The Wire is one of the few shows that lives up to the hype. And I admit there is a lot of hype. The writing is what makes it. David Simon is just terrific. He knows cops and knows Baltimore, as did several of the writers on the show. Funny, I never got into the Sopranos, and don’t regret it. Same with GoT. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy it if I let myself. But then I’d never read a book.
When my wife and I started watching The Wire via Netflix a few years ago, I thought it got off to kind of a slow start. It took probably half of the first season before I really started getting into it. One reason I stuck with it was because of all the rave reviews here at SDMB.
I think part of the problem I had was just trying to keep all the characters straight. When we finally finished the series, my wife said “We should go back and watch the first season again.” (We never have, yet…)
I forgot to say 2 things: The show is marred just a bit by McNulty’s utter lack of Baltimore accent. Also, I sold a piece of Pineapple Upside down cake to Isaiah Washington, who plays Sen. Clay Davis. I told him how much I liked his work and he said “thank you.”
It is interesting watching it again. One of the interesting things about that first season, and one of the reasons I think it takes several episodes for people to first get into it, is that both the cops and the viewers take a long time to figure out who the criminals actually are, and how their organization works. The show doesn’t spoon feed you the details; you have to figure them out as you go along, just like the cops do. This creates a very strange dynamic, but is part of what made the whole series work - that sense that no one* ever quite knew everything that was afoot in Baltimore.
*Except maybe Prop Joe.
Agreed. I missed the first season and started watching the second season when it was playing live, and I had the same reaction as many - it took me 4-5 episodes to get into it. I later went back to the first season, and thought it was fantastic from Ep1.
I think the reason people warm to it slowly isn’t because the quality improved after the first few episodes, but because it takes a while to learn the characters and their motivations, and the depth of the series isn’t apparent until you get there. Comments up top comparing it to Law and Order are hilarious in retrospect, but understandable in their time.
Yeah, my wife accidentally subscribed to Amazon Prime a couple of months ago, so I decided to take that opportunity to finally watch this series. It’s a police procedural that actually gives you some sense of the grind that procedure can actually be. Through that, it shows us the motivations of both the criminals and the cops.
When I described it to my wife, I said it was “Like Law and Order, but there’s actually space to make it believable”.
My experience: Give it two or three seasons of attention and then decide if you want to pack it in then. I did after three or 4 seasons. It was worth watching for the 4.
I watched 2 episodes and gave up on it. Came back later to watch until episode 4-5 then binge watched the whole series.
The main attraction is having so many perspectives and stories woven into each other. That takes time to setup which is what the first few episodes do. Unfortunately, that setup period in which not much happens can be boring. Once the setting, characters and story are properly setup, it gets started and the show becomes uniquely interesting.
Heh I think asking someone to watch 2-3 seasons of a show that doesn’t catch their interest after the first few episodes is asking a lot.
I bought the 23-disc DVD complete series box set many years ago. Have never regretted that purchase.
The actor is British, so while he lacked the Baltimore accents, he did a pretty good standard American accent. So did Idris Elba for that matter.
Was McNulty necessarily even a native of Baltimore?
He’s supposed to have been born and raised in Baltimore so his lack of an accent is a bit weird. Dominic West also had a habit of slipping into his natural English accent, too, which could be jarring.
The character grew up in the Lauraville neighborhood of Baltimore. If he joined the police after one year of college in 1994, assuming he went to college right out of high school, he would have grown up there in the mid-70s. The neighborhood was historically white-collar upper middle class, and had declined some, but was (and is) still pretty solidly college educated and middle class, if a bit less white. It’s unlikely he would have picked up a “Bawlmer” accent here.
Granted, he might not have a strong South Baltimore accent, but he should still have something. John Waters was born even further north and even he still has a noticeable accent.
Idris’ accent tended to slip when he was angry. This scene always stood out to me as being pretty bad.
Why? Just living/growing up in a place doesn’t necessarily mean you should have the “local” accent. I know tons of people who grew up in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Texas, the South, and other cities/regions associated with strong, distinct accents who have no trace of any accent at all.
Yeah, that’s why I said “pretty good” and not “perfect”.