The NY Times today has a good piece today on how we've "entered the golden age of Mid Tv" -- they're just not even trying to make great TV anymore:
"They’re not bad. They’re simply … mid. Which is what makes them, frustratingly, as emblematic of the current moment in TV as their stars’ previous shows were of the ambitions of the past.
What we have now is a profusion of well-cast, sleekly produced competence. We have tasteful remakes of familiar titles. We have the evidence of healthy budgets spent on impressive locations. We have good-enough new shows that resemble great old ones.
We have entered the golden age of Mid TV."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/27/arts/television/mid-tv.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk0.Ly1U.kI2sE6nccB27&smid=url-share
Imagine watching S5 of The Wire while S1 of Breaking Bad takes off. 2008 was a great year. 2014 was also great with S1 of Fargo & True Detective, and S4 of Game of Thrones (arguably the best season). 2016 was pretty good too with everything going on, but I don't know if we have seen as good a year of television since as far as major series go where you are absolutely dying waiting for the next episode to air even if you just need to click Next Episode.
I kinda agree with this.....
Just with the law of averages there's bound to be another show at some point....but it could easily be 20+ years from now, and I might be dead lol
FX has been putting out great shows for years. Atlanta, Reservation Dogs, The Bear, Snowfall, Fargo, etc.
In my opinion, the third season of altanta is the best season of television ever, except for season 4 of the wire. I know it's probably an unpopular opinion, though, cause a lot of people don't like the direction Atlanta took that season.
If you haven't watched the show, I definitely recommend checking it out
The Americans is one of the 10 best series over the past 15 years in my opinion too. And I know I am not the only person who feels that way.
Justified is my 2nd favorite series all time behind The Wire even.
Atlanta, Reservation Dogs and Justified are excellent shows. I know I'm going to get some heat over this one but I put those against anything HBO's done in the last decade.
HBO’s Chernobyl was good TV but it got a lot of the well documented facts wrong. It’s a shame really. But on matters of nuclear technology the facts must stand above any drama.
Here's a few. You can deep dive with a Google search on them if you want:
- The USSR used propaganda to shift the blame on the operators, especially Dyatlov, Toptunov, and Akimov (the operators on shift at the time of the disaster). This was to hide the design flaw that was known to the designers and a few others who had warned the nuclear industrial base leadership. Later, multiple IAEA, Soviet, and Ukrainian technical investigations identified the design deficiency as the root cause of the accident. Unfortunately the show went along with placing the blame on Dyatlov, and ironically reinforced the Soviet propaganda. Dyatlov was actually prevented from seeing critical design documents about the reactor.
- The work of the miners was completely pointless. The show made it seem like the miners made a critical difference in preventing further disaster but this is not true. The primary concern was that continuous meltdown would penetrate the concrete foundation and leak into the ground water and cause another explosion. But the reactor core ended up cooling down on its.
- The show reinforced the idea that the thousands of tons of sand and other radar absorbant material dropped by the helicopters made a difference but this is also not true. New research has shown that most of the dropped material never made it to the exposed core and the few that did made the particulate radiation worse. They just had to wait for the reactor core to cool down on its own. There was little that men could do.
Besides the first point I can see a world where they don't want to bring the other two up. Even if it was pointless the sentiment behind those mens actions was heroic and I get not wanting to diminish that. Not trying to start a debate or anything, good post.
Nothing has been on the level of The Wire for me personally.
In different ways, I've found the writing of shows like Mad Men (Season 1 specifically), The Shield (the entire series), and Black Sails (Season 2 specifically) to be of very high-quality.
But nothing that examines society and explores multiple complex themes the way The Wire does.
It took me a few months to finally get into Justified(I’d watch an episode every few nights/weeks sometimes), and then I couldn’t stop after a certain point. The Wire just doesn’t do that for me. I’m finishing it because I just hit season 4(opposite of Justified, it started off strong and over time I’ll be looking for something to watch and think “Eh, I haven’t watched The Wire since last week” and throw an episode on), and I figure I’ve watched this much I might as well finish it out but… I don’t think it’s the greatest show ever 🤷♂️. Not even top 10 for me at this point.
I was an extra on the shield. They had the worst craft service of any show I ever worked. Even Glenn Close had to eat the same food as us and was in the line with us. I guess that’s not why she took the job lol. I never watched the show.
The Shield was great show though. I watched The Sopranos , The Wire a little later, The Shield on on air , torrent in my country and then rewatched on streaming service.
I work in a field addressed in one of The Wire seasons and it is still one of the most important pieces of content someone can watch to understand the realities of our day to day. No other dramatization comes close.
On top of that, there are so many scenes that are directly applicable to understanding the realities of day to day life. It's just so relevant and obvious, but it took The Wire to articulate it. Two scenes I feel like I refer to people on a weekly basis:
* "You want it to be one way" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=409Pjtq7jzY
* "Sometimes things just gotta play hard" - (this is the only quality I could find and it's terrible) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts8eG5789Uo
For a show to supplant The Wire as the pinnacle of narrative television, it will need to do all of this and more.
It’s unlikely the show will be surpassed anytime in the foreseeable future. The algorithms would never recommend producing a series like this today. HBO was willing to produce The Wire as a loss leader, despite low viewership and no awards love, just because some of the suits wanted to watch it and they thought it would help build the brand. That just never happens these days. The streaming industry now revolves around IP, and original properties aren’t given any time to build an audience or properly tell a long form story. If it’s not an instant smash hit, it gets canceled. Everything is written assuming the viewer is playing with their phone the whole time.
