is the shield anywhere near as good as the wire?

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i've just finished season three of the wire,and was looking for something else to watch after i finish season four.

i've never seen the shield,nor do i really know anything about it,but i've seen a few references to it being similiar to the wire...

so i was wondering,is it just the poor man's wire or is it worth watching in its own right?

― robin (robin), Thursday, 25 January 2007 00:54 (nineteen years ago)

I only watched the first few episodesof "the sheild", but I'd say no. A ham-fisted second cousin at best.

― John Justen is fucking sick of his username (johnjusten), Thursday, 25 January 2007 00:58 (nineteen years ago)

Just because it's not nearly as good as the Wire (which is only the best TV show ever, after all) doesn't mean it isn't worth watching. I keep up with it. The best thing about it is the overexposed LA cinematography, but the second best is how completely a worthless asshole that you love to hate to love to hate the lead is.

― Candy: tastes like chicken, if chicken was a candy. (Austin, Still), Thursday, 25 January 2007 01:27 (nineteen years ago)

yeah Chiklis and CCH Pounder in particular are just a joy to watch, and they drag the rest of the proceedings with them ok. my brother-in-law insisted on lending me The Shield season 1 and prodded me through watching it(it only took 6 months or so...) and if you can wade through a lot of clunky characterization, ersatz ghettospeak, and pat, sub-Crash melting-pot plot machinations it's solid entertainment. Absolutely nothing that will leave you breathless(so far at least, my brother in law says it gets better).

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Thursday, 25 January 2007 02:09 (nineteen years ago)

haven't seen the wire btw

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Thursday, 25 January 2007 02:10 (nineteen years ago)

season 1 isn't that great. the subsequent seasons are definitely a lot better.

― roger goodell (gear), Thursday, 25 January 2007 02:13 (nineteen years ago)

Nothing is as good as the Wire.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 25 January 2007 02:17 (nineteen years ago)

I prefer The Wire. It makes me want to understand almost every character, everybody seems like a real person.

In my experience with The Shield (first season and isolated eps since), most of the main characters are unsympathetic douchebags. Nobody for me to root for (not even in a 'root for the bad guy' way).

I prefer The Wire.

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Thursday, 25 January 2007 02:21 (nineteen years ago)

Chiklis

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 25 January 2007 02:23 (nineteen years ago)

you prefer the wire, then

― roger goodell (gear), Thursday, 25 January 2007 02:24 (nineteen years ago)

i worship the wire

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 25 January 2007 02:32 (nineteen years ago)

yes! the shield is good times but the wire pwns everything

― roger goodell (gear), Thursday, 25 January 2007 02:33 (nineteen years ago)

new drink: is the wire near as good or much gooder than the first few seasons of Homicide?(the last hourlong drama I actually followed)

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Thursday, 25 January 2007 02:33 (nineteen years ago)

NOTHING is as good as the Wire.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 25 January 2007 03:27 (nineteen years ago)

The Shield is So much better than The Wire it isn't even funny. More credible characters, better fashion, a shorter title sequence, a louder theme song, more SUVs, the list goes on! Plus it's a very accurate picture of race relations in America, as many Ivy league studies have concluded.

― Rebel.yell.For.Internet.cakes (nordicskilla), Thursday, 25 January 2007 03:31 (nineteen years ago)

Watch the first ep of the second season of The Wire where they blaze over the border into Mexico and lay down the law Farmington-style right in the middle of Tijuana! BLAM!

― Rebel.yell.For.Internet.cakes (nordicskilla), Thursday, 25 January 2007 03:32 (nineteen years ago)

The Wire is sooooo boring with its dialogue and plot and FIXED camera. yawn! did someone call Perry mason?

― Rebel.yell.For.Internet.cakes (nordicskilla), Thursday, 25 January 2007 03:34 (nineteen years ago)

90% of the thrill with the Shield is watching Chiklis do transgressive shit, right? It's basically Grand Theft Auto: Ramparts.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 25 January 2007 03:37 (nineteen years ago)

the shield is better than episodes 7-10 of season 2 of the wire, but episodes 3-16 of season 3 of the wire are better than episodes 2-30 of season 4 of the shield.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 25 January 2007 03:43 (nineteen years ago)

also, all episodes of both are better than any five minutes of Carnivale

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 25 January 2007 03:46 (nineteen years ago)

Liar. Episode eight is when Ziggy kills his pet duck by poisoning it with alcohol. That one's a classic.

