Holy crap, now I have a use for the whole Go thing. I have been holding off jumping into the whole world of Wire thing, but my wife and I have enjoyed Treme so much I think we ought to give it a go. Ha!
I just started on Treme (through 6 I think) and I like it as well…but it ain’t no The Wire. :)
Yes, I understand that going into Treme expecting more Wire would have to be quite an adjustment. It’s worth hanging with, though.
Yeah, I knew it had no chance of being its equal. As stated before by myself and others in this thread, it is HARD to get into any television drama after watching The Wire.
I had not realized that. Everyone on the show pronounces his name like that, so how was I to know it wasn’t? Maybe it’s a later season reveal.
It’s close enough, it’s just the difference between “nole-ty” and “null-ty,” and even the characters on the show mix between those two.
The only reason I own a TV is because I have to watch the Red Wings and I need something to hook my PS3 up to. I just don’t watch television most of the time, I’d rather read.
Recently however I subscribed to HBO for Game of Thrones (I love GRRM) and noticed The Wire on HBOGo. I figured Game of Thrones has been good and I loved Rome so why not try The Wire. Everyone talks about it like it’s the next coming of baby jesus, right?
Holy shit! I can’t freaking stop. I started watching the series on Sunday after episode 7 of Game of Thrones and I’m already on S2E4. That’s like 16 damn hours of a cop drama. I didn’t even like cop dramas until I started this! What the hell has happened? I have a stack of books to read and a piss ton of games to play but yet I’m sitting here watching a TV show. It feels so wrong but I can’t stop myself!
I honestly think I’m going to run to BestBuy tomorrow and buy the box set. HBOGo is nice but this is a series I want to have around to watch at my leisure.
Do I dare check out Deadwood now?
At its best Deadwood is on par with The Wire. Unfortunately, unlike The Wire, Deadwood does not have an ending.
Yeap, this is exactly what happens when you give up 2 hours of your life to watch the first two episodes.
That 3rd hour and every hour after that are the best hours watching television you will ever spend in your life.
Now that I have been through that recently, it is funny to see someone pop in and beginning to gush just as I did a few months ago.
Deadwood is easily worth watching.
It’s been said many times in this thread (by myself and others), but The Wire is not a cop drama :)
You’re right, it is definitely a friendly nickname.
heh.
The fucking nerve on that guy.
So a couple of nights ago I watched the penultimate episode of Season 3. Spoilers ahead.
The death of Stringer Bell was both satisfying and strangely sad. I could feel the empty hole it would leave in the lives of McNulty and maybe a couple of others. The scene where Avon and Stringer hug each other goodbye, knowing that they’ve betrayed the other, without knowing that they themselves have been betrayed, was just awesome.
But the reason this season was so good was mostly because of Hamsterdam. I know that David Simon has lots of experience in the city of Baltimore and its politics and the drug war there. So anything in Season 1 and 2 I thought of as based, at least partially, on real events perhaps. But Season’s 3 Hamsterdam had to be a completely theoretical exercise that’s never been tried in Baltimore, right? Or did something like that really happen?
Regardless it was very interesting.
And after that episode, I thought the season-finale could only be a downer. What with the void left in McNulty’s life without his precious case. So I didn’t watch the finale for a couple of days. I finally saw it last night, though, and I have to say, what an awesomely positive finale. The series has never really ended on such a positive note for most of its characters before. That kid who shot the fellow cop is still in trouble, of course, and my favorite character from Season 1 who was effectively written out of the show after she got shot is now screwing up her relationship, but other than that, everyone seems to have landed on their feet. The ending montage with McNulty interacting with citizens as a beat cop was pretty awesome. A great finale for a great show.
Not sure if I’m even tempted to watch Season 4 at this point. All loose ends seem tied up. Not sure where they can go from here, except onward with the mayoral election. But crime-wise, I guess it might be interesting to see if Marlowe will fill in the gap left behind by Avon and Stringer.
Who am I kidding? I have the DVD set, so how can I not watch Season 4 at some point? But I’m definitely taking a break now. This was a very satisfying ending to the show.
Saw this on either the DVD extra or an article online, but the basis for that story line was based on comments made in real life, but never came close to actually being implemented or though of seriously.
IIRC, the real Mayor of Baltimore made a comment that with all the crime that drugs caused, it’d be best if they created “Drug Free Fire Zones” to contain the issue. Within a few hours he had calls from major players in Washington (heads of DEA and FBI, again IIRC) reaming him out. He quickly retracted his comments.
Season 4 is brilliant. We were in the same boat as you when we watched it - how can this show get any better than season 3? Amazingly, it does.
Season 4 kind of takes you into the start of a cycle of the generations of the institutions that you are in the middle of when Season 1 starts.
Avon/Stringer/D’Angelo… all that was already set up and working, most of the kids out of school or not in school.
Season 4 starts fresh, the kids are young and many of them innocent (relative to what they deal with of course), school is in and the social problems going on are focused on with a return of Bunny Colvin, Marlo just cemented his dominion over his empire, Carver turns a leaf with the way he does police work, the mayoral election cycles starts and ends in Season 4 with lots of great scenes of Carcetti and his advisor on the campaign trail (the advisor is probably the most awesome new character of the season).
It is impossible not to watch Season 4 as soon as possible. If you have the willpower to put it off to space out your enjoyment of the show, then I envy you. I watched like 3-4 episodes every single day.
Season 4 is, amazingly, a significant improvement. Definitely don’t stop or even delay now.
As a practical matter, I think most big cities with major drug dealing issues would admit there are areas, maybe not official, permanent areas, but areas where essentially the cops don’t do anything (aside from maybe periodic raids everyone knows are coming) so long as there are no bodies or other major publicity things happening. I mean, on my way to work (and I don’t work in a “bad” area, I work in the heart of Cambridge), I know a street where unbelievably nonchalant drug dealing goes on. The jails are full. The cops have to prioritize.