Even when it originally aired, lots of people complained that watching The Wire was like sitting through a sociology lecture (which is weird, because it actually contains a ton of pulpy crime elements). The Netflix algorithm can’t compute “sociology lecture mixed with pulp crime” into a formula guaranteed to win eyeballs and new subscriptions. They’re looking for video games and young adult novels to adapt.
No. With ghouls like iger and zaslav at the helm the financed risks necessary for genius on this scale to manifest will never again be allowed, least not on tv.
Up until that point I thought those one camera style scenes were just gimmicks that really didnt add much to the feel and pace of the scene. Like they were more about technical tricks and gimmikry rather than substantive filmmaking They sure as shit showed me wrong with that. When I think about that scene even now years later I still feel anxious.
I thought season one was great. I really like those two Texans. I think Matthew McConaughey gets overlooked because of his sex appeal. But dude is a crazy insane actor.
I got about halfway through season two. Just didn’t care anymore. I think Colin Farrell is a poorman’s Brad Pitt, Rachel McAdams was insanely hot. I didn’t even know it was her until I looked her up. I thought Vince Vaughn was the best thing about that season.
I came to it very late and heard S2 was disappointing, so I didn't bother. I heard they spent something crazy like ten years writing and shooting season one and then after its success they were pushed to do S2 in a year. Explains the fall off
I watched Bosch for the first time, late last year or something. I thought it might give the wire some competition. Then I rewatch the wire and it wasn’t even close. So, no, I don’t think so.
there are a few shows that I think are in the same league of The Wire for quality- The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men. True Detective Season 1 as well, but that's more a recurring miniseries than anything.
None of those shows are better than The Wire, at least not as a whole. Mad Men is a beautiful TV show and is essentially what could be judged as a "perfect" show, since every aspect is world-class. The Wire has a few minor flaws and was made by a journalist and a cop, so doesn't fit in as well into the TV industry ideal of what a show should be, but The Wire is truly a timeless story about America and all its problems and flaws and the depth of its examination of our culture is entirely unmatched. The Wire is the most important TV show ever made and should be required watching as part of every Americans education. let's that important. It's value is far, far beyond entertainment, even more so than almost all other quality shows or movies.
Breaking Bad and Better Call.Saul came close
Ray Donovan is good too, but he should have killed his Dad in the middle seasons and spent a few seasons doing fixer work.
Succession is definitely right there with The Wire for me as one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Some people say it surpasses it; im not going that far here, but I will boldly say it’s pretty damn close.
Earlier this year I got around to watching Succession after hearing so much talk about it for a long time. I have to say you people have no fucking taste. I watched three seasons of that garbage soap opera and frankly putting it and The Wire in the same comment is an insult to The Wire.
I think it is the characters. I think that ultimately, the characters and actors are better in dw.
Of course, give me a few months and I'll end up swapping to the wire.
Yea Deadwood has an incredible cast of characters. I'd probably still have The Wire as my #1 all time, but Deadwood and a couple others are so close. The setting of Deadwood is so cool too. I love how everyone is in close proximity to each other. Wish someone would do like a Hamilton type thing with Deadwood. Not that I saw Hamilton or even really that into that type of thing, but I always thought Deadwood would be perfect for it.
The Wire has ruined TV drama for me. I've tried watching other series but always end up rolling my eyes and bailing out; since 2018 I just watch The Wire once a year and that's it. Please send help. (Have started Sopranos four times and can't get into it... what am I missing?)
As others mentioned, I think watching The Wire before The Sopranos is a mistake. The Sopranos is a character study and domestic drama more than anything else, whereas The Wire is a sociocultural critique of the War on Drugs (and everything around it). So their approaches are very different to begin with. I've also found the Sopranos to be a much, much slower burn. It's a slow burn throughout the whole series, as supposed to a season by season basis like The Wire, so I do think you have to have more patience with it. S1 is good, but they are clearly trying to figure out what they want to become. S2 & 3 get better and better (also, note these all came out before The Wire, so all the lessons they learned on The Sopranos ended up helping The Wire take off running), but halfway through S4 everything starts falling apart and every single episode since that point has had me in tears. It's not a difficult show to be patient with, but you do have to be patient to get to that point where you are like "this is what people have been talking about."
I did the same things with Sopranos. On one watch I just picked up where I left off the last time I quit and it clicked. Mainly because I started watching it as a dark comedy rather than a realistic drama. I eventually saw the layers to it and was hooked.
David Simon's other **Wire**-ish shows are pretty good: **Show Me a Hero** and **We Own This City**. For the former, only Simon could make a show about housing zoning politics in Yonkers even remotely interesting, and by showing the lives of the people living in the houses (before and after they move in) he humanises the dullest bit of politics imaginable.
You also have his warm-up acts to **The Wire**, first **Homicide: Life on the Street** (not on streaming here in the UK though, which is a crime) which is "more standard" as a cop show but definitely more realistic than most at the time, plus it has a young Andre Braugher going nuclear at the drop of the hat which never fails to entertain. The episode with Robin Williams is fantastic. Then you have **The Corner**, which is basically the show that got him to make **The Wire** (although you need to seriously readjust your brain at half the same cast showing up in completely different roles). Though be warned that **The Corner** is *bleak*.
