Is The Wire worthwhile?

Cafe Society
21

Thanks for not crapping in the other thread. :slight_smile:

I agree that the show can be bleak. I can even see where it might be dull, to someone who’s not interested in The Wire’s subjects. As for poor acting, the woman who plays Kima got better. Except for her, the only other arguably bad acting I noticed was Old Face Andre in S4, and even he grew on me.

The interaction between McNulty and the kid in the first scene – McNulty talking about how sad it was that a kid forgets his hankie one day and is forever after known as Snot Boogie, and then talking about why Snot Boogie was killed. He kept running off with the pot, and the players would run after him and beat on him, but they let him keep playing because “This is America”. And how surprised the kid was that someone shot him this time. How could anyone not see that and know they’re watching something totally unique?

Three people in that short scene (one of them dead), and you not only got to know them but there was subtle foreshadowing of where the show was going. Things were changing on the streets of Baltimore. Hang on.

22

I’m in the same boat. And I do tend to like cop shows. I rented the first disk of season 1 from Netflix, and watched the first hour and a half or so - then realized that I didn’t care, my attention wasn’t being held, and that I didn’t want to bother watching anymore.

It just wasn’t me.

That said, critics love it. The critics that I usually agree with (and also praise the programs that the OP lists) adore it.

23

I know everyone else has said it, but you have to give it 5 or 6 episodes–not because those first episodes aren’t good–they’re great–but because the show has to teach you how to watch it: it’s a fundamentally different way of telling a story: even something as unified and planed out as Babylon 5 was still a series of stories that all related to each other, with a few that streched to two hours. Episodes of the Wire don’t have a climax or a unique theme–they are chapters in a novel (season), the same themes coming up in many ways, reflected and twisted and maintained throughout. It’s like learning to read Victorian prose or epic poetry–at first it seems awkward and convoluted and you think it’s poorly done because you don’t see what the author is attmepting to do, but once you get it it’s beautiful and you look back at the things you started with and think “how did I miss this”?

I really didn’t like the Wire the first time I watched it. My brain wasn’t in the right place to learn to apprecitate it. But I watched it all in a whirlwindwhen people who loved the same shows I did kept recommending it, and now I can’t get over it.

24

I second.

25

Season 4 is currently in my Netflix queue. I’ll get to it as soon as I finish with the 2nd season of Rome. I cannot wait.

26

I’m in the “The Wire is the best show in the history of television” camp.

That said, there are plenty of people who don’t like the best X in the history of X-related-things – the best paintings, the best restaurants, the best books – and there’s nothing wrong with those people. They aren’t rubes.*

Yes, the show takes time to suck you in. Yes, it’s rich and rewarding and sublime and awesome. But hectoring people who gave it a fair shake but feel otherwise is a good way to turn people who might give it another chance into people who wouldn’t watch another five minutes of the show for money.

(That’s true for everything awesome, of course.)

*They’re just poor benighted souls.

27

As I’ve made clear in the other current thread (among others), I’m solidly in the “greatest show ever” camp.

I will join others in strongly advising anyone against starting Season 5 without having watched the first four seasons (in order, obviously). I realize it’s a large investment of time, but there are such huge backstories to all the major continuing characters that you will inevitably miss important implications in the new stories if you don’t know the arc of, for instance, McNulty’s character.

While I obviously disagree with Edward the Head, Arizona Tech, and amarinth, they have performed a useful service for me. They are the first people I’ve heard from who didn’t like The Wire. And since they are obviously not stupid, I respect their opinions and won’t argue tastes with them, since that is pointless.

I will only suggest to anyone who doesn’t like the show that you try coming back to it sometime in the future. Here’s why. I had a similar experience with Jane Austen. Assigned to read Emma in college, I found it silly, dull, inconsequential, dull, and pointless. And dull.

Years later, when Emma Thompson’s film of Sense and Sensibility came out, I saw it, really enjoyed it, and thought, “Well, maybe not all of Jane Austen is as bad as Emma.” So I read S&S, and only then realized how brilliantly Austen’s characters are drawn and how funny, but dry, her humor is. I immediately became a huge Austen fan, and inhaled the remaining novels in a matter of weeks, and loved them all. I couldn’t imagine how I had missed the brilliance of Emma the first time through. It took me a while to be able to accept Austen on her own terms, instead of through my preconceptions.

