# Okay, it's time. I'm going to start/watch The Wire. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 11, 2017, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084 "2017-09-11T21:04:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/41 "2017-09-13T00:09:27Z")
And once you watch The Wire, you start seeing references to it in other shows. Like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra-Knsh7egs). And [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScHOyYKPEsU). ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/42 "2017-09-13T00:13:58Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > David Simon wasn’t po-lice, real or otherwise. He was a reporter who covered the cops. Yeah he spent a lot of time shadowing cops for his book but was not a cop himself. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/43 "2017-09-13T00:20:09Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > David Simon wasn’t po-lice, real or otherwise. He was a reporter who covered the cops. Specifically the Baltimore Police allowed him to spend every day for a full year with one homicide squad. Out of that came the non-fiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. It’s a fantastic book, I highly recommend it. All of the characters were fictionalized for the TV show but they came out of that year he spent. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/44 "2017-09-13T17:29:32Z")
Speaking of **Homicide** , is there anywhere to watch that other than on DVD? I haven’t seen it since it was first on TV and I’d like to catch it again. ---
**Author:** ![Anduinel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Anduinel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anduinel)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/45 "2017-09-13T18:35:32Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Speaking of **Homicide** , is there anywhere to watch that other than on DVD? I haven’t seen it since it was first on TV and I’d like to catch it again. Not that I’ve been able to find. I recommend that show pretty frequently, and it’d certainly be nice to be able to point folks to a less expensive option. At least there’s finally been a re-lease of the full series at a reasonable price, and Netflix is pretty cheap too. ---
**Author:** ![LLCoolL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/llcooll/32/3596_2.png) [@LLCoolL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LLCoolL)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/46 "2017-09-14T10:17:03Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > … Some of the dialect is a bit thick, and it helped at times to have closed captioning activated. Not all of us are acquainted with Baltimore Drug Culture slang. Agree 100%. Turn on the CCs. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/47 "2017-09-14T14:21:24Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > The first time I tried to watch it, I made it through may be three episodes before I gave up… But … [now] It’s without a doubt in my top 3 all time. \*Breaking Bad \*and _The Wire_ are clearly Top Two among multi-season TV drama series, and I’ll guess _Sopranos_ is your #3. (But what’s #4? If _Justified_ is #4 it’s a very distant #4.) > [@Horatius](#): > > Well, it’s got [one of the very best series opening scenes ever filmed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAVAi2fl-BY). In just a few minutes, it brackets most of the themes the entire run of the show will explore, but you might not realize that until coming back to watch it after seeing most if not all of the series. > > I’ve opined before that I think the confusion most viewers feel during the first several episodes is deliberate - it mirrors the information vacuum the cops are living in. The show expects you to pay as much attention to the plot as the cops have to, to figure things out. That puts some people off, but it also pays off if you stick with it. Good comments. The opening scene grabbed me, but I guess it takes longer for some. Caveat to **Idle Thoughts** : This is one series where you definitely want to watch the seasons and episodes _in order_. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Personally, I just thought that it was downhill from Homicide. The one was based on David Simon’s writings from when he was fresh off the force. The latter was written decades later after his memories had become a bit more murky and influenced by his personal politics. It was only after watching both series that I learned they were from the same book. I also really liked _Homicide_ but, despite their common origin, the whole style, tone and perspective of these two series are _ **very** _ different. ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/48 "2017-09-14T14:58:30Z")
Hands down, the best TV series ever made. I, too, envy you getting to see it for the first time. I didn’t watch it during the original run, but have since watched the entire thing twice. I’ll let a few years go by and do it again. ---
**Author:** ![LLCoolL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/llcooll/32/3596_2.png) [@LLCoolL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LLCoolL)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2017, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/49 "2017-09-15T08:04:05Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > … Also, the show is around 20 years old and was based on a book even older. The technology was somewhat dated even when it first aired (a lot about pagers wen pagers were already on their way out). Some people can’t get passed that kind of thing… The Wire ran from 2002 to 2008. So not 20 years old. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/50 "2017-09-15T13:01:07Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![SuperNelson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@SuperNelson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperNelson)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/51 "2017-09-17T16:54:30Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I certainly noticed. The one son played Mad Sweeney the leprechaun in American Gods. And the prison guard they called Pornstache on Orange is the New Black. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2017, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/52 "2017-09-17T21:53:56Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It was only after watching both series that I learned they were from the same book. I also really liked _Homicide_ but, despite their common origin, the whole style, tone and perspective of these two series are _ **very** _ different. Yeah, in Homicide, the cops are average guys spending most of their time BSing and talking, while dealing with idiots and drunks all day. In the Wire, the cops are idiots and the crooks are just dealing with life being hard, talking in poetry, and being far more noble than most of the cops. I’m willing to believe that Homicide may have made the cops better and the police hierarchy less corrupt than reality, so that they were more appealing to watch. But I’m not buying the idea that the crooks aren’t almost always complete idiots and drunks. Between the two, particularly given that Homicide was written **just after** serving with the homicide department (as a sit-in journalist), I’m pretty confident that the early seasons of Homicide are far more realistic. I also suspect that most of the long-term stings that are shown on the Wire would be more the sort of thing that the FBI would do than a regular police department, though I grant that I haven’t looked that one up. ---
**Author:** ![edwards\_beard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@edwards\_beard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwards_beard)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084/53 "2017-11-03T17:42:06Z")
Idle, Did you ever get around to watching any more episodes? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-its-time-im-going-to-start-watch-the-wire/796084.md?page=2)