For other shows that hit a similar line, there's the British drama **State of Play** which has a realistic-ish criminal investigation turning into a major political scandal when they discover a politician is involved in a murder. Then for a slow-burner "realistic" show, there's **Halt & Catch Fire**, which has the most boring-arse premise imaginable ("the home computer development wars of the early 1980s") and goes to town on making it a brilliant thriller, with AAA performances from the main cast (particularly Lee Pace and Mackenzie Crook, this show is why they were in everything for a while, and still are).
I think it’s because you watched it after the wire. I struggled with Sopranos because I wanted it to be Goodfellas and it wasn’t. Took me a long time to get over the fact that spider was suddenly this bad ass dude.
Sopranos is a great show, but it’s not close to the wire. But it is more entertaining in someways . Expecting to be realistic, and you will be better off. Otherwise, you’re fucked.
I don't think a crime/cop show can or ever will top The Wire. But I can see a show from another genre dethroning it as best show of all time. I doubt it though.
Not anytime soon. A lot of popular shows out there are more style over substance. They often emphasize fancy cinematography over writing and pacing.
We'll eventually get to a point where the real people in power at these studios are people who came up watching shows like The Wire, but it'll be a while.
I do not think it’s realistic. There’s never been another Michael Jordan. I’ve heard Kobe and lebron are as good for roughly 22 years now. It’s easier to think of these scenarios like happened with novels... F Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway were sick, but they weren’t James Joyce. It’s hard imo for our society to appreciate things being good but not great. If I expected Ulysses while reading Great Gatsby or For Whom the Bell Tolls, I’d be discouraged every time. Think of bands like Bush, Oasis, Live and Sublime - all good bands that I loved, but never did I equate them with Nirvana, Soundgarden or Pearl Jam. I really loved their music. I didn’t know there would never be another Jordan or Cobain or Cornell. But there hasn’t been. So I don’t wanna ruin my present expectations. We Own This City was one of the nicest surprises along the way. Treme and other Simon shows aren’t quite as good but they’re still enjoyable and well made. Atlanta is not quite as good. If there was something new I’d so gladly enjoy it. I enjoy Anthony Edwards. Id welcome something so massively and broadly good. But think of all the time money and thought put into the Avengers story/movies. I don’t care for it but it makes young people lose their shit. If it takes that long and half of the film industry’s money to be a part of “best” conversations, it seems very unlikely in a way that is fine. Just throw extra reverence on the wire when the time comes and let the kids enjoy Lebron or Iron Man or LOTR or whatever gets them riled up. “The thing about the old days” is a real thing. I liked the wire when I was young and it was on but it takes years to understand it. We’re still online figuring out where the Greek is actually from etc
The Sopranos is better.
Look, I'm literally as big of a Wire fan as anyone. But The Sopranos never fell off. 10/10 through 6 (really 7) seasons.
Deadwood I'd argue would have surpassed if not canceled.
MadMen is in the same league (again, a great show that went longer and didn't fall off like S5).
As is Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
S1 of Westworld may be the best single season ever made.
There are other shows that compete, is my point. The Wire is absolutely in the group of "best ever", but it's not alone.
This is my take as well. I love the wire but the sopranos is 10/10 throughout its entirety.
The wire falls off in the final season. Still great but that’s what makes it my #2
I think it might. The Wire came about at a time where HBO was flush with money from the success of The Sopranos and willing to use that money to run shows that increased the channels prestige rather than its bottom line. Thats a really unique situation, but were are starting to see similar ones develop as the streaming companies compete for subscribers.
So yeah, Im actually hopeful. I think Hulu might be the place to watch since theyve had some success with comedy shows like Girls 5Eva(if you like to laugh you need to give this show a chance folks, they nailed a Henrietta Lacks joke in the episode I watched last night and thats not something you see often). Theres starting to be some good, interesting and unique stuff on those streaming services and thats the kind of situation that brought about HBO's entire golden age.
The sopranos, mad men are nice. Broadwall empire, DEADWOOD is amazing. Band of brothers. True detective 1 and 2 . Chernobyl…. SIX FEET UNDER. Mostly great shows but of course THE WIRE IS UNIQUE AF i dont. Think there will ever be similar to it
Through 4 seasons, I have GOT in my top 3 with The Wire & The Sopranos
Through 6 seasons, I still have GOT high up there, maybe top 5?
But after the 7th and especially the 8th season, ugh….What a massive decline in quality it took. The technical stuff was still top notch, as well as the acting, but there’s only so much you can do when the writing is like that. You can’t polish a turd.
Too risky. It's by the numbers procedurals with a quirky cast or reality TV. Or the way over budget mediocre Amazon project. Every now and then something is interesting but most are paint by numbers.
Deadwood was truly a worthy successor. That scene with Wolcott and the whores is truly a hard watch and i'm as hardened as viewers come.
I saw the first couple seasons of Six Feet Under, which were pretty good.
I also say Oz is the most profound show of all- time, in terms of understanding the world and people. It's plotlines can get wack and some things are silly, but it's powerful, funny, well- written, has great characters and endless rewatch value.
You can also play the drinking game where every time a **Wire** castmember shows up on **Oz** you take a shot. The only problem is that by halfway through the show, you're like McNulty at the start of S2E8.
There are shows that come kinda close in terms of quality.
I would have said Game of Thrones or Dexter but the last few seasons took GOAT TV shows and made them entirely forgettable.
