The Wire is commonly regarded as one of the best TV shows ever, and it has a lot of fans on these boards, but what do you consider to be its weaknesses, if any?
Me personally, I feel that:
[ul]
[li]1). I never liked the character of McNulty’s friend in the FBI. Maybe because the guy wasn’t a particlarly good actor (IMO), or maybe because he had ‘Deus Ex Machina’ written all over him, but he ws a jarring presence somehow.[/li][li]2). Similarly for Brother Mouzone. He was jarring for a different reason. His character seemed too bizarre for the rather humdrum city setting he found himself in.[/li][li]3). They killed off too many good characters. Bodie, for example, shouldn’t have been killed off, IMO. He was one of the few truly likeable street-level characters, and brought the show some much needed comic relief. Also, he was virtually out of the game so there seemed no point in killing him off except to show how much of a nasty dude Marlo was, which we obviously knew already.[/li][li]4). I didn’t really like the serial killer plot in season 5. Seems to me that it would have been discovered more quickly than it was.[/li][li]5). I found the character of Namond’s mum fascinating to watch, but rather hard to believe in (although maybe I’m just naive). It’s hard to believe that anyone could be so ghastly.[/li][/ul]
I don’t live in Detroit and have never been to Detroit, so keep that in mind.
Some of the things in the early seasons just absolutely perfectly captured street level ghetto life like I thought nothing had before, small things. But then there were things that just felt out of place and wrong and seemed like an 80s cop movie. Like the exploits of Bubbles and his addict friend stripping copper, fucking spot on! It was like holy shit I know these guys, the actors body language and interaction.
But some of the gang stuff felt ridiculous, sometimes the actors playing the cops felt off, sometimes I honestly wondered what year the show was supposed to be set in.
All in all though this is the nittiest of nit picking, you have to remember its not a documentary.
There was always one scene I found really jarring for some reason. I think it’s from S1. Carver calls up D’angelo’s pager and D’angelo calls the number back. Carver then pretends he’s a Chinese or whatever delivery guy. D’angelo, slightly bemused, hangs up. It felt to me like a silly and crude ruse and really took me out of the show.
Not only that but at the time the first season came out I knew not one soul who had a pager still, not a single drug dealer used pagers. I don’t even know if you could even get them, but I do know you’d have to go in and sign up and show ID.
When the show came out drug dealers and other criminals were using Trac phones bought at Walmart in cash and loaded with cash, shit I bought one myself for $15 bucks to use on non-drug dealing uses. They used it for a few weeks to a month and then tossed it and got a new one.
Details like that made the show feel like the 80s.
Hey, they should have used that in Season 3 - that would have been awesome!
I was also sad to see Bodie go, but it served multiple purposes: to have him testify in court would have incriminated a lot of people, including Marlo, which the writers obviously didn’t want. Also, it gave McNulty a new sense of purpose if you will, since he was basically the reason Bodie was killed.
African Americans and Asian Americans do find the other bemusing that’s for sure(at least in the poorer neighborhoods). Has to do with take-out joints or something, I’m still not sure.
I’d second the serial killer plotline from series 5, in fact the whole series 5 jarred. Just trying too hard round everything off in an orgy of hopelessness.
[li]3). They killed off too many good characters. Bodie, for example, shouldn’t have been killed off, IMO. He was one of the few truly likeable street-level characters, and brought the show some much needed comic relief. Also, he was virtually out of the game so there seemed no point in killing him off except to show how much of a nasty dude Marlo was, which we obviously knew already[/li][/QUOTE]
I have to disagree with this one. Bodies death was basically the end point of his whole character arc, or the theme of his character if you like. Remember the chess scene from season one? Bodie was a pawn, a soldier. The king stays the king, while the pawns get used, and Bodie getting shot down on a corner was the culmination of that. He stayed a pawn.
The Wire was about systems and how people get trapped inside them. Bodie stayed a soldier because that was the system, and even when it looked like he might make a change by going outside the system (by turning to McNulty) the system reacted and stopped him. That was the whole point.
Even apart from that, his death was a lot more poignant than if he had just continued on as he was, IMO.
For myself, I found some of the storylines stretched credibility just too far, Hamsterdam and the serial murderer case being the obvious examples. I may also be the only person who didn’t particularly care for the season four Dangerous minds style storyline with the kids. Been there seen that before.