(this may or may not be true)

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 25 January 2007 03:46 (nineteen years ago)

comparing the shield and the wire is essentially futile. like comparing a can of sparks to a snifter of armagnac.

or an actual shield to an actual wire.

does not compute!

― Rebel.yell.For.Internet.cakes (nordicskilla), Thursday, 25 January 2007 04:02 (nineteen years ago)

also as for the shield being "a poor man's wire"...you know what they say about poor men.

― Rebel.yell.For.Internet.cakes (nordicskilla), Thursday, 25 January 2007 04:04 (nineteen years ago)

They smell funny?

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 25 January 2007 04:08 (nineteen years ago)

You've been hanging out with a bad crowd.

― Rebel.yell.For.Internet.cakes (nordicskilla), Thursday, 25 January 2007 04:09 (nineteen years ago)

But they smell divine.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 25 January 2007 04:10 (nineteen years ago)

does 'the wire' have a gag based on a character singing 'hungry like the wolf' after a hot date?

huh? what? yeah i thought not.

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 25 January 2007 09:41 (nineteen years ago)

I agree that the two shows shouldn't be compared. The Shield is fast moving and full of crazy action shit (see Chiklis running through wooden fence) whereas the Wire is slower and is really more about developing accurate and deep characters. That being said the addition of Forest Whitaker in the last series on The Shield cranked the whole show up a notch - it just keeps getting better.

― tpp (tpp), Thursday, 25 January 2007 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

I can't watch cop shows after the Wire because none of them will be as good.

― max (maxreax), Thursday, 25 January 2007 15:55 (nineteen years ago)

Actually, I take that back, Prime Suspect might be as good as the Wire. Certainly close enough that it's not embarrassing.

― max (maxreax), Thursday, 25 January 2007 15:57 (nineteen years ago)

where's that thread where dude is like THERE IS NOTHING GAY ABOUT THE SHIELD and then its a bunch of pictures of Chiklis looking like he does.

― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 25 January 2007 15:59 (nineteen years ago)

tpp totally OTM - both are good for entirely diff. reasons (& yeah, Alex in SF is probably OTM too). I'm all for giving THE SHIELD props (Forrest Whitaker & Glenn Close as season-long special guest stars = NICE), but nordicskilla needs to ease off the PR gas a bit. Don't recall much of Season 1 (tho the series has been building off of S1 from the get-go), but anything involving Aceveda's public office run, Shane & his girlfriend, the Armenian money train or Anthony Anderson is must-see.

I root for CCH Pounder. & Dutch, even if he is a dork.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 25 January 2007 16:07 (nineteen years ago)

i loved s01... and then the show got even better. so when i watch it now it's less good cos more formulaic. on the other hand they had to set out the store: this is what they do, and you can assume the other stuff is still ongoing when other shit is too. the shows are so different, and the 'problem' with the shield in comparison with the wire is that homicide cases tend to be wrapped up toot sweet, whereas in the wire it takes aeons. and the wire is probably more realistic that way. both of them had their pilot eps directed by the same guy!

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 25 January 2007 16:11 (nineteen years ago)

"Actually, I take that back, Prime Suspect might be as good as the Wire."

Prime Suspect 2 (and 3) are maybe the best thing British TV has ever put out there. The only criticism I have of Prime Suspect is it went quickly downhill thereafter 1) mostly because LaPlante stop writing the scripts and 2) but also because as Jane moves up in the world the convolutions that are made to pull her into various cases become more and more unrealistic.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 25 January 2007 16:16 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

after devouring the complete run of The Wire thus far, am now watching The Shield S1 and good god is this bad. at first the high-energy shakycam stuff was really appealing, but gah the acting is terrible ("The Captain"?!), the characterisation so so lame-cliche-boring, the plot and politics really off-puttingly conservative. DESTROY.

― sean gramophone, Thursday, 12 April 2007 14:38 (eighteen years ago)

you're wrong, but that's okay.