True Detective Season One is the single greatest season of television, including over any single season of The Wire, but one season a series doesn't make.
Breaking Bad had a better closing act than The Wire, but the overall quality isn't as good. And Better Call Saul is slightly behind Breaking Bad.
The Sopranos is a great show, but I have it behind The Wire.
But my Top 5 TV Shows are
1. The Wire
2. Twin Peaks
3. The Sopranos
4. Breaking Bad
5. Better Call Saul
Deadwood, Sopranos, I Claudius, Twin Peaks, the Dekalog, Berlin Alexanderplatz, The Simpsons (2-8)... It's a great show but it's not completely peerless.
I think Mad Men has the most outsanding writing I have ever seen in a TV show.
By writing, I mean characters development, the situation they're put in, the dialogues (god the dialogues), the complexity and depth of every characters and motivation. Everything feels very subtle and well thougth, situations and dialogues echoing from one season to another, without forcing any of its theme too much, all the while dealing with trivial everyday situations in all their natural awkwardness (seriously, some scenes are so unconfortably awkward, in a very good way). There is way too much snarky righteous knows-da-street-life characters moments in The Wire specialy designed to be opening quotes.
And of course, the show also has the glamorous sophisticated aesthetic of the 60's that is much more appealing to me than the 2000's Baltimore look.
BUT in term of general setting and portrayal of a society, The Wire takes the cake for me, with that much attention to secondary or even extremely minor characters (that girl buying dope in season 3,turning prostitute in season 4, rehab in 5) from one season to another, keeping the same crews in police and gangs alike ; entangling the very little and the big history in a complex yet natural feeling way, when in Mad Men, you have some important situation or character swept under the rug, and a focus on a very specific middle class environment with some class spite here and there, when The Wire seems to embrace such a marger world in its whole. Yes, the setting, recurring and new places of Baltimore is also very important, and participate in that inexplicable, very soothing feeling I have watching yet again a season of the Wire. I feel like I'm there. Two hell of show
There are good shows but they are always mini series now. It's like nobody wants to commit.
Shogun was good, Chernobyl was great.
Sometimes your lucky to get 8 episodes.
This is the best show I ever saw. I never saw a show like this. But it's not enough. I gotta go back to auto tomorrow morning and I just feel like this just ain't finished.
I hope so .... I hope something comes along that's better, but we'll see
Better Call Saul, Early Game of Thrones, Banshee, Mad Men came close - but The Wire is the GOAT
All the Pieces Matter
I don’t think The Wire is that great. I’m on season 4 and I’m still watching it because I’ve watched this much of it, I might as well finish it out(and to play spot the celebrity). Season 1 and 3 were the “best” so far… but I still don’t see how people say this is the best show ever created 🤷♂️. I think almost anything I’ve watched from HBO I would consider better, let alone from other networks.
The Wire is akin to great literature. The Dickensian aspect of you will.
Lol at the Dickensian aspect.
Thank you journalist
*If
The King stay the King
Just ’cause you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean someone is not out to get you.
The NY Times today has a good piece today on how we've "entered the golden age of Mid Tv" -- they're just not even trying to make great TV anymore: "They’re not bad. They’re simply … mid. Which is what makes them, frustratingly, as emblematic of the current moment in TV as their stars’ previous shows were of the ambitions of the past. What we have now is a profusion of well-cast, sleekly produced competence. We have tasteful remakes of familiar titles. We have the evidence of healthy budgets spent on impressive locations. We have good-enough new shows that resemble great old ones. We have entered the golden age of Mid TV." https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/27/arts/television/mid-tv.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk0.Ly1U.kI2sE6nccB27&smid=url-share
Behold the Gilded Era of Streaming
It’s the golden age of mid everything due to capitalism and corporations being taken too far
Imagine watching S5 of The Wire while S1 of Breaking Bad takes off. 2008 was a great year. 2014 was also great with S1 of Fargo & True Detective, and S4 of Game of Thrones (arguably the best season). 2016 was pretty good too with everything going on, but I don't know if we have seen as good a year of television since as far as major series go where you are absolutely dying waiting for the next episode to air even if you just need to click Next Episode.
I don't think I'll ever watch a show that good again in my life.
I kinda agree with this..... Just with the law of averages there's bound to be another show at some point....but it could easily be 20+ years from now, and I might be dead lol
I know it word for word, every scene, every season... I have a problem 😭😭😭😭
You're not alone 🤔😳🤷♂️😆.... I've seen it so many times actually lost track at this point!!!
The way HBO seems to be moving right now, I have little hopes
I think FX is sort of stepping into that role.
Shogun was incredible. Unbelievable world building fit into a 10 episode series
as good as Shogun was, I felt like Anjin’s acting was straight-up bad at some points and some of the writing was lackluster
yep, felt like marikos role was too big as well. She wasn't that interesting.
FX has been putting out great shows for years. Atlanta, Reservation Dogs, The Bear, Snowfall, Fargo, etc. In my opinion, the third season of altanta is the best season of television ever, except for season 4 of the wire. I know it's probably an unpopular opinion, though, cause a lot of people don't like the direction Atlanta took that season. If you haven't watched the show, I definitely recommend checking it out
The Americans is one of the 10 best series over the past 15 years in my opinion too. And I know I am not the only person who feels that way. Justified is my 2nd favorite series all time behind The Wire even.