I could never get through more then a handful of episodes, and I tried a couple of times.
The biggest things that I recall was they used ‘fuck’ way too much. It got to be old after awhile.
It also felt nothing like Baltimore. I grew up going to Baltimore, I know plenty of people from Baltimore and none of them talked like they do. At least I don’t know of anyone that talked like the cops on the show did as I don’t know any drug dealers. We don’t say THE 695 around here.
Basically the whole thing made it seem unreal, which is the thing everyone said it was supposed to be.
I had no sympathy for Bodie because he killed Wallace! In the running for one of the despicable single acts on the show. So I wish that either someone else had killed Wallace if they were going to focus on Bodie, or that they would have just focused on someone else.
The major thing I didn’t like was the season 5 serial killer story.
I loved the serial killer story. Aside from being just plain funny, I think it showed how a lie that starts out of desperation can grow out of control, and eventually control you as you keep trying to back it up.
I found Gus Haynes to be way too saintly (it’s probably not a coincidence that his full first name was Augustus). He was clearly a stand-in for David Simon, which made it feel like “oh look at me, I was real news guy and unappreciated at the Sun, blah blah blah”.
Ziggy was intensely annoying, and I cringed every time he was on screen, but I think I was supposed to feel that way.
I agree that Gus was an unrealistic character and in fact I thought all the Sun employees were too cartoonish. The editors at the Sun were much more cliched bad guys than any muderous drug dealer on the show.
I also didn’t buy McNulty’s crazy plan in S5. That season in general was just weak.
Based on all the glowing recommendations here I started watching this series in January. I’m almost done with season2.
While it is a great show and very entertaining I think it’s still a little too slick for reality. The criminals are a bit too smart, the detectives seem to have things fall their way too easily, the way all the characters are conveniently all connected in some way makes Baltimore feel very small.
Still, an excellent theatrical drama but I wouldn’t be praising it for it’s realistic portrayal of real life.
I didn’t really like the serial killer storyline the first time through, but the more I’ve thought about it, the fewer problems I have with it (with the possible exception of Freamon’s complicity; I still don’t like how readily he went along with the scheme).
I think it was a good illustration of how overstressed the system was. Typically a police show will demonstrate this by showing crimes which go un- or under-investigated, but this put a different twist on things by, in a way, demonstrating that the overwork extends up the chain of command. The brass just didn’t have the time, resources (or maybe even inclination) to keep a close enough eye on the street-level cops to really ferret out the deception. Not only can the system not protect the populace from crime, it can’t protect itself from lies generated from within.
The Sun storyline was a little ham-handed, but I have to wonder how far from reality it really was. The “Dangerous Minds” story was, I thought, actually not as hit-you-over-the-head earnest as it could have been. Yeah, there was a lot of feel-good stuff between Prez and some of the kids, but even with that, how much of a difference did he really make? I thought in the end it was pretty depressing, which I assume was both the goal and a pretty accurate depiction.
And, as infuriating and unlikeable as Ziggy was, let’s face it - we all know or knew a Ziggy. I think I went to high school with a couple of Ziggys.
I agree with this whole-heartedly. We had an identical thread in the past and I said the same thing.
This, on the other hand, I totally disagree with. I loved Ziggy. Mostly because I grew up surrounded by the working poor, and so the dumb tragedy that was his life struck a deeply resonant chord. I knew, like, two or three people exactly like him.
I could have done without the serial killer arc and the false reporting arc in season five. One thing that always bugged me was when someone was surveilling someone else from a car. Whether it was the cops in unmarked cars or Omar in the taxi, they would park like less than a block away and the people being watched would somehow just fail to look in that direction. No TV show will ever match reality, as there would be to many dull moments. Nonetheless, for it’s flaws, The Wire has still come closer than anything else except documentaries.
The last season was such a disappointment - every other system is treated with a subtle eye, but the newspaper thing was ridiculously black and white. Gah. Such a shame, for a great show to end like that.
Love the show to death. Even lacklustre Season 5. But every instance where they’re in parked cars or scurrying on rooftops with huge telescopic lenses and walkie talkies and nobody ever notices, jolts me out of the scene.
I’m not a hyper-vigilant criminal type, and even *I *would notice heads bobbing up and down on a roof I’m facing or big cameras snapping photos of me for hours from across the street.
They used it for a few weeks to a month and then tossed it and got a new one.