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Current TV Boxset Addiction

Started by radiator, 20 November, 2012, 02:23:29 PM

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Goaty

yep you being daft, it getting better into the Wire series, thought Series 2 was the best of all. You would like follow more characters on it.

CrazyFoxMachine

Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 28 April, 2014, 04:38:01 PM
Is it a victim of my expectations?

Undoubtedly - I know a lot of people who have attempted and given up on The Wire in the first or second season because it didn't tick the right boxes for them personally - just because something is critically acclaimed doesn't mean you'll love it, after all! It's not the same as Sopranos or Breaking Bad no - it's slightly less bombastic than both of those - being quite a dense character thing that requires a lot of serious watching. I'm trying to remember what made me stick with it - as I remember being bewildered by it completely to start with. Something happens further along in Season 1 that really flipped me out - and I was hooked right after that.

A lot of my favourite ever TV series are growers - and they alone convince me as they run along and The Wire has unfortunately been choked by reputation. I imagine getting into it now you feel like you're being poked by a big stick every five minutes going "YOU SHOULD BE LOVING THIS - WHY AREN'T YOU?!". I say no - don't give up on it yet perhaps as it definitely gets more absorbing the further you go - but at the same time don't feel you have to love it! That'll make you bitter for spending the time with it - ! I thought the first season of Breaking Bad was terribly uneven for example - strong start, strong finish - soggy boring middle that I was really confused about "THEY'RE ALL RAVING ABOUT THIS?!" I thought - !

I know this chap - who recently failed to watch The Deer Hunter. He went on Facebook and said "hey - I've sat through an hour of this shit and they've done nothing - I'm giving up" :S

Frank

Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 28 April, 2014, 04:38:01 PM
Okay so I'm currently just starting on The Wire ... Is it a victim of my expectations? Will it get better? Am I just being daft?

Yes, yes, and no. I found series 2 a chore, and The Wire is more like The Sopranos than Breaking Bad, in that it's really more about enjoying the characters (and eventually some very big thematic resonances) than some meticulously worked out macro-plot being fed to you in small, carefully rationed pieces at intervals determined by season breaks and Nielson sweep weeks. Plot ain't its strong suit, and sometimes it feels like they're making it up as they go along, but there's some genuinely fantastic stuff in there if you're prepared to take the show on its own terms.


Theblazeuk

The only issue with The Wire is that you must put aside the expectations drilled into you by decades of unceasing, wall to wall convention. That is what I really enjoyed.

Dandontdare

the thing I liked about the Wire is the way it told similar (and often interlinked) stories but each series had a different focus - the first was the cops, subsequent series focus on the Mayor's office, the unions and the press.

I'm anticipating a similar over-hyping reaction when I finally get around to Breaking Bad.

Frank

Quote from: Dandontdare on 28 April, 2014, 05:25:46 PM
the thing I liked about the Wire is the way it told similar (and often interlinked) stories but each series had a different focus - the first was the cops, subsequent series focus on the Mayor's office, the unions and the press

Like those hobby magazines they used to advertise on telly every January, it builds week by week into a comprehensive inventory of all human society's ills - it just takes its time getting there.

The Buffy discussion has made me realise how much that show has influenced all telly, even the likes of Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire. Once you catch onto what Whedon is doing structurally - a different villain every season, and each episode forming part of a larger narrative which runs over that season, building to a huge series-spanning arc - it's addictive, and anything without that dynamic feels as tedious and desultory as free form jazz. Any show that doesn't tease you and indulge you with tasty morsels of continuity cake in the manner pioneered by Buffy now just feels like its being deliberately difficult.


Colin YNWA

Wow - thanks for the thoughts all. Was expecting a reaction, but more the getting run out of town, pitchfork and burning torches type!

Seriously though I did some careful reading before diving in (my wife and I had a long discussion about what to got for next after finishing Breaking Bad - worried whatever it was would suffer post BB withdrawal comparisons... which it might also be suffering from) and it was the dense characteristation that most intrigued us and that, at least in half I'm not finding yet. As I say the cops to this point aren't offering me much new. At the same time I'm finding it okay to follow (might be me missing stuff of course!) and have only had one "Hold on who was that" moment with my wife asking last night who McNulty was being warned about at the end of episode three and that wasn't even I tricky one I think my wife was just dead tired!

Still early days and the series structure (different focus each season) really appeals to me.

TordelBack

#577
Quote from: sauchie on 28 April, 2014, 07:51:27 PMAny show that doesn't tease you and indulge you with tasty morsels of continuity cake in the manner pioneered by Buffy now just feels like its being deliberately difficult.

There's an interesting phenomenon with the better episodic shows of that style  - if you're reasonably confident of the thought that's going into something you can start to stitch together ingredients to make your own 'continiuity cake' which, if the show is really working, complements the intentional one.  The example that highlighted this for me was a Season 2 (or maybe very start of Season 3) Buffy episode where Xander remarks, after a spot of fill-in slaying, "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye". 

Now this is a common throwaway phrase, and I really can't believe it was part of anything intentional at the time, but in a show where most incidental little mysteries and apparent non-sequitors come back to haunt the cast many episodes down the line ("get back before dawn", for example), or where background characters - virtual extras - maybe have a single line or a reaction shot every other episode for 2 or 3 seasons before suddenly moving centre stage (Jonathan, say), it's hard not to weave these details together.  And maybe Whedon, retrospectively, really does draw on this innocent remark when he introduces his Firefly refugees to Sunnydale 4 or 5 years later.