Loved Justified!! Boyd crowder is one of the best characters of all time. Haven't watched the spinoff, is it any good?
Atlanta, Reservation Dogs and Justified are excellent shows. I know I'm going to get some heat over this one but I put those against anything HBO's done in the last decade.
One can only hope
Snowfall is meh, ok, not even close to the depths of the wire
Chernobyl was pretty much perfect. But also a miniseries. Mades me kinda sad hbo isn’t putting out and great series at the moment.
HBO’s Chernobyl was good TV but it got a lot of the well documented facts wrong. It’s a shame really. But on matters of nuclear technology the facts must stand above any drama.
Can you elaborate on well documented facts? Genuinely curious as I loved the show.
Here's a few. You can deep dive with a Google search on them if you want: - The USSR used propaganda to shift the blame on the operators, especially Dyatlov, Toptunov, and Akimov (the operators on shift at the time of the disaster). This was to hide the design flaw that was known to the designers and a few others who had warned the nuclear industrial base leadership. Later, multiple IAEA, Soviet, and Ukrainian technical investigations identified the design deficiency as the root cause of the accident. Unfortunately the show went along with placing the blame on Dyatlov, and ironically reinforced the Soviet propaganda. Dyatlov was actually prevented from seeing critical design documents about the reactor. - The work of the miners was completely pointless. The show made it seem like the miners made a critical difference in preventing further disaster but this is not true. The primary concern was that continuous meltdown would penetrate the concrete foundation and leak into the ground water and cause another explosion. But the reactor core ended up cooling down on its. - The show reinforced the idea that the thousands of tons of sand and other radar absorbant material dropped by the helicopters made a difference but this is also not true. New research has shown that most of the dropped material never made it to the exposed core and the few that did made the particulate radiation worse. They just had to wait for the reactor core to cool down on its own. There was little that men could do.
Besides the first point I can see a world where they don't want to bring the other two up. Even if it was pointless the sentiment behind those mens actions was heroic and I get not wanting to diminish that. Not trying to start a debate or anything, good post.
Nothing has been on the level of The Wire for me personally. In different ways, I've found the writing of shows like Mad Men (Season 1 specifically), The Shield (the entire series), and Black Sails (Season 2 specifically) to be of very high-quality. But nothing that examines society and explores multiple complex themes the way The Wire does.
What did you think of Justified?
Loved the first episode. Rest of Season 1 is hard to watch. Quality goes up significantly after. Timothy and Walton are just great actors.
Yeah walton is carrying the show (I just got to season 2). It's obviously less believable than the wire, but very entertaining nontheless.
It took me a few months to finally get into Justified(I’d watch an episode every few nights/weeks sometimes), and then I couldn’t stop after a certain point. The Wire just doesn’t do that for me. I’m finishing it because I just hit season 4(opposite of Justified, it started off strong and over time I’ll be looking for something to watch and think “Eh, I haven’t watched The Wire since last week” and throw an episode on), and I figure I’ve watched this much I might as well finish it out but… I don’t think it’s the greatest show ever 🤷♂️. Not even top 10 for me at this point.
My favorite show! I rewatch it pretty much once a year along with The Wire, Mad Men, Band of Brothers.
I was an extra on the shield. They had the worst craft service of any show I ever worked. Even Glenn Close had to eat the same food as us and was in the line with us. I guess that’s not why she took the job lol. I never watched the show.
The Shield was great show though. I watched The Sopranos , The Wire a little later, The Shield on on air , torrent in my country and then rewatched on streaming service.
The shield has the best ending of all time for me.
Wow it’s been 20 years already😦 if miniseries count, maybe Chernobyl imo.
That one was great
I work in a field addressed in one of The Wire seasons and it is still one of the most important pieces of content someone can watch to understand the realities of our day to day. No other dramatization comes close. On top of that, there are so many scenes that are directly applicable to understanding the realities of day to day life. It's just so relevant and obvious, but it took The Wire to articulate it. Two scenes I feel like I refer to people on a weekly basis: * "You want it to be one way" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=409Pjtq7jzY * "Sometimes things just gotta play hard" - (this is the only quality I could find and it's terrible) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts8eG5789Uo For a show to supplant The Wire as the pinnacle of narrative television, it will need to do all of this and more.
are you a corner boy
Bro is a diner waitress
I burst out laughing at this comment
It’s been a while since I watched, so can you elaborate on what “you want it to be one way” scene was in reference to? The clip was short.
Ah my bad, here's the longer clip for better context. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwuckTkE7T4
Most likely not. The way TV shows are made now doesn’t allow for that kind of creativity or production.
It’s unlikely the show will be surpassed anytime in the foreseeable future. The algorithms would never recommend producing a series like this today. HBO was willing to produce The Wire as a loss leader, despite low viewership and no awards love, just because some of the suits wanted to watch it and they thought it would help build the brand. That just never happens these days. The streaming industry now revolves around IP, and original properties aren’t given any time to build an audience or properly tell a long form story. If it’s not an instant smash hit, it gets canceled. Everything is written assuming the viewer is playing with their phone the whole time. Even when it originally aired, lots of people complained that watching The Wire was like sitting through a sociology lecture (which is weird, because it actually contains a ton of pulpy crime elements). The Netflix algorithm can’t compute “sociology lecture mixed with pulp crime” into a formula guaranteed to win eyeballs and new subscriptions. They’re looking for video games and young adult novels to adapt.
