For me it's like a very long, very good movie :)

David Simon called it "a treatise on the end of the American empire, and who we are as a people, what we've come to, why we can no longer solve or even seriously address our own problems", and generally said and wrote a lot of insightful things since, very eloquently. I loved The Wire, but discovering that head and character behind it impressed me on top of even that.

Just take this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg

If I had to put it in a nutshell I'd say The Wire "comes from a place of" paying attention, not from distraction or deriving entertainment from crime and other problems, and that (combined with genius and the right people getting together and having good chemistry, and a lot of things not going wrong that can easily kill a TV show) made it so good. Good art can be luck, but art this great is always the tip of an iceberg.

Interesting. I hadn't heard that quote from Simon, but it absolutely fits.

One of the brilliant things about the show is how it wove in so many elements: rival criminals, politics, law enforcement, the media, the church, well-meaning citizens, etc. There was so much tension, angst and striving from all quarters. All of this created a separate entity--a system--wherein all actions and motivations served to form a near-perfect tension that held everything and everyone in a state of suspension.

"There are not many shows taht are better than the Wire; my favorite part about Omar is that he doesn't curse."

I loved the wire - truly.

However, I think I would rate the first season of true detective as being better than all of the seasons of the wire except for season 2, which was my favorite.

I was surprised to learn that s2 (dock workers, etc.) is not very well liked - I thought it was by far the most interesting.

EDIT: WIRE SPOILER: also, as long as we're talking about it ... the resolution of the omar character in the last seasons of the wire was incredibly anti-climactic and just downright weird. I understand they got the rug pulled out and had to quick wrap up the show but that was really just the worst and most useless bookend to his character arc...

> EDIT: WIRE SPOILER: also, as long as we're talking about it ... the resolution of the omar character in the last seasons of the wire was incredibly anti-climactic and just downright weird. I understand they got the rug pulled out and had to quick wrap up the show but that was really just the worst and most useless bookend to his character arc...

I think that was the point. I don't remember where I read it, but his death was always going to be like that. It didn't matter that he was the only beacon of (kinda) good in a cruel world - good and bad, the streets get you eventually and its never honorable or glorious.

Yeah, I would have expected - and enjoyed - a blaze of glory end for Omar.

Which in itself is an argument against doing that!

The way he went out says that in the real "game", there are no super heroes. Even the biggest badass dies just as much from a bullet, and ultimately mean nothing compared to the big institutional forces that shape the world.

One way to think about The Wire as a whole is that it's about organisations and how they remain the same, regardless of the seemingly big influence individuals have in them.

At the end of the show most the bigger-than-life people on all sides have been replaced. Yet everything is just the same as it always was.

What makes the show both brilliant and crushingly depressing is the cyclical nature of it all. At the end there's a new Bubbles, a new Omar, etc. Nothing changes.

SPOILERS

> the resolution of the omar character in the last seasons of the wire was incredibly anti-climactic and just downright weird. I understand they got the rug pulled out and had to quick wrap up the show but that was really just the worst and most useless bookend to his character arc...

That's just it. In the streets, there aren't heroes and villains. Just everyday people who are in the game, and those who are not. And if you're in the game, something as normal as going to a 1-stop shop can end in murder.

I loved that for Bodie, they let him go out in blaze of glory. Deciding to hold his corner in defiance.

Both characters were given the type of ending that fit best with their arcs. Omar had enough epic shootouts that one more would have been cliche.

If they had Omar go out in a blaze of glory they wouldn't have been any better than Breaking Bad.

Absolutely. I loved Breaking Bad, but afterwards I couldn't help but notice the difference between it and shows like The Wire. The former felt liked entertainment, while the latter felt like some degree of education. I'd still watch Breaking Bad in a heart-beat, because entertainment has value too, but The Wire left me thinking and I do generally prefer things that leave me thinkin'.

The spoiler? I think it was _fantastic_ that the person who did "that thing", was the very same person who'd previously pretended to be Omar.

That gives a nice kind of circular relationship, although it's hard to say there was hero-worship going on, given the ending.

> EDIT: WIRE SPOILER:... that was really just the worst and most useless bookend to his character arc...

Which is what made it appropriate and perfect. This is what makes The Wire what it is, this representation of "the game" in all its futility.