'the shield' improves a lot, and consistently. i would say from s03 it's the equal of 'the wire'. but obviously it's pretty different, tonally. the acting is fine (by the captain you mean aceveda? what's wrong with his acting?). the characterization isn't any more cliched than 'the wire' (hi dere hard-drinking divorced detective who plays by his own rules).

politics are definitely more conservative in s01 later, but they're not exactly unambiguously right-wing. someone somewhere compared it with sam fuller and that sounds about right.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 12 April 2007 14:43 (eighteen years ago)

"The Shield is So much better than The Wire it isn't even funny. More credible characters, better fashion, a shorter title sequence, a louder theme song, more SUVs, the list goes on! Plus it's a very accurate picture of race relations in America, as many Ivy league studies have concluded.

-- Rebel.yell.For.Internet.cakes (nordicskilla), Thursday, January 25, 2007 6:31 AM (2 months ago)"

8080

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 12 April 2007 14:45 (eighteen years ago)

Watching the new season has been kinda painful (in a bad way) so far, but somehow that split-second shot of a pitbull bitch with milk-heavy teats wandering around a fenced yard full of tattooed mexicans almost makes up for it.

― Oilyrags, Thursday, 12 April 2007 14:47 (eighteen years ago)

s01 "than" later

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 12 April 2007 14:51 (eighteen years ago)

Aceveda is like this hilarious caricature of a stock-character. He behaves so STUPIDLY. I think my ability to watch police dramas is fucked up from The Wire's dedication to, i dunno, intelligence, logic, complexity. (McNulty is SO different from the alcoholic own-rules cop, almost an inversion thereof, which is one of the things that makes him so great.) I just watched the Shield ep where the Strike Team goes all crazy trying to make up for shooting a "good guy" and planting a gun on him - AND TOTALLY IGNORING THE ISSUE THAT THIS IS WHAT THEY PROBABLY DO EVERY SINGLE DAY. the vigilante ethics are so retarded. and do not get me STARTED on the predatorial homo.

― sean gramophone, Thursday, 12 April 2007 14:52 (eighteen years ago)

Oilyrags is WRONG. Mackey's obsession w/ Guardo gets kinda silly when he mentions the guy's name 20 times in the span of 3 minutes, and the sub-Chandler tough-guy puns can grate, but: Shane's realization that he REALLY fucked up (& then banging the girl from an earlier shakedown behind some garage), Cavanaugh turning into Mackey, CCH Pounder in toto (esp. when she kicks Cavanaugh out of the interrogation room), corny-ass Dutch trying to impress / seduce Hot Cop with his nerd game, even the cameos by Mail-It-In Cop - ALL GOOD. And, yes, the pitbull tits, too.

Skilla, tho, does really need to ease up.

― David R., Thursday, 12 April 2007 15:03 (eighteen years ago)

police captains in 'the wire' act stupidly all the time! as i say though, they are different shows with different ends and if you think aceveda is stupid in s01, um... he gets worse! i love 'the wire' but i don't think its pleasures are totally different from other cop shows, and the snootiness about its lack of car chases pisses me off. 'the shield' is about ridiculously amped-up cluster-fuck house-of-cards-type situations, it's not as journalistic. it's partly about the strike team as bros, and its complexity is i suppose down to how far you don't think they're completely irredeemable.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 12 April 2007 15:04 (eighteen years ago)

Um, yeah, Sean, the first season of The Wire is mostly about the higher-ups fucking shit up to avoid doing their job, or making themselves & their stats look good!

― David R., Thursday, 12 April 2007 15:07 (eighteen years ago)

uh, yeah, but they're doing it cannily, carefully, like actual intelligent people do, not constantly and blunderingly showing yr victim all the cards in yr hands. i mean compare Aceveda's council run with the leadup to the mayor-guy in The Wire? pul-eeze.

ridiculously amped-up cluster-fuck house-of-cards-type situations, it's not as journalistic. it's partly about the strike team as bros, and its complexity is i suppose down to how far you don't think they're completely irredeemable.

well i think the "bros" seem like moron jag-offs, and that in any real-world situation their behaviour would be utterly untenable (both in terms of logic, consequences, interactions, ethics, EVERYTHING). the whole premise of the show seems to be to present a "amped-up cluster-fuck" cop plot, like in any retarded buddy-copy movie, and then to present it in a shakycam format that tries to give it integrity. but it lacks integrity. it tells me NOTHING about the world; the moral ambiguities are hamfisted; and i'm only finding it sporadically entertaining.

