In my mind, the season I remember the most is the 4th. For true originality, the second season may offer more, having the courage to take a very successful first season in a completely different direction.
Yeah, that's probably the main reason I'm watching. I've had enough people ask me about it (the 4th season specifically) and then, when they find out I haven't seen it, tell me how I simply HAVE TO WATCH IT.
I'm with him in a sense. I don't think it's weak sauce I like it a lot, but having been somewhat involved in the drug trade earlier, knowing people still in it, and knowing very bad addicts the 3rd season for me was the best. It was a utopian idea in a sense but it provided better insight into the life of addicts, addiction overall, and what can be done about it more than anything else I've ever seen from a fictional TV story.
That's pretty much how I feel. I recognize that the 4th season is the best, but I think my favorite may be the second. Though if I can complain about something, it's the awful Greek those guys spoke. Truly nails-on-chalkboard type stuff.
You'll get hooked long before that. Agreed. And my wife is always like that about the Spanish on TV - Mexican playing somebody from Argentina; Argentinean playing somebody from Columbia, etc.
"F'k, f'k, motherf'ker." That is the guaranteed point where, if the addiction has not started yet, it will have after.
That's when I knew I was hooked, but I was on board 100% at "Got to. This America, man." I have to agree with the chorus and say Season 4 is the best, but I really love Season 3, because that's when Omar really goes off and that's when we meet Marlo. It's also McNulty at rock bottom.
Maybe it is just preferences But for me the later seasons suffer the usual derivative problems Key protagonists get less interesting the more we get to know them (e.g. Stringer, Bodie, Omar, McNulty). Other story lines and characters are just reskins e.g. Marlo, Snoop, Chris, The Greek I say this as someone who watched the whole thing back to back on DVD. So it is criticising greatness. But for me the mood of season 1 is never really recaptured.
I agree with Omar - he was probably the one character that they really could have done more with. But the rest is just the natural flow. Bodie never wanted to rise up, so his character became stagnate. Stringer died. McNulty, actually, I found to be interesting and really didn't like, in the comfort sense, when he went on his serious bender. I think the problem with what you are suggesting is that there were so many good characters that the writers had to limit what was possible in a one hour show. Of course. When somebody goes away, a new person will appear in that position. That is life, and one thing that the show got rigth. Specially Marlo's street savy business sense. It is that. To me, season 1 was great because it was something new to US TV. That said, I watched the origional Traffik about a year before I watched The Wire and found many similarities in the story telling. So I saw the similarities in the different season. To me, though, the most similar were seasons 1 and 3 (or what ever was the City Hall season).
See, I haven't gotten back and watched the earlier seasons, I thought Stringer, Bodie and Omar were more interesting in later seasons. Though I concede that might have more to do with familiarity than how they were written, but at least in Bodie's case, I enjoyed his evolution from just another street level dealer to lone wolf in Marloland. Marlo, I thought, was intriguing and unique for is complete lack of conscience or sense of humor, and his crippling insecurity.
My wife never really got into Season 1; she thought it was decent but it was a chore getting her to stick with it. We didn't get around to Season 2 for awhile because she wasn't sure she wanted to bother. Halfway through Season 2, she was hooked--so much so that from that point on it was usually her pushing to watch "just one more episode" before we went to bed. For me, I was hooked right away. For her, it took a little time to click, but when it did she ended up thinking it was the best TV show she'd ever seen.
Finished up Season 1, and am 2 episodes into season 2. The good: The theme is unmissable, consistent, and rings true The rising action of the overall plot is engaging Omar's mere existence is a subversion of black male stereotypes in mainstream media Larry Gilliard is an awesome actor The bad: The characters are generally cardboard cut-outs McNulty's family issues (I don't care!) McNulty's accent The ugly: Certain scenes are extraneous Characters going temporarily "dumb" to advance the plot Overall I can see why people love this show, and its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. The production isn't particularly slick, but I'm not even sure that's a fault. The best part of it, though, is that it's so thoughtful. And by that I don't mean "Oh wow, look at how delicately they handled sensitive subject matter." I mean "These guys really thought long and hard about what they want the show to say, where they want it to go, and what they want it to mean." It's like the anti-Lost or Battlestar Galactica. I really appreciate that. I'm willing to overlook "little" inconsistencies (Why'd Omar switch from shotgun to pistol when he was trying to assassinate Avon?) because the rest of it is done with such care.
So true. Don't you know. I actually saw him as Stringer's eventual consiglieri, but man he played the role with such introspection. I saw that as trying to make him multidimensional. How many cop shows have you seen where all they ever show is the guy being a cop as if he has no other life. Some of that, I saw, as people having brain farts. Specially McNulty with his drinking.
Ironically it just makes them one-dimensional. I've started calling McNulty "Riggs." The drinking is forgivable because it's consistent. I'm talking about legitimate out-of-character stuff that occasionally gets used as a plot lever. "In this scene, we need a drug dealer who is usually perceptive, clever and intelligent to throw all that shit out the window because the plot demands it." Usually that makes me flip the channel. But The Wire is so good I stick with it and accept it.
I've only watched the series once through, so it's very possible that there were some such scenes I've forgot about, but one thing I certainly remember about the first couple of seasons was how there were moments, even entire scenes, which made no sense at the time, but a later episode--sometimes even from a subsequent season--cleared it up. If memory serves me right, you may end up very surprised at how many odd asides and brief moments from the first couple of seasons will ultimately make sense in the context of seasons 3 and 4. Like I said, though, I only watched the series once, so I'm struggling to remember actual examples. But I clearly remember moments in, say, Season 4, where something from an earlier episode suddenly clicked or made sense. If somebody with a better memory or more thorough recollection of the series can help me out with specifics, that would be awesome.
Just finished season 2. Colossally depressing. My complaints from the first season still stand, though. A lot of the direction is clumsy and ham-handed - the montage at the end of the finale while Nick stands against the fence in the rain is a good example - and characters play "dumb" when it's convenient. It's not as slick or tight as something like The Sopranos. But while those aspects can occasionally suffer, the theme and plot are so consistent, so smart that it's almost ridiculous. I also appreciate the fact that they've gotten better about revealing character traits through scenes that move the plot forward, like when we learn that Lt. Daniels and his wife now have separate beds. That's good story-telling.
not sure remember that. Could you give an example of scenes you think are extraneous and examples of characters "going dumb to advance the plot." i don't think a choice of weapon is an "inconsistency." He uses a pistol often to kill and rob people often. I think he has a pistol under his blanket the first scene he's in with the wheelchair. There are several scenes i can think of off the top of my head too where he's using only a pistol. Including arguably the best scene in the series in Season 3. "I see you favor a 45." lol. But i won't spoil it because i can see you aren't that far yet.