The WIRE. Is it as good as the reviews, the critics

[S1ur]

and my mates say it is?

Because if so I'll buy it off amazon now.

Just started watching Generation Kill Frosty - agree it is very good (though I am finding it a bit hard to work out all the characters still!)

The Wire was fab - very bleak at times but was very sad when we came to the last episode...

Ooh, thanks, StayFrosty - may look for that on DVD.

I love it. but be warned, buy at least two box sets at a time. I watched the first so quickly and got annoyed waiting for the next to be delivered.

I love it more than the Sopranos and Six Feet Under, which is remarkable.

Oh yes, torrents are fab, just a bit morally legally/dubious.

But sometimes I don't care (got 24 episodes of balamory on friday, no guilt at all)

And you have to start The Wire from the beginning - Series One, Episode One. If you join in the middle it will be incomprehensible.

Oh the f**k scene in series one is priceless! Just watched series 2 and nagging dp to get series 3

Is it really better than the Sopranos?

Oh, yes, lots, rislip - whole different league.

rislip, it's a fine line. With the wire I find you have to watch them in a run, i.e 3 or 4 in a go, but you don't with the Sopranos.

Argh, I'm going to start the sopranos from season 1 again now. I love it.

Devil is right - we usually watch min of 2 episodes at a time...

Hbbibu, I agree, it's different.

Sopranos is like a book of brilliant short stories, The Wire is like an epic Novel.

Oh my god, it's so brilliant. I had a dream the other day that I started watching it again from the beginning (and had to go on a score with Stringer, racy stuff) and woke up really happy.

(OMa realises in plodding fashion that this is the first thread on which her name will be appreciated!)

Wow, that is some ringing endorsements, and i love me some tony soprano. Looks like DH will be getting a multi user birthday box set for his birthday.

I actually felt sad when I watched the last season, I keep telling my friends to watch it.

And feel jealous that they get to watch it and not know what's instore.

Me too, I am insanely jealous of my brother who is on Season 1 episode 11. Really hard to discuss it with him without spoilering hugely, though...

Y'all feel me?

[tumbleweed]

You should be Snoop, OMa - then we'd be quivering...

moment - I didn't realise she was a girl until they got hauled in!! I thought she was a young boy.

I'm interested in the Sopranos comparison, because I hate the Sopranos (liked the first season but then became seriously pissed off with the pornography and the casual violence - I just don't go a bundle on murdertainment). So - is it like the Sopranos in those respects (pornographic sex, depictions of routinely unpleasant and violent attitudes to women, and endless scenes of violence)? Because if I'm honest, that's what's stopped me watching the Wire so far (the expectation that it will be like that).

There are a few bits of sex, really not much (though lots of naked girls in Orlandos in S1, I suppose), attitudes to women don't particularly feature, I wouldn't say, and there is a lot of violence. I don't know that I can comment on this properly as I haven't watched much of the Sopranos but for me there is very little that is gratuitous in The Wire. What makes it amazing for me is the depth - of storyline. of setting, of character - and this comes from the very fine layering of detail. So if you don't like violence per se, don't watch it, but if you want to know what it's like to be a corner boy, with all the horrible violence that entails, do.

Thanks OMa. I'm not sure I do, tbh... I'm a big wuss about watching fictional violence. Feels like tempting fate somehow.

Did you know that Stringer Bell was played by and English actor? I would never have guessed...

The Wire doesn't have that misogynistic feeling, tbh, pol - I wasn't a fan of the Sopranos for similar reasons - there was a kind of glorification of a culture in it that I found alien and repellent. As Oma says, the complexity of the Wire is just extraordinary. The violence is rarely graphic, though it is chilling - some of it has that rather old-fashioned effect of leaving it to your imagination. It's really not about the violence, but about the motivations and lives of the people - what's most chilling, in the later series, is the sort of spiral that characters find themselves in. The first series feels more like a standard police drama, though much more subtle, and very three dimensional; later series approach the subject from different angles, so you'll see the business element of the drugs trade (interesting too if you've read Freakonomics), then in others you see children in a school, and their relationships with drugs and dealers. It's utterly fascinating, and DH finds this very funny as I was refusing to watch it for similar reasons to you for quite some time. Now I'm heartbroken that it's the last series!

Just went to ask DH what he thought, so I wasn't misremembering, and we agree that for all the horror and grimness of many of the lives it depicts, the wire itself isn't really a "violent" series at all - it's certainly not gratuitous - I hate watching violence too, tbh, and so can only sometimes watch the Shield, but love the Wire. Give it a go, pol - it really is unlike anything I've seen.
OMa - I didn't know that about snoop for ages either. She really is quite terrifying, and yet it's hard to put your finger on what it is. And yes, both Bell and McNulty are played by British actors. You hear Dominic West's accent slip verr verr slightly sometimes.