10 ms·
‘The Wire’ – Game Day
- jftuga 9y agoSuch a great show.
- weston 9y agoExcellent read. Still arguably the greatest tv show ever made. The Wire is essentialy a classic Russian novel but in the television medium.
- agmcleod 9y agoYeah it's my favourite for sure. I guess depending on how game of thrones ends, it may be a high contender. Breaking bad was amazing too, but the wire just felt so real.
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago> I guess depending on how game of thrones ends, it may be a high contender. I don't think you can really compare the two. The wire was literary and so authentic, Game of Thrones cinematic and epic. They are the two best television shows made - but in different spaces. Breaking bad was good but sat in the middle and not as good as either. But usually the literary honest film holds up better over time than the epic special effects one.
- RodericDay 9y agoI think The Wire was okay, and that Game of Thrones is really bad, so I'm just gonna weigh in and emphatically disagree with your assessment that "they are the two best television shows made".
- Matachines 9y agoWas there any point to this comment other than letting us know what you don't like?
- RodericDay 9y agoYeah, letting other people know that it's okay not to like those shows. I enjoy and upvote when people voice dissenting opinions, so I like to do it too.
- johnfn 9y agoThis is Hacker News, my friend. Anyone who has a negative opinion is showered with praise and upvotes for being a contrarian and a bold ideologue. (Unless that opinion is about Rust, or, apparently, TV.) Don't just take my word on it- go see any product launch here, from the small leagues all the way to Musk's latest work, and watch as people crap on it. (And get upvotes.) To be honest, I'm not impressed with people who are contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Like yourself, it triggers some circuitry in the brains of many HNers that cause them to enjoy it, even if the actual content of the post is not as high as an equivalent, non-contrarian post. If you understand this circuitry is being fired, you can see the contrarianism for what it really is.
- adamlett 9y agoI enjoy GoT too, but it's not close to being in the same league as The Wire. GoT is ultimately nothing other than escapism. The Wire is so much more than that.
- misiti3780 9y agoSopranos is up there also -no ? Sopranos is/was better than Game of Thrones (IMO)
- douche 9y agoGame of Thrones had the potential to be a contender, but the showrunners dumbed it down too much and massacred the plot.
- heen 9y agoIf that's what you're after, the BBC did a brilliant adaptation of War & Peace last year.
- dforrestwilson 9y agoSo I used to work intelligence covering Afghanistan and Pakistan for the U.S. as a linguist. People always ask me if my old job was like the show 24 or Homeland. I always tell them it was more like The Wire.
- jftuga 9y agoI actually met a retired Baltimore cop a few years ago in Orlando and asked him about the show. He said The Wire very accurately portrayed his job & the city.
- m0nty 9y agoEd Burns, the series "script consultant" (if that's the right term) was a Baltimore cop, and David Simon spent many, many hours hanging out on street corners with Baltimore corner boys, first convincing them he wasn't a cop, then getting them to talk to him. The Homicide book is an excellent start to his writing about Baltimore, and led to the series Homicide: Life on the Street, which paved the way for The Wire. Apart from the research, he has such a fantastic ear for dialogue - I can hear real voices when his characters talk, not least because many of them are based on real people (for example, both Jay Landsman [The Wire] and John Munch [Homicide] are based on the same real-life person). It's so good in so many ways, but ultimately for me it shows its characters as rational and understandable, whichever side of the law they are on. Series 4 and 5 are not as strong as the first three, but still head-and-shoulders above most other shows. I know some people will prefer Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, but (good as those shows are) The Wire is peak TV imo.
- praneshp 9y agoActually the real life Jay Landsman shows up in The Wire, as Dennis Mello. He takes over after Bunny Colvin is fired for Hamsterdam. > I know some people will prefer Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, but (good as those shows are) The Wire is peak TV imo I watched The Wire, Breaking Bad and Mad Men in the first 6 months into my first job. It was the most stressful time of my life, but I don't regret it at all.