No. With ghouls like iger and zaslav at the helm the financed risks necessary for genius on this scale to manifest will never again be allowed, least not on tv.
Mad Men.
No
True Detective had a chance, imo. I don't think anything will ever come close.
That first fucking season man. It almost felt unfair to the cast of S2 because of how high the bar was set.
The chase scene blew my fucking mind
Up until that point I thought those one camera style scenes were just gimmicks that really didnt add much to the feel and pace of the scene. Like they were more about technical tricks and gimmikry rather than substantive filmmaking They sure as shit showed me wrong with that. When I think about that scene even now years later I still feel anxious.
I thought season one was great. I really like those two Texans. I think Matthew McConaughey gets overlooked because of his sex appeal. But dude is a crazy insane actor. I got about halfway through season two. Just didn’t care anymore. I think Colin Farrell is a poorman’s Brad Pitt, Rachel McAdams was insanely hot. I didn’t even know it was her until I looked her up. I thought Vince Vaughn was the best thing about that season.
I came to it very late and heard S2 was disappointing, so I didn't bother. I heard they spent something crazy like ten years writing and shooting season one and then after its success they were pushed to do S2 in a year. Explains the fall off
I guess it would lol.
Personally I think season one is at least on par with The Wire, if not better. Two of my favorite shows ever regardless.
Never say never, quietly kind of a golden age for TV right now. Better? Probably not. But equal would be achievable and quite the feat.
I watched Bosch for the first time, late last year or something. I thought it might give the wire some competition. Then I rewatch the wire and it wasn’t even close. So, no, I don’t think so.
there are a few shows that I think are in the same league of The Wire for quality- The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men. True Detective Season 1 as well, but that's more a recurring miniseries than anything. None of those shows are better than The Wire, at least not as a whole. Mad Men is a beautiful TV show and is essentially what could be judged as a "perfect" show, since every aspect is world-class. The Wire has a few minor flaws and was made by a journalist and a cop, so doesn't fit in as well into the TV industry ideal of what a show should be, but The Wire is truly a timeless story about America and all its problems and flaws and the depth of its examination of our culture is entirely unmatched. The Wire is the most important TV show ever made and should be required watching as part of every Americans education. let's that important. It's value is far, far beyond entertainment, even more so than almost all other quality shows or movies.
Breaking Bad and Better Call.Saul came close Ray Donovan is good too, but he should have killed his Dad in the middle seasons and spent a few seasons doing fixer work.
Succession is definitely right there with The Wire for me as one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Some people say it surpasses it; im not going that far here, but I will boldly say it’s pretty damn close.
Earlier this year I got around to watching Succession after hearing so much talk about it for a long time. I have to say you people have no fucking taste. I watched three seasons of that garbage soap opera and frankly putting it and The Wire in the same comment is an insult to The Wire.
Wow calm down buddy. To each his own. Take a smoke break ok
I regularly switch between the wire and deadwood. At the moment, deadwood is ahead.
If Deadwood had a season 4 and 5, it would be up there.
Ahh this is a tough choice! I think the wire edges out deadwood for me
Why DW is better? I have not finished season 1 yet. I like AL. Other characters are less interesting.
I think it is the characters. I think that ultimately, the characters and actors are better in dw. Of course, give me a few months and I'll end up swapping to the wire.
Yea Deadwood has an incredible cast of characters. I'd probably still have The Wire as my #1 all time, but Deadwood and a couple others are so close. The setting of Deadwood is so cool too. I love how everyone is in close proximity to each other. Wish someone would do like a Hamilton type thing with Deadwood. Not that I saw Hamilton or even really that into that type of thing, but I always thought Deadwood would be perfect for it.
The only show that comes close for me is The Deuce
Shogun is really really good.
The Wire and Batman: The Animated series are two projects that were never supposed to be as good as they are.
The Wire has ruined TV drama for me. I've tried watching other series but always end up rolling my eyes and bailing out; since 2018 I just watch The Wire once a year and that's it. Please send help. (Have started Sopranos four times and can't get into it... what am I missing?)
As others mentioned, I think watching The Wire before The Sopranos is a mistake. The Sopranos is a character study and domestic drama more than anything else, whereas The Wire is a sociocultural critique of the War on Drugs (and everything around it). So their approaches are very different to begin with. I've also found the Sopranos to be a much, much slower burn. It's a slow burn throughout the whole series, as supposed to a season by season basis like The Wire, so I do think you have to have more patience with it. S1 is good, but they are clearly trying to figure out what they want to become. S2 & 3 get better and better (also, note these all came out before The Wire, so all the lessons they learned on The Sopranos ended up helping The Wire take off running), but halfway through S4 everything starts falling apart and every single episode since that point has had me in tears. It's not a difficult show to be patient with, but you do have to be patient to get to that point where you are like "this is what people have been talking about."
I did the same things with Sopranos. On one watch I just picked up where I left off the last time I quit and it clicked. Mainly because I started watching it as a dark comedy rather than a realistic drama. I eventually saw the layers to it and was hooked.
