SubJeff on 15/9/2009 at 07:04
Great ending. You'll love it because it makes you feeeeel Scots.
I lament the passing of this show every time I see anything else. The team that made it were some kinds of geniuses else the freak synergy made it just right. I've seen some of the actors in other stuff and in comparison its all meh. But then what else isn't in comparison, eh?
I thought of giving Deadwood a try since you recommended both The Wire and Deadwood RBJ, but a friend is watching it and whilst he says its amazing up to a point from then on (at some point in the run) it goes downhill badly so...
Then again, he won't watch The Wire because he doesn't like "cops and robbers".
Muzman on 15/9/2009 at 07:19
I've watched only two seasons of Deadwood's three, but I don't know where that downhill bit is. It starts as it means to go on. I would think that if it's going to put someone off it'd do it pretty early. It's very dense and obscure (with the language and politics and everything. It doesn't explain a damn thing. It's great) and it lacks The Wire's fearsomely huge collision course plots.
Thirith on 15/9/2009 at 07:56
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
I thought of giving Deadwood a try since you recommended both The Wire and Deadwood RBJ, but a friend is watching it and whilst he says its amazing up to a point from then on (at some point in the run) it goes downhill badly so...
IMO it goes downhill badly from the first episode of season 4 onwards - i.e. when it hits home that there is no season 4 and there never will be... Season 3 has its problems (mainly Langrishe's theatre troupe), but even the weakest of
Deadwood is heads and shoulders above most TV series. It only falters a teensy bit when compared to the likes of
The Wire - and even there I'd say that season 5 of
The Wire isn't perfect.
Scots Taffer on 15/9/2009 at 12:56
Can I erase my memory and start again?
Best show ever, unequivocally.
The lowpoint was season 2, however taken in the grander context of The Wire as a show and all other shows beneath it, it's still better than 99% of TV even at its weakest. It'll take a while to sink in but I think s3 and s4 were on a par with each other with s1 and s5 hot on their heels. I'm not sure... it's been months now since I started watching and it's all one dense narrative in my head. I remember thinking s1 was amazing and then s3 knocked that on its ass, but because so much of the payoff in the later seasons is laid in the groundwork of the earlier seasons... it becomes hard to distinguish between them.
Loved all the cameos throughout s5 though.
Thirith on 15/9/2009 at 14:17
Huh. That's surprising, you thinking S2 was the low point. No matter. Different people, different tastes, all that jazz.
I just watched the first episode of Generation Kill and from what I've seen I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes The Wire.
Scots Taffer on 16/9/2009 at 09:31
What was your opinion of the series as a whole, Thirith?
Also, I think I'll be giving TV a miss for a while... not only has it been mildly exhausting watching a show for such a prolonged period of time but also, I'm afraid that most shows will seem shallow and immature compared to The Wire.
So giving the show the proper respect in passing, I think I'll hold off anything new for a few months... gives me the excuse to do other things!
Thirith on 16/9/2009 at 10:18
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
What was your opinion of the series as a whole, Thirith?
It's definitely the most consistently great series I know. I found it entertaining (my main man Bunk!), moving, intellectually stimulating. I love the way it changes from season to season, yet the different seasons weave a tapestry of a city and society in the way of some of the best novels.
I liked season 4 most - I found it the most affecting and deepest of the four, with amazing acting by the kids. It was also better integrated in the overall storyline, which is why it beats season 2, my second-favourite. Season 4 also felt (and this may be a strange word to use for
The Wire) epic. It felt like it was played on a larger scale. If other seasons were tragic, this one felt like Greek tragedy. It felt
big, with scenes like Bodie's last chat with McNulty or Freamon realising where the bodies are - but it stayed intimate at the same time.
What I liked about the docks storyline is that it does a fantastic job of showing us a society that is basically dying, and there's nothing that can be done about it - the dockworkers are dinosaurs, there's simply no need for them to exist the way they've existed for the last few dozen years. Frank Sobotka struck me as the first truly tragic character on the series, trying to keep his men and his world alive while knowing that he was only slowing down the inevitable death of the docks as he knew them. I very much like how the season takes shlubs that in other series might hardly warrant a scene or two and gives them death and genuine pathos.
Season 3 and season 1 come next; S1 has the freshness of "Wow, I've never seen a series that does this sort of portrait of a societal segment, showing the structures and the parallels between the cops and the 'bad guys', but that is highly entertaining at the same time!" S3 had the wonderful Hamsterdam storyline and the fates of Bunny Colvin and Stringer Bell, but it felt like a continuation of S1.
Season 5, which I'll have to rewatch (well, all five seasons, really), is definitely the one I like least. The dying of the newspapers simply didn't affect me as much as the docks, added to which I felt that McNulty's fake murder storyline, while highly entertaining, felt less real and more "TVish" to me than any other storyline. The newspaper head honchos were stupid, arrogant pricks, but they weren't humanised like the police brass, so some of the journo scenes felt more like satire. (I liked Gus a lot, though.)
Also, season 5 suffered IMO from them feeling they had to tie up all the loose strings - again, this felt more constructed and made-for-TV than the rest of the series.
I still loved season 5, but I would have been a lot sadder if the series had ended after S3 or S4.
That's basically it... and I should *definitely* get back to work! :D
fett on 19/9/2009 at 04:20
NOOOOOOO!!!!! NOT BODIE!!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad:
BEAR on 20/9/2009 at 23:57
Just finished the first season. Fuck. Want to start the second right now. Cant.
Most def.
Scots Taffer on 21/9/2009 at 00:08
Thirith, regarding season 5, I like it because in so many ways the main narrative is a twisted parody of everything that came before it, all the hard work (in politics, police) was shown to be futile in the face of absolute sensationlist garbage and that the only way they could effectively police was to break the law. It ultimately surrenders itself to the notion that people working hard towards a good force can ever succeed without compromising themselves or their idealism. That may sound bleak, but the season delivers it in such a way to provide bitingly funny satire that comments on the whole arc of the show. I never laughed so in The Wire than I did in many of the scenes involving McNulty and his serial killer.
As for tying up all the loose ends in TV way... I don't know, I reckon that's a bit unfair. A lot of main players either got killed as one would expect from their life on the street, or lost everything they fought for just to get the job done, and yet at the end of it many of the criminals walk free at the same time as a new wave of fresh faced gangsters are making themselves known. The cycle keeps going and at the end of it, it really was quite worthless. City Hall forgets about what it promised to do in its lust for power and the powers that be are hamstrung into inept policies and that all bleeds down to the street.