- 9y ago
- Murkin 9y agoSad how the last season ruined it. All characters lost their senses.
- dualboot 9y agoI see this all of the time. I don't understand? During the final season McNulty flipped the script and began behaving in the same way that the city/department behaved. It was purely to illustrate that if a human behaved the way that the Baltimore Police Department behaved you would view it as a self-destructive deranged person surrounded by a cast of enabling supporters with questionable morals. I, personally, thought it was brilliant.
- agmcleod 9y agomcnulty was a bit more understandable, but Freamon was pretty straight cut, it just felt so out of character. I think part of the problem too is that season 4 was so amazing.
- davewritescode 9y agoPart of what made the show great is that it always managed to feel grounded and real. It had an almost documentary quality to it, while still remaining a work of fiction. Season 5 loses that feeling. While it was completely enjoyable, I think it was missing something.
- dingbat 9y agoi thought it was brilliant at an even more meta level: McNulty made up a fictional but fact-based story about a series of killings, with a dramatic flourish of "the Red Ribbon Killer", in order to get resources and attention on what was happening in his city, even if it was at the cost of exploiting real individual suffering. then, consider what the writers of the Wire did throughout the entire series, especially in the previous season's story arc about the "Nailgun" serial killings of Marlo's enforcers Chris and Snoop in the city's vacant buildings.
- Murkin 9y ago
- packetized 9y agoQueen stay the queen.
- seansoutpost 9y agoIn my opinion this is the greatest, television series of all time. The way every loose end is tied up and they show that really nothing has changed, the cycle just repeats itself... it's a master stroke. I moved to Baltimore years after the series ended, but it could still have been made here today. Just with smartphones and encryption. The players are stil the same and the city is pretty much unchanged in terms of the underlying issues. And my apartment is across the street from stringers copy shop :)
- remarkEon 9y agoStringer explaining elasticity of demand in the copy shop is one of my all-time favorite scenes in television.
- dmourati 9y ago"N...., is you taking notes on a criminal f..king conspiracy?!?"
- thomble 9y agoAfter he forced the lieutenants to read Robert's Rules of Order. My favorite part of the series is when String realizes he's been conned by Clay Davis, and tries to put a hit out on him. Avon intervenes and scolds String, saying "what I tell you about playin' them fuckin' away games?" Avon (and later, Marlo) understood that they could never go legit, because going legit is just another unfair game with a different set of rules. The only character that escaped their fate was Bubbles.
- RodericDay 9y agoThe Wire was a good show for its time but it's already showing a lot of age. Badass gay character, humanized gangsters, contra-Reaganesque attitude to drugs, aim at corruption and money, etc. were pretty great for its time, but now that a lot of media has caught up, the lackluster areas stick out a lot more. It's got liberal sensibilities, not leftist ones. For example, S2 is about the shipping container women. McNulty swears she won't treat them like a mere blip or statistic, but will remember their humanity. At the end of S2, they have a gag scene where McNulty goes "undercover" at a whorehouse, and gets serviced by some prostitutes, while everyone at base overhearing the mike goes "ooooh youuu McNulty". I think this shallow and circumscribed commitment to nominal values, not fully comprehending the extent to which they require a fundamental shift in approach, is pretty liberal. There's also plenty of blaming of teacher's unions for shutting down "innovative" approaches. All the issues chalked up to "capitalism" have to do with individual corruption and not the regular brutal application of market logic to human problems (eg: corrupt construction agencies wanting bribes vs. regular white citizens protecting their interests). but perhaps the most anti-leftist aspect of them all is how the show is utterly grim and hopeless and nothing ever changes. all radical initiatives are shut down and ruin lives, and it works more as a cautionary tale than an inspiration. if all media is propaganda, The Wire works as propaganda for obedient incrementalism, and decidedly against anything revolutionary.
- davewritescode 9y agoSo you're big complaint about the wire is that it doesn't espouse leftist revolutionary values...got it.