As with any great work of art, The Wire creates its own unique world that is unlike any other. If you come in expecting it to be like other crime series, or even like other primetime dramas, it won’t meet those expectations, and you may not like it. You have to take it on its own terms, and as Manda JO says, let it teach you how to watch.

One of the commonplaces about The Wire is that “everything matters.” Virtually every word spoken by every character is significant and will become more meaningful later on. Dialog and actions that may appear dull now will create ripples that may take several episodes – even across seasons – to play out. Hell, I can think of two very significant facts about two major characters that have just been sitting out there, waiting to be picked up again, from season 3 in one case, and from all the way back in season 1 in the other. Rawls and Daniels. 'Nuff said.

I found the show interesting from the start, but it may be that the five-episode break-in period that other posters have mentioned is the average time it takes for most people to start making sense of some of these ripples. Although it may seem too demanding, watching each episode twice, or watching a whole season and then going back through it again, never fails to reveal details you missed the first time.

Another hint for beginners: switch on the subtitles for the street scenes. The accents and slang of the drug dealers are often hard to understand. The subtitles can really help.

Also, keep an eye out for the parallels between the various organizations. It is a favorite device of the writers. For instance, in the very first episode of season one, we see one of the drug dealers get bawled out by his superior for a mistake he made, and a few scenes later a cop is bawled out by his boss. This is only one tiny example of the show making its primary point: that the organizations for which we work have structures and imperatives that influence everyone within them. In this sense, a drug dealing family has many similarities with the police department, a stevedores’ union, city hall, a school system.

This refusal to cast the world in simplistic “good vs. evil” terms, and the overarching message that the war on drugs is, and must be, a complete failure, makes The Wire completely unlike anything else on television. And far better, IMHO.

cinehead: A nitpick. It was co-creator Ed Burns who worked in the school system, after retiring as a cop, not David Simon.

28

Well said (as usual), commasense.

I hope no one feels hectored. Sometimes we want people to like what we like because their liking it supports our opinion, our judgment.

But I think in the case of The Wire, fans want you to give it a chance because it’s such an unusual TV experience. Something like this might never happen again. Think of it as the Halley’s Comet of TV!

It’s definitely worth taking the time. If you aren’t in the mood for it now, remember it for later. A few months from now, or even years, people will still be talking about it.

29

It’s wonderful. I have 3 episodes left of series 3 and all of series 4 to watch. FWIW, I love all of the shows you mention Mahaloth and a bit of cynical, jaded cynicism can be a nice change.

As far as dialogue, it makes me think of Deadwood…things are stated obliquely and the language used is so different that you really have to concentrate hard on what people say. I am unclear about some of the politics and the hierarchy between district councillor/mayor/various government bodies and the city council is confusing to me, but it doesn’t make me enjoy the show any less. If I can get it anyone can.

There are layers within layers and it feels very organic and real (in the way CSI/ L&O/NYPD Blue don’t). Did you ever see Homicide: Life on the Streets? Written by the same team, the only cop show similar to it in any way.

The other thing I love about the show is that people look real, like they actually could be the characters they portray, not pretty-pretty Hollywood types.

Personally, I think the acting is fantastic, I think the characters are so much more complex than characters on most other shows that the actors have a lot more work to do because they can’t just do “hero cop” or “bad guy”.

30

I’m stongly in the “love it” camp although I wouldn’t want to call it the “best show ever” - that’s just too open.

One question for the Americans amongst us: How hard do you find it to understand the accents? I seem to struggle for the first couple of episodes of each series before getting into the rhythm. I still have to concentrate - woe betide Mrs Marcus if she asks me something during the show - but I think I catch practically everything.

My biggest gripe is that FX shows it several weeks later in the UK than it goes out in the US so I have to desperately avoid any websites or threads that mention it - just in case :frowning:

31

American here. The only accent I’ve ever had trouble picking out is Snoop’s, and that’s because she kind of slurs, too. I know what everyone else is saying, although every now and then I can’t fully make my way through all the street slang.