― sean gramophone, Thursday, 12 April 2007 15:13 (eighteen years ago)

Oilyrags is WRONG.

I stand by my first post in this thread, to wit:

The best thing about it is the overexposed LA cinematography, but the second best is how completely a worthless asshole that you love to hate to love to hate the lead is.

Pitbull nipples are a good example of the former - no other show I've seen gets the look of Mexican-american urban lower-class right, from the casting to the haircuts to the locations to the dogs. The problem is the latter part of the formula - the corrupt cops as bros stuff - has gone so far into unbelievable and over-the-top cliche that its practically farce comedy.

― Oilyrags, Thursday, 12 April 2007 15:20 (eighteen years ago)

:(

read about the real LA rampart unit -- it isn't *that* untenable!

xpost

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 12 April 2007 15:24 (eighteen years ago)

That's on my list. I'm on a conspiracy/truecrime tear.

― Oilyrags, Thursday, 12 April 2007 15:29 (eighteen years ago)

I'll still argue that Deadwood is almost as good as the wire.
Almost.

― forksclovetofu, Thursday, 12 April 2007 16:52 (eighteen years ago)

you guys have to admit that aside from the bureacratic wrangling (yawn), the police part of the wire is not much different from any random ed mcbain novel.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:00 (eighteen years ago)

Tofu following the money!

Tracer doing street rips. WTF is yawn to bureaucratic wrangling? It's the best part of the show!) and I can't speak to Ed McBain.

― Oilyrags, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:19 (eighteen years ago)

I love the Shield but have never seen the wire. I guess i should check it out, yes?

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:31 (eighteen years ago)

OH HELL YES

― David R., Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:32 (eighteen years ago)

COSIGN

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:32 (eighteen years ago)

Commercials make a difference. That's all I'm saying.

― aimurchie, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:34 (eighteen years ago)

i haven't read any mcbain, but it's not that surprising that books about cops have things in common with tv shows about cops. and i like the bureaucratic wrangling! i like both shows a lot. 'the shield' is somewhere near as good as 'the wire', just not quite there.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:42 (eighteen years ago)

The Wire is the best tv show in the history of tv

― modestmickey, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:44 (eighteen years ago)

ever

― modestmickey, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:44 (eighteen years ago)

times infinity

― modestmickey, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:44 (eighteen years ago)

I love the Wire, I have never seen the Shield but I think my standard for cop shows might be too high now. Also I get the Shield confused with the Unit?

― Jordan, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)

(which should be called DAVID MAMET'S UNIT)

― Jordan, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)

I've found the first two eps somewhat disappointing - all the tension they built up last season seems to have gone nowhere. I wanted Cavanaugh to keep closing in on Vic keep tightening the net around him - instead he goes and does loads of stupid shit. I must admit though I've recently watched the 3rd and 4th series of The Wire and I don't know if I'll be able to get into any cop show on the same level.

― tpp, Thursday, 12 April 2007 18:27 (eighteen years ago)

oh and out of curiosity, is it accurate to have an LA police station (such as the one in The Shield, post-ramparts) where everyone other than, like, 4 people, is white? genuine q.

― sean gramophone, Friday, 13 April 2007 13:34 (eighteen years ago)

unfortunately, yes

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 13 April 2007 13:46 (eighteen years ago)

especially as you go up the heirarchy, i.e. detectives. in my ft greene neighborhood in brooklyn, for instance, which is at least 50% black, the detective squad is 100% white.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 13 April 2007 13:48 (eighteen years ago)

:-(

I fell asleep during the first episode of The Wire (season one) due to pregnancy tiredness. Yep, I rented this BECAUSE of this thread. We'll watch three episodes tonight.

― nathalie, Friday, 13 April 2007 13:54 (eighteen years ago)

nathalie, just a warning: it is somewhat slow in the beginning. it takes a few episodes to just establish the characters, the setting, etc. give it a little bit to get interesting. the series gets somewhat complex, so it takes a while to set it up.

