Jesus I only gave my opinion. I would think that most people would recognize that when someone says that something is good or bad, that is always a subjective comment and not a “declaration” of fact.
So, fine. Season 2 is shit because Ziggy is a dumbshit who always makes the most idiotic possible comment possible anytime he opens his mouth. And yet we are meant to sympathize with him by the end when he finally breaks down and starts crying at the police station. Boo fucking hoo. Every time that guy was on screen for the whole damn season I was just hoping someone would finally shoot his dipshit ass and the writers never even gave me that.
Season 3 is shit because at this point the show ran out of original ideas entirely and started morphing the characters into stereotypes, like the lesbian couple who of course must have a baby because that’s what all token lesbian couples were good for in all television series up to that point in time, except for The Wire season one when they were actual humans.
There’s your engagement. I’m not trying to change minds because I know people don’t get there minds changed when it comes to T.V. Everything is always either the most brilliant show ever for its entire run or it’s total crap from start to finish.
In The Wire, the camera is pretty stable. In Homicide, I got carsick from trying to watch the show. The show will have a camera man sit down next to the policeman’s face and zoom in and the bob and weave while he’s talking, and then swing around to someone else in the room, zoom in on their face as the camera bobs and weaves. Pretty soon my stomach starts to bob and weave too.
I haven’t tried watching Homicide by taking Dramamine first. That might let me get to how well the writing works.
Plus, by the time The Wire came around, the serial drama was fully flowered as an approach to television, whereas Homicide is still in an era where TV was expected to be episodic. I haven’t watched enough to see how much it was able to buck that format (though that early episode that’s 100% the two detectives interrogating their prime suspect is freaking phenomenal and well outside the usual formula), but I can’t imagine it helped.
It’s better overall, and has a much different emphasis once you get past the first season. But a bunch of that first season will feel familiar if you’ve already seen Homicide. (Not that this is a bad thing!)
No, but they weren’t the only characters reduced to stereotypes in that season. Damn near everyone except for the police chief (whose name I don’t remember), were written by robots. The primary story in season 3 - regarding the chief’s new approach to drug policy - was good, but it wasn’t enough to carry the entire season when the rest of it was such crap.
Even if you couldn’t suffer Ziggy (who was being portrayed intentionally as a clumsy doof), there are so many other great characters. I never think of Ziggy when I think of S2. Beadie (Amy Ryan, rawr) and Frank were standouts.
While I strongly disagree with your conclusion that there was any drop-off in quality, I can at least understand on an abstract level that you didn’t like S2 because there was a character you thought was really annoying, and that S3 retread some of the same ground as S1.
Did you get to S4 though? Best season of TV ever in my view, and is completely immune from your criticisms of S2 and S3. It covers completely new ground, and unless you hate teen actors I don’t think anyone found a specific character especially annoying to watch.
I went back and gave S1E1 another shot. I enjoyed it more, but I’m still not completely sold, only because I’m having a tough time getting a bead on the players. That will come with time, of course, so I will stick with it and see if I can find the greatness.
You got to keep on… think of the first couple of episodes as the first half an hour of a very mysterious and enigmatic movie where things only come into focus further in.
I advise anyone thinking of trying the Wire to watch it with subtitles, it helped me parse the lingo immensely and understand what’s going on.
The Wire is great, but it does drop you in without explanation. I really loved it all the way through, although I’ve heard some people don’t like season 2… I really enjoy it however.
I also think that The Wire was one of Idris Elba’s best known jobs and what started his career…
Season 2 was one of my favorite seasons. I don’t want to go all P&R on the thread, but I think the plight of the Stevedores is still a relevant type of concern today (what happens to all the blue collar workers?)
Everything about the Wire is good for all the reasons people have said. My favorite being that you could see characters clearly develop and evolve (or devolve) throughout, which I had not seen so clearly or felt so viscerally in any other series.
I too was one who it bounced off during its initial run and came back to…I think because of Qt3. I still remember waiting on the mail regularly as I watched it on the old timey Netflix physical delivery plan. SO my viewing was rationed somewhat.
I also agree that it needs a couple of episodes to lodge in your brain and start doing its work.
David Simon invited crime novelists he respected into the writer’s room throughout the show, so not only was Pelecanos part of it, but so was Dennis Lehane and Richard Price.
Pelecanos would actually go on to be a permanent member of the writer’s room (he left briefly to finish The Night Gardener) and credited as a producer for The Wire before going on to being a key part of Treme and The Pacific.
He wrote the key confrontation episode “Middle Ground” in Season 3, and one of the show’s many subplots mirrors a book of his. The main reason you don’t say that Prez’s story in “Slapstick” from Season 3 is a rip-off of Pelecanos’ “Right As Rain” is because Pelecanos co-wrote it!