- dingbat 9y ago> Badass gay character, humanized gangsters, contra-Reaganesque attitude to drugs, aim at corruption and money, etc. you must be pretty young to think these themes were revolutionary in the early 00's, and that the "media has caught up" to those concepts. you are correct that this show doesnt care about either leftist or liberal ideologies, but that doesnt mean its propaganda either way. its about depicting an arguably valid interpretation of reality wherein the individual cannot "win" vs. the system, no matter what system or institution or ideology that may be.
- MrsPeaches 9y agoHighly recommend the book The Corner by the show's creators. Phenomenal book that served as an inspiration for The Wire. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767900316 https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767900316
- remarkEon 9y agoAnd "Homicide", written by David Simon while he shadowed Baltimore Homicide cops, and which served as the basis for several characters in the show. https://www.amazon.com/Homicide-Killing-Streets-David-Simon/dp/0805080759 https://www.amazon.com/Homicide-Killing-Streets-David-Simon/...
- smacktoward 9y ago+1. The Corner is one of those books that literally changed my life. A must-read.
- sdwisely 9y agoThere was also the corner miniseries too! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0224853/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0224853/
- vithlani 9y agoBe sure to be in a stable mental state when you watch this.
- sleepydog 9y agoI think my favorite (hard to choose, there are so many) story line in The Wire is that of Ellis Carver. You have a character who, at the start, views the community as a war zone and himself as a soldier. Then within S3 and S4 he learns that a cop needs to be part of the community; he needs to know the people he's policing, and they need to know him. There's a great scene where he starts to chase down a group of hooligans and stops short, realizing "I don't need to chase these kids. I know their parents. I know where they hang." Theres even the parallel with his former partner Herc who sticks to his soldierly ways and is eventually disgraced.
- cbanek 9y agoIn the same vain, I love how Herc (the disgrace police officer) ends up working for Levy, the defense lawyer, because of all his contacts and knowledge about the police force. "You need to learn a little something about the expense account." Seems equally perfect character development.
- nafizh 9y agoDon't forget Herc is the one who eventually gave the phone number of Marlo Stanfield to Carver from Levy's desk. That number was crucial in the final season.
- annamargot 9y agoBut did Herb give Carver the phone number so Marlo would need a lawyer / to generate more fees for Levy? Or was it to see Marlo go down?
- praneshp 9y agoThere is a terrific scene where Carver is lecturing new recruits about police work, and Daniels watches over and smiles.
- thirdsun 9y agoI think it's actually Herc who lectures them which is kind of ironic as he is one of the more...simple police men ("I say we f__k them up - the western district way"), but even he learned a thing or two about making big cases intelligently during the detail.
- vkjv 9y agoLots of people have already commented on the accuracy of the content, but, as a life long resident of Baltimore, what struck me was the dead on accents. Baltimore has a very distinct, but evolving sound and vocabulary. Cinema usually can't seem to escape the 1960s "hon" cliche. I was certain that Idris Elba had to be from Baltimore until I learned otherwise.
- m0nty 9y agoIdris Elba and Dominic West both caught me by surprise, given that I'm English and I was convinced they were both American. Then I heard Idris in another production talking proper London ... Discussion of his accent here from a dialect coach, "This is amazing": https://youtu.be/NvDvESEXcgE?t=473 https://youtu.be/NvDvESEXcgE?t=473
- monochromatic 9y agoI always thought West's accent was a little... odd. I agree that Elba nailed it though.
- m0nty 9y agoI'm not a native so can't tell about West. I admire Elba more as an actor though, maybe it's that authenticity thing.
- Anthony-G 9y agoHaving never seen either actor in anything else before The Wire, I too was convinced that they were American. While watching the scene where McNulty went undercover to play an English visitor to Baltimore, I thought his accent was laughably bad – and that it was intentionally bad to add even more humour to that scene. I was doubly impressed when I later found out Dominic West actually is English and had even studied in Trinity College, Dublin (my adopted home).