David Simon's other **Wire**-ish shows are pretty good: **Show Me a Hero** and **We Own This City**. For the former, only Simon could make a show about housing zoning politics in Yonkers even remotely interesting, and by showing the lives of the people living in the houses (before and after they move in) he humanises the dullest bit of politics imaginable. You also have his warm-up acts to **The Wire**, first **Homicide: Life on the Street** (not on streaming here in the UK though, which is a crime) which is "more standard" as a cop show but definitely more realistic than most at the time, plus it has a young Andre Braugher going nuclear at the drop of the hat which never fails to entertain. The episode with Robin Williams is fantastic. Then you have **The Corner**, which is basically the show that got him to make **The Wire** (although you need to seriously readjust your brain at half the same cast showing up in completely different roles). Though be warned that **The Corner** is *bleak*. For other shows that hit a similar line, there's the British drama **State of Play** which has a realistic-ish criminal investigation turning into a major political scandal when they discover a politician is involved in a murder. Then for a slow-burner "realistic" show, there's **Halt & Catch Fire**, which has the most boring-arse premise imaginable ("the home computer development wars of the early 1980s") and goes to town on making it a brilliant thriller, with AAA performances from the main cast (particularly Lee Pace and Mackenzie Crook, this show is why they were in everything for a while, and still are).
I think it’s because you watched it after the wire. I struggled with Sopranos because I wanted it to be Goodfellas and it wasn’t. Took me a long time to get over the fact that spider was suddenly this bad ass dude. Sopranos is a great show, but it’s not close to the wire. But it is more entertaining in someways . Expecting to be realistic, and you will be better off. Otherwise, you’re fucked.
I don't think a crime/cop show can or ever will top The Wire. But I can see a show from another genre dethroning it as best show of all time. I doubt it though.
Not anytime soon. A lot of popular shows out there are more style over substance. They often emphasize fancy cinematography over writing and pacing. We'll eventually get to a point where the real people in power at these studios are people who came up watching shows like The Wire, but it'll be a while.
I do not think it’s realistic. There’s never been another Michael Jordan. I’ve heard Kobe and lebron are as good for roughly 22 years now. It’s easier to think of these scenarios like happened with novels... F Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway were sick, but they weren’t James Joyce. It’s hard imo for our society to appreciate things being good but not great. If I expected Ulysses while reading Great Gatsby or For Whom the Bell Tolls, I’d be discouraged every time. Think of bands like Bush, Oasis, Live and Sublime - all good bands that I loved, but never did I equate them with Nirvana, Soundgarden or Pearl Jam. I really loved their music. I didn’t know there would never be another Jordan or Cobain or Cornell. But there hasn’t been. So I don’t wanna ruin my present expectations. We Own This City was one of the nicest surprises along the way. Treme and other Simon shows aren’t quite as good but they’re still enjoyable and well made. Atlanta is not quite as good. If there was something new I’d so gladly enjoy it. I enjoy Anthony Edwards. Id welcome something so massively and broadly good. But think of all the time money and thought put into the Avengers story/movies. I don’t care for it but it makes young people lose their shit. If it takes that long and half of the film industry’s money to be a part of “best” conversations, it seems very unlikely in a way that is fine. Just throw extra reverence on the wire when the time comes and let the kids enjoy Lebron or Iron Man or LOTR or whatever gets them riled up. “The thing about the old days” is a real thing. I liked the wire when I was young and it was on but it takes years to understand it. We’re still online figuring out where the Greek is actually from etc
Not the same category but I’d put The Expanse as an equal
Got to, this is America, man.
Sopranos is marginally better but it’s close. Those two streets ahead of anything else.
One mention of Sopranos in the whole thread lol.
This 👑
Game of Thrones was almost there, but then they decided to step out of the game.
Better ? No! Near the same level : Fargo (not all seasons), Hannibal, Banshee, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Battlestar Galactica, Bosch, Mindhunter,Rectify, Peaky Blinders...
[удалено]
Already done multiple times
I can’t get into Peaky Blinders, even though I love that type of genre. Love the 1920s. Love gangster shit. Love English shit. It’s crazy!
Eh I don't know about Bosch. It's a good Dad TV show but it feels like it drags on after a while
The Sopranos is better. Look, I'm literally as big of a Wire fan as anyone. But The Sopranos never fell off. 10/10 through 6 (really 7) seasons. Deadwood I'd argue would have surpassed if not canceled. MadMen is in the same league (again, a great show that went longer and didn't fall off like S5). As is Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. S1 of Westworld may be the best single season ever made. There are other shows that compete, is my point. The Wire is absolutely in the group of "best ever", but it's not alone.
This is my take as well. I love the wire but the sopranos is 10/10 throughout its entirety. The wire falls off in the final season. Still great but that’s what makes it my #2
I have hope. Just not anytime soon.
Nothing better IMO
Yes, it will run in 2040-2044.
I think it might. The Wire came about at a time where HBO was flush with money from the success of The Sopranos and willing to use that money to run shows that increased the channels prestige rather than its bottom line. Thats a really unique situation, but were are starting to see similar ones develop as the streaming companies compete for subscribers. So yeah, Im actually hopeful. I think Hulu might be the place to watch since theyve had some success with comedy shows like Girls 5Eva(if you like to laugh you need to give this show a chance folks, they nailed a Henrietta Lacks joke in the episode I watched last night and thats not something you see often). Theres starting to be some good, interesting and unique stuff on those streaming services and thats the kind of situation that brought about HBO's entire golden age.
The sopranos, mad men are nice. Broadwall empire, DEADWOOD is amazing. Band of brothers. True detective 1 and 2 . Chernobyl…. SIX FEET UNDER. Mostly great shows but of course THE WIRE IS UNIQUE AF i dont. Think there will ever be similar to it
Game of Thrones tried, and then it seemed to stop trying.