― modestmickey, Friday, 13 April 2007 13:55 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, figured as such. I mean, I always need some getting used to new shows anyway. But it looked extremely promising. My husband LOVED the first episode.

― nathalie, Friday, 13 April 2007 13:57 (eighteen years ago)

re. white cops: the whiteness of the strike team becomes an important plot issue, cc pounder talks about being one of the first black detectives back in the 70s and has it out with (yikes forgotten his name -- black gay street cop) about his lack of consciousness on this score, etc. race and racism is a huge part of the show.

― That one guy that quit, Friday, 13 April 2007 14:11 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not being entirely serious upthread, I guess I am just sort of bored by hearing about how The Wire is TEH BEST THING ON TV. I was also attempting to show why The Shield is so good and why it doesn't have the same themes as The Wire, or the same style, nor is it set in the same locale, and it "does" something totally different, but both shows are about men and women who do the same job so I suppose they get compared for that reason.

― admrl, Friday, 13 April 2007 19:24 (eighteen years ago)

yikes forgotten his name -- black gay street cop)

Julien! =)

― admrl, Friday, 13 April 2007 19:26 (eighteen years ago)

one thing 'the wire' does better is musical montage sequences. i think at least two 'shield' eps use fkn COLDPLAY during these. whereas the finales of s02 and s03 of 'the wire' have the best montage sequences ever.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 10:23 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/dec/27/tv-drama-david-simon-wire-shield

― outed stylus rap dude (special guest stars mark bronson), Saturday, 27 December 2008 09:15 (seventeen years ago)

Interesting article, but it's not so convincing in arguing that The Shield is "better" than The Wire, since the writer doesn't actually bother to make a case for this. The critique of The Wire is arguably a good one though.

― Neil S, Saturday, 27 December 2008 11:03 (seventeen years ago)

apparently the Wire "anticipates Obama in mourning the betrayal of American ideals"

― thomp, Saturday, 27 December 2008 11:47 (seventeen years ago)

can we just declare an embargo on the UK press mentioning Obama in any capacity at all other than 'Obama, the US president-elect, did such-and-such today' plz

― thomp, Saturday, 27 December 2008 11:48 (seventeen years ago)

welp, obama did say it was his fave programme (iirc) so how about no.

― outed stylus rap dude (special guest stars mark bronson), Saturday, 27 December 2008 12:01 (seventeen years ago)

How does Stringer possess 'the best manners in the show'? McNulty is anything but 'good men' in the final series, and Colvin legalizes drugs in the 3rd series (both scenarios are quite implausible but its a credit that you stay with it, especially Hamsterdam, but then again The Wire's Dickens-like realism was always an overplayed card). 'Authority figures are ugly' thing is bizarre, and the start of the second series is not 'conventional'. ffs, they've switched the centre of action! Not something I've ever seen before (and yeah the 2nd series was 'boys from the blackstuff' more than any other, sure).

The surveillance technology being out of date is neither here nor there, unless you know loads about it - but its surely up-to-date in other respects, as in the way the FBI stopped fighting drugs to go after terrorists, for example.

Not saying the show hasn't got flaws, but some of this I can't exactly go with. Should've talked more about 'The Shield'.

― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 27 December 2008 13:05 (seventeen years ago)

what a terrible article

― i like to fart and i am crazy (gbx), Saturday, 27 December 2008 14:04 (seventeen years ago)

Police technology IS out of date. That's the whole point!

I once asked a Brooklyn detective about those "surveillance vans" you see in TV shows. He's like yeah we have that but it's always booked up. "It?" Yeah, he said. There's one for all of Brooklyn! This is a guy who types on an IBM Selectric typewriter, a guy whose office phone makes that bringgg bringg sound, in a precinct building that SHARES ONE AOL ACCOUNT.

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 27 December 2008 14:18 (seventeen years ago)

Thank god Bloomberg and Giuliani pose on horseback with NYPD captains though, otherwise who knows where their morale would be.

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 27 December 2008 14:19 (seventeen years ago)

Agreed that the criticism of the technology is a straw man.

― Neil S, Saturday, 27 December 2008 14:20 (seventeen years ago)

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