32

Like you, I was eventually able to get most of the street talk, but it wasn’t easy, even though I was born in, and now live less than 20 miles from, B’more. (Needless to say, I don’t spend much time on the corners of the Western district, nor do many of my close friends and acquaintances.) Before I got the DVDs, I just watched and listened as closely as I could. Now, if I really want to be sure, I’ll switch on the subtitles.

Do you have closed captioning in the U.K.? You might be able to use that in place of the subtitles for live broadcasts. (Subtitles are merely transcripts of the spoken dialog. Captions are intended for deaf people and provide additional cues about music, sound effects, and other aspects of the audio track.)

However, the subtitles on the DVDs are not perfect. I’ve caught minor errors (“youngins” instead of “young 'uns”) but more major ones, too: a reference to “Cantell’s people” in S4 should have been “Kintell,” i.e. Kintell Williamson, a north side drug dealer.

But subtitles or captions can definitely help out. I don’t leave them on all the time, though, as I find them too distracting when they’re not needed.

33

I’ll be boring and follow the crowd here; The Wire may not be the best television show to date, but it’s certainly the best one that I’ve seen. It’s one of the rare shows that rewards focused attention throughout, instead of punishing it by revealing plot holes and lessening the immersion (as in most TV shows). It’s one of the rare shows that makes almost every character seem real and three-dimensional, instead of instruments for the plot. It’s one of the rare shows that surprises me with what unfolds or how characters interact and yet manages not to feel phony or contrived. All together, it’s a pretty rare type of show.

When encountering works of art (novels, music, movies, etc.), I, in my arrogance, often think that I could produce something just as good if I devoted my life to it, that it’s not totally beyond me. Even with this hubris, I don’t think I could ever, in a whole lifetime, make a show like The Wire. It’s a Frankenstein’s monster of genius.

34

I just heard a commentary on NPR today about this show. It made me really interested in the show, and the comments here are making me damn excited. I have a Best Buy gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket… is this stuff on DVD? Here’s a link to NPR’s website , but it will be a couple of hours before they have the audio up. There was a beautiful quote that I can’t remember, but something along the lines of,

‘‘Johnny can’t read or write because Johnny doesn’t have a fuckin’ pencil.’’

The dialog was very well written. I’m excited.

35

I dunno. I like all the shows the OP mentioned (except Pushing Daisies, which I simply haven’t seen), and I love The Wire. I have S2 disc 1 on my desk, and I’m looking forward to watching it.

I should point out, though, that I alternate The Wire with Veronica Mars. The grittiness of The Wire can get to me if I don’t water it down a bit with some more lighthearted fare.

36

True dat. Although The Wire is often quite funny (more so than most sitcoms), there is an undercurrent of implacable despair that runs through it. The game ain’t ever gonna change, and woe to those who really invest themselves in trying.

37

olivesmarch4th, yes, the first four seasons are on DVD. There’s also a book about the show, Truth Be Told by Rafael Alvarez, which has interviews, inside info, and episode summaries for the first two seasons.

38

Link to a recent Salon article. On page 2 of the article, there’s background stuff on what’s happened so far, for new viewers who want to start watching with season five.

Only three more days! :smiley:

39

I think you’ve hit upon why I love the show so much. It’s the anti-X-Files: a show that you can watch closely and with great intensity of attention and scrutiny without fear that it will disappoint you and leave you hanging. The writers actually know the characters as people, so they do not act “out of character.” They remember what they wrote, and strive for plot consistency and continuity. Stuff from S2 is going to come up in S5 because that’s how it works in real life.

One of the reasons it’s so three dimensional is that even the “bad guys” have humanity, and you can see where they’re coming from and why even if you disagree with it. They’re all people, all being acted on by larger forces outside everyone’s control. It’s hard to hate anyone (except Rawls :wink: ). I admire the scope of the show and how it doesn’t stoop to ratings-grabbing drama to pull in audiences. It’s all about the story.

40

It’s amazing, isn’t it, that David Simon probably did the show a season at a time. Did he ever know at the start of a season that the show was picked up for another season?