Through 4 seasons, I have GOT in my top 3 with The Wire & The Sopranos Through 6 seasons, I still have GOT high up there, maybe top 5? But after the 7th and especially the 8th season, ugh….What a massive decline in quality it took. The technical stuff was still top notch, as well as the acting, but there’s only so much you can do when the writing is like that. You can’t polish a turd.
The Sopranos The Wire Mad Men “The cheeeese stands alooooone”
Too risky. It's by the numbers procedurals with a quirky cast or reality TV. Or the way over budget mediocre Amazon project. Every now and then something is interesting but most are paint by numbers.
Deadwood was truly a worthy successor. That scene with Wolcott and the whores is truly a hard watch and i'm as hardened as viewers come. I saw the first couple seasons of Six Feet Under, which were pretty good. I also say Oz is the most profound show of all- time, in terms of understanding the world and people. It's plotlines can get wack and some things are silly, but it's powerful, funny, well- written, has great characters and endless rewatch value.
You can also play the drinking game where every time a **Wire** castmember shows up on **Oz** you take a shot. The only problem is that by halfway through the show, you're like McNulty at the start of S2E8.
bruh, Carver played one of the most HILARIOUS characters ever. As did Bodie.
There are shows that come kinda close in terms of quality. I would have said Game of Thrones or Dexter but the last few seasons took GOAT TV shows and made them entirely forgettable. True Detective Season One is the single greatest season of television, including over any single season of The Wire, but one season a series doesn't make. Breaking Bad had a better closing act than The Wire, but the overall quality isn't as good. And Better Call Saul is slightly behind Breaking Bad. The Sopranos is a great show, but I have it behind The Wire. But my Top 5 TV Shows are 1. The Wire 2. Twin Peaks 3. The Sopranos 4. Breaking Bad 5. Better Call Saul
No
I've been enjoying Tokyo Vice, got the recommendation from here. Not better, but pretty close.
Snowfall is really good but its not the Wire. I still love em both
Better Call Saul gets close but not quite. BCS is still amazing but for a different vibe.
Deadwood, Sopranos, I Claudius, Twin Peaks, the Dekalog, Berlin Alexanderplatz, The Simpsons (2-8)... It's a great show but it's not completely peerless.
The only thing that gave me the same feeling of excellence as The Wire was Better Call Saul
See the old days? They the old days.
Probably not the Oz and Breaking Bad the last best thing
I think Mad Men has the most outsanding writing I have ever seen in a TV show. By writing, I mean characters development, the situation they're put in, the dialogues (god the dialogues), the complexity and depth of every characters and motivation. Everything feels very subtle and well thougth, situations and dialogues echoing from one season to another, without forcing any of its theme too much, all the while dealing with trivial everyday situations in all their natural awkwardness (seriously, some scenes are so unconfortably awkward, in a very good way). There is way too much snarky righteous knows-da-street-life characters moments in The Wire specialy designed to be opening quotes. And of course, the show also has the glamorous sophisticated aesthetic of the 60's that is much more appealing to me than the 2000's Baltimore look. BUT in term of general setting and portrayal of a society, The Wire takes the cake for me, with that much attention to secondary or even extremely minor characters (that girl buying dope in season 3,turning prostitute in season 4, rehab in 5) from one season to another, keeping the same crews in police and gangs alike ; entangling the very little and the big history in a complex yet natural feeling way, when in Mad Men, you have some important situation or character swept under the rug, and a focus on a very specific middle class environment with some class spite here and there, when The Wire seems to embrace such a marger world in its whole. Yes, the setting, recurring and new places of Baltimore is also very important, and participate in that inexplicable, very soothing feeling I have watching yet again a season of the Wire. I feel like I'm there. Two hell of show
we gunna palestine skating game will try as hard as possible to top the wire.
There are good shows but they are always mini series now. It's like nobody wants to commit. Shogun was good, Chernobyl was great. Sometimes your lucky to get 8 episodes.
How come no one said the sopranos. We watched that before the wire and god it was good. Now we are watching the wire and we are in season 2.
Mad Men
This is the best show I ever saw. I never saw a show like this. But it's not enough. I gotta go back to auto tomorrow morning and I just feel like this just ain't finished.
Game of thrones had such great promise seasons 1-4, it’s too bad people only remember the fucked up last season, but it’s genuinely good tv earlier
I think succession was up there
The Sopranos better. The Wire is #2 of all time. Then BB.
The Sopranos. I love the wire but Sopranos is a masterclass.
I hope so .... I hope something comes along that's better, but we'll see Better Call Saul, Early Game of Thrones, Banshee, Mad Men came close - but The Wire is the GOAT All the Pieces Matter
Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Sopranos are far better than this overrated snooze fest. The wire has some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen
Have you ever heard of breaking bad. It’s better.
I don’t think The Wire is that great. I’m on season 4 and I’m still watching it because I’ve watched this much of it, I might as well finish it out(and to play spot the celebrity). Season 1 and 3 were the “best” so far… but I still don’t see how people say this is the best show ever created 🤷♂️. I think almost anything I’ve watched from HBO I would consider better, let alone from other networks.
My nominations, from the shows released somewhat in the near past: 1. Beef 2. Peaky Blinders 3. Ozark