out to fight crime, catch the crook, save the community, whatever but instead as a self-serving, arrogant, smart-ass, dick who will do anything to solve a case, fuck the consequences, in order to prove what an awesome cop he is, and how big a slong he has.

xpost

starting with this post

The Wire will have more historical weight when the era it directly depicts has passed, and will help future generations better understand what happened.

― The rickroll from the hilarious NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP, NEVER GONNA (some dude), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:12 PM (4 months ago)

McNulty's motivation isn't exactly clear to me (so far). Which has kinda bothered me tbh.

x-post

"how you feel about a show's given genre trappings is gonna figure into it differently for different people"

Nah, the Wire is pretty immune to that. People who hate cop shows love the Wire.
There's plenty of non-mobster stuff in Sopranos to enjoy as well.

Wire is also frequently funnier than 30 Rock, The Office.

not exactly a herculean feat to be funnier than the office

imo

Like, I get that his role in the show is as the "OMG hardass who's gonna crack this case NO MATTER WHAT" but personality-wise - what drives him, why he does any of the things he does, etc. - he's a blank. Which is kinda lame.

x-post

like lolz I am just waiting for the episode where we find out he has a dead brother/father/girlfriend whose loss has driven him to be THE BEST COP EVAR

(plz tell me this episode doesn't actually happen. if it does I'll just stop watching now)

he's basically a combination of alcoholic douchebag, morally righteous cop, and sad bastard who's incapable of doing anything else in his life worth a shit so he plunges everything into solving cases.

" personality-wise - what drives him, why he does any of the things he does, etc"

he's Irish?

whiney i'm sorry if you're not down with the idea that a piece of fiction that accurately encapsulates many of the issues and problems of its era could be useful as a cultural artifact for later generations to understand that era. but i mean honestly, if in 20 years Baltimore is a completely different place than it is now, and my children want to ask me what it was like in the 80s/90s/early 00s, i will probably show them The Wire or give them a copy of the Homicide book. those, to me, are valuable documents of that place and time. it's not some grandiose far-fetched proclamation to say that people might still be watching DVDs of that show in 2035.

yes

what about diplo

not exactly a herculean feat to be funnier than the office

― @kanyewest (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, May 15, 2009 1:38 PM

and if anyone knows funny it's ^^

diplo

and if anyone knows funny it's diplo

diplol

I'm getting close to the point where I'm gonna have to decide if I continue the wire after season 1 and I'm on the fence (omar might have sold me on soldiering on for a while longer). it's well done but I don't love it like I loved sopranos, and it's very easy for me to point to why. the sopranos' characters are more complex, iconic, operatic even. the sopranos is admittedly weak on plot - in fact I thought the 2nd season was a total waste of time, an attempt to cruise on the cast's charm. on the other hand, the wire has plot and pacing down pat, there's no fat, but the stock characters are keeping me emotionally removed from what's happening. if any of these characters took a bullet in the next episode I don't think I'd be all too concerned, whereas some of the character's fates in the sopranos had me reeling.

the wire is concerned with events in people's work lives, whereas sopranos is concerned equally with work, family, and the relationship between the two (which jouster laid out pretty thoroughly above). it leans towards the psychological whereas the wire is primarily sociological. (and please nobody jump in to say "but the wire has families in it!" - I'm talking about what 90% of any given episode is spent on, major thematic concerns, etc.) so the sopranos has the ability to speak to the human condition directly, and the wire seems more preoccupied with people's relationships with institutions.

keep in mind I'm only half way through season 1 and I reserve the right to totally reverse myself later, this is just where I'm at right now.

if you don't like it by the end of season 2 just stop, but 1 is pretty straightforward "cop show" shit

it's tough cuz people who have the most problems with the 1st season would probably do best to give the 4th season a chance before bailing on the show, but you can't really tell someone to skip 2 seasons of the show and expect them to be able to follow it.

xpost some dude

Why do you assume The Wire is "accurate"?