- therealdrag0 9y agoI had to look that scene up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBL2Wq5YjSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBL2Wq5YjSw Compared to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdbWsX6h4eo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdbWsX6h4eo
- dmourati 9y agoMy favorite part of the show is the Baltimore dialect. If you are casually watching an episode or two for the first time, there is no way you can grok all the nuances of the local diction. Over time, you start to re-hear words, phrases, pronunciations, and slang and you feel like you are in on it. Then you realize, the diction is different across the regional characters. Sometimes, even the characters can't understand one another. This joy of language combines with the fact that surveillance and eavesdropping play such central and indeed titular roles in the show. You then mix in the racial element for example having the black office secretary translating street hood lingo to the white cops listening in. It just all fits together beautifully.
- misiti3780 9y agoIt all comes full circle when he tells Herc he deserved to be done. "... we didnt think it matters but it matters, it all matters ..." greatest show ever created, his books awesome too. i also loved Treme.
- blazespin 9y agoYeah, must watch the entire thing with close captioning at least once.
- pasbesoin 9y agoI've been putting off watching "The Wire" -- I stopped shortly into season 1 -- because I just couldn't take any more depressing scenarios in my life. Yes, this is a personal comment, and probably as such, OT. But, it's time. As another commenter says, "the cycle repeats." I got on the wrong side of that cycle. As a quippy quote on Facebook just reminded me again, yesterday, "The fears we don't face become our limits." When Trump was elected, I started rewatching "The West Wing." (By the way, many of the issues we currently face -- issues, not personalities -- the writers of that show addressed in interesting and informative fashion.) It's time for the counter-point. Not quite out there, yet. Still watching a show. But, closer to the world we live in. Sorry for the personal comment, here, in a way. Today's little quote from the same source, on FB: "Be very careful what you think. Your thoughts run your life." A reason I held off on watching "The Wire." But it's time, now.
- danso 9y agoThe exchange between Seth Gilliam and David Simon on the use of the n-word was interesting to read in retrospect of the kefluffle Simon got into on Twitter when he used it (as a form of satire): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/09/20/the-wire-creator-david-simon-used-the-n-word-to-criticize-sean-hannity-nope/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/w...
- blazespin 9y agoSimon - I would prefer to be living in [a] country where The Wire was less relevant 15 years later. I would have much preferred to think of the show as being anachronistic.
- danso 9y agoThis bit made me laugh: > It seemed kind of strange to me, but David Simon said he had heard about something like that before when he was [at] The Baltimore Sun. I mostly was excited that I was having an episode that I had more than two scenes in. Me and Domenick Lombardozzi referred to it as my Taxi Driver episode, because it’s my favorite movie. I've read just about every book excerpt/oral history/etc I've been able to find about The Wire, and I've read about Gilliam's and Lombardozzi's and others' recollections on how they were frustrated at times about their scene/line counts. No matter how much I read these behind-the-scenes anecdotes I still have a moment of fourth-wall-breaking-wtf, because the thought of The Wire having the characteristics common to any other kind of entertainment, with writers' rooms and cut scenes and actors demanding more minutes, feels so alien. Of course it's that way, but my mild confusion/shock is a testament to how seamless and real the show and its content and its pacing feel.
- danso 9y agoApparently Sports Illustrated ran a retrospective on this very same episode a month ago (h/t r/thewire): https://www.si.com/nba/2017/04/17/the-wire-oral-history-baltimore-basketball-nba https://www.si.com/nba/2017/04/17/the-wire-oral-history-balt...
- sizzzzlerz 9y agoGreat show with great scripts, characters, and actors who portrayed them. I'd didn't care for season 2 when I was watching it but came around to really liking it when I'd finished the series. My favorite part, though, was the Hampsterdam scenes. It was as close as we get to actually legalizing drugs. I just can't call it best show ever when comparing against The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men. They're all in the top 4.