Long-winded way of saying: it's not just a simple case of a show having a larger structure drip-fed through nested layers of pace, it's where this process is subtle, reliable and challenging enough to allow the viewer to do their own world-building around it without regular disappointments.

Magnetica

For me the Wire is all about the characters. There are just so many of them and the lines between what is "good" and "bad" are so blurred.

Personal favourites are Omar and Avon. Oh and Clay Davis (just for his catch phrase).

Really loved it..must get round to watching it again a some point

The other thing is who is [spoiler]the actual protagonist? That would be Jimmy McNulty right? Well how can that be when he pretty much doesn't appear in season two at all (except maybe for 5 mins in the first episode.)[/spoiler]

I, Cosh

Quote from: TordelBack on 28 April, 2014, 09:46:59 PMThe example that highlighted this for me was a Season 2 (or maybe very start of Season 3) Buffy episode where Xander remarks, after a spot of fill-in slaying, "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye".
See also: Willow's comment about her evil doppelganger "looking a bit gay." Or is that a definitely deliberate one?

Quote from: sauchie on 28 April, 2014, 05:13:37 PM
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 28 April, 2014, 04:38:01 PM
Okay so I'm currently just starting on The Wire ... Is it a victim of my expectations? Will it get better? Am I just being daft?
Yes, yes, and no. I found series 2 a chore, and The Wire is more like The Sopranos than Breaking Bad, in that it's really more about enjoying the characters (and eventually some very big thematic resonances) than some meticulously worked out macro-plot being fed to you in small, carefully rationed pieces.
Most of what he said apart from the bit about series 2, which popped through my letterbox along with the Prog on a Saturday morning and I'd watched the whole lot by Sunday evening.

I certainly remember thinking the cop characters were nothing new for the first couple of episodes but they did grow on me and you've already picked up on the dealers being more interesting than them. This is a big part of the point of the programme for me: it's trying to draw a picture of the world in which this happens and maybe suggest reasons people become involved on all sides and why it doesn't change. As others have said, the ramshackle, investigative plot is just a way of allowing them to poke into different corners.

In the end, there's nothing you can do if it's not for you and your point about the weight of expectations may be right. I have the inverse relationship with Breaking Bad and The Wire to your own.
We never really die.

Frank

Quote from: Magnetica on 28 April, 2014, 11:41:40 PM
For me the Wire is all about the characters. There are just so many of them and the lines between what is "good" and "bad" are so blurred. Personal favourites are Omar and Avon. Oh and Clay Davis (just for his catch phrase)

I'm sure if they'd been planning the whole thing out like a proper show Clay Davis would have popped up at regular intervals throughout the series to do his catchphrase, like Woody Woodpecker. It is fucking brilliant, though, and his fantastic performance [spoiler]during the climactic trial[/spoiler] proves he ain't a one trick pony.


Daveycandlish

80s tv show TRIPODS.
Okay so there's some dodgy acting and very 80s effects and the tripods don't appear half as much as you want them to but this is bloody good. I never actually saw the second series when it was broadcast (probably because the early teen me wanted more effects than the first series had given me so I gave up on it) but I'm hooked now (and not because it features lots of young men in shorts dancing in a club called The Pink Parrot!) - I really wish they had made the third and final series. I'll just have to buy the books instead.
An old-school, no-bullshit, boys-own action/adventure comic reminiscent of the 2000ads and Eagles and Warlords and Battles and other glorious black-and-white comics that were so, so cool in the 70's and 80's - Buy the hardback Christmas Annual!

Ancient Otter

Quote from: Magnetica on 28 April, 2014, 11:41:40 PM

The other thing is who is [spoiler]the actual protagonist? That would be Jimmy McNulty right? Well how can that be when he pretty much doesn't appear in season two at all (except maybe for 5 mins in the first episode.)[/spoiler]


Not sure I'd agree with you on that, [spoiler]I think you are underestimating his role in that season[/spoiler]

Season 2 was the series I started with The Wire so I'm pretty fond of that one, coming home after working evening shifts and turning on TG4 (the Irish language channel of the national broadcaster who have great taste in picking up US programs that the main Irish channels should - Oz, Carnivale, Breaking Bad...)

Theblazeuk

The BBC really dropped the ball in how it broadcasted the Wire. Every episode one after the other each week at different times on different channels with no repeats, at one point with several episodes in one week. Like they were burning through it as fast as possible and if you missed one you'd be bang out of luck.

Given that it only started broadcasting it as the 5th series was underway you'd have thought they'd have a more planned approach. However I doubt any converts were made to the Wire by its run on the BBC.

Dark Jimbo

Funnily enough, Blaze, my one and only attempt at watching The Wire was via the BBC broadcasts. Maybe it contributed to the utter apathy I felt at what was supposed to be such an 'event' series. I don't think I watched a single pair of episodes in sequence due to the crazy way it was scheduled, and I couldn't even tell you what series the ones I did watch were from. None of the characters made an impression, none of the storylines registered, not a single thing about it got my attention.
@jamesfeistdraws