What do you mean by "doesn't curse?" IIRC one of his first lines in the series is "this is some raggedy ass shit..."

There's a couple of exceptions, but in general, Omar is far less inclined to use swearwords than other characters and even expresses a dislike for that language.

You're right. He does curse 2x in the show.

   There are not many shows taht are better than the Wire

Oz ?

I've come around to the thinking that Sopranos (even if I prefer the Wire) was the best show on television. Before it, nothing on television came close to the depth that the Sopranos did. It laid the foundation for epic shows like The Wire, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I couldn't stand The Sopranos. I didn't find Tony Soprano to be a sympathetic antihero at all. Just a vile gangster who I just wanted to be killed in every episode.

I felt the same. I watched it all the way through and understand that it laid the groundwork so a better show like The Wire could be produced. But I agree with you. I hated Tony and basically everyone he associated with and was glad to see some of them killed off. I guess that means it was well written but its the reason I haven't bothered to rewatch.

The Wire on the other hand I've seen completely atleast 5 times and always notice something new.

Maybe you're not supposed to find him sympathetic. Maybe you're not even supposed to find him unsympathetic. Maybe that's one of the things that differentiates good shows from great shows.

> Just a vile gangster who I just wanted to be killed in every episode.

Yes! Seeing the family struggles of a vile gangster is what made the show amazing.

Overall, The Sopranos stands near the top in my book, but it did suffer from some unevenness. There seemed to be experimentation with directors that didn't always work (an Imperioli episode comes immediately to mind). And, there were some episodes and arcs that didn't have the same weight overall.

Still top-tier, and I think it laid a foundation that others have built upon, in sheer game-elevation alone.

I'm an Oz fanboy and this is as close to objectively wrong as any subjective value judgment can get. Even the best of Oz is barely as good as the worst of the Wire - and Oz just got progressively worse as the seasons went on.

Oz is terrible; so hammy and unrealistic. J.K. Simmons is about its only saving grace.

> so hammy and unrealistic

That's what I liked about it.

Not even close. The only contender is Deadwood (RIP).

I think nobody really touches David Simon in TV. He's like Miyazaki in anime I feel. First it's him, then everybody else. The Wire, Treme, Generation Kill... it's just another level. On the next step below we'd have things like Man Men, Deadwood, The Sopranos, etc.

I would count both The Sopranos and Breaking Bad as contenders, personally.

I think the Wire excelled at a more difficult game because the writing adhered to a kind of journalistic dogma that didn't allow for many of the tricks used in the storytelling of Breaking Bad or The Sopranos. Walt could blow up a room and not only survive, but convince a psychopathic drug dealer to do business with him by that very act. Tony Soprano could garner empathy and understanding by showing us his dream sequences. But The Wire gave its audience only what its characters said and did. Characters who-- by and large-- couldn't just "problem solve" their way out of their circumstances like Walt did so often.

McNulty planting evidence in the Journalism season was such bullshit though.

How so?

Season 5 is the most underappreciated season, but I've really started to appreciate it.

McNulty has been a character who believes the ends justify the means. In Season 1, he falsifies that Sidner (iirc) was on the roof, thus allowing the police to admit phone tapped evidence.

In Season 5, it shows how taking that mentality of by any means necessary can quickly spiral out of control.

I enjoyed deadwood, and I thought the story arc with The Comstock and George Hearst as a robber baron was going to have a huge payoff, but instead the series was cut short which is a huge shame.

There is just enough foolery to make it easily tier 2 for me: Francis Wolcott's story arc, Olyphant's acting, Seth Bullock's attempt at morale highground.

If folks aren't turned off by violence, profanity, and prostitution, it's definitely must watch tv.

I stopped watching Deadwood in the middle of season 2 because the acting was so bad it didn't felt real (but I liked it apart from that)

Oz is still one of my favorite tv show, it has so many good characters and the huit clos format (closed doors) is really perfect for focusing on them

Surely The Sopranos is a contender as well. In my mind those three occupy a tier above all other television dramas.

Sopranos is in the tier JUST immediately below The Wire and Breaking Bad, for me. Amazing TV, but not quite at that extra-elite level. I have not yet watched Deadwood, and judging from these discussions, I should.