OK so after hearing for years how great this show is and that actor from it died last week...

OK so after hearing for years how great this show is and that actor from it died last week, I thought I'd give it a shot.

I mean I already knew this is what launched Idris Elba and Bane's career and helped put HBO more on the map. And like Little Steven (Bruce Springsteen's guitarist) on The Sopranos, it even featured another favorite artist of mine Steve Earle, acting and having his music featured on the show. Plus I enjoy crime/cop shows/dramas a lot so it seemed like a no brainer.

But, holy shit, I just watched the first episode and I don't know what to think. It had decently interesting parts and fairly well-made, but half the time I was confused by a rotating sequence of characters I didn't know and dialogue I could hardly understand propelling like 5 different plots at once. And the other half were like these artsy shots or like slow paced slice of life scenes. Don't get me wrong, it was entertaining and things started to come together a bit towards the end but it was weird to be like half bored and half overwhelmed. It felt like I had walked into theater 30 minutes after the movie started. Or like certain scenes got edited out (as always happens), except this time it was all the exposition scenes.

Is there something I need to watch before this (there's like a miniseries or something apparently)? Or does it just get better from here? Or has it not aged well/is overrated and I should watch something else?

I think a lot of people are put off by the show initially because of the sheer scope of what it tries to accomplish. You're absolutely right to feel overwhelmed by the extremely large ensemble cast at first.

It absolutely does get better once you start to understand how the characters operate in their respective groups as well as individually. You can kind of break the characters into two categories: Cops & Robbers, Good & Evil (although it can be a bit ambiguous at times sometimes which is kind of the point of the show). And within each of these groups, there's sub-groups like D'Angelo, Wallace and Bodie in The Pit, Stringer & Avon running things at Orlando's etc.

As the show progresses, you start to see how each facet of every group is interconnected either directly or indirectly. Then, when season 2 rolls around, you realize just how trivial it all is in the grand scheme of things.

I loved the Wire but I hear this about every show ever ("it's tough to get into immediately but just stick with it")

What shows draw you in immediately? Only one I can think of is Spartacus or Mr. Robot

McMafia

Initial confusion is pretty much intentional by Simon due to how heavily it relies on realism as it's theme, but by the time you hit the 5th episode or so you'll be so immersed/interested in the world of the wire you won't believe you thought of droppping it. Stick with it user, it's well well worth it.

Twin Peaks

true detective season 1

and 2

sopranos,mad men,breaking bad almost all other shows that i really like

Its a show about niggers trading drugs, the end, it is not complex and is boring.

Watch The Corner mini series by them, its on youtube.

Three episode rule faggot.

>I don't know what to think.

That’s fine,we will tell you user.

If you're under 30 years old and/or a pleb, don't bother.

Sounds like this simple TV series is too much for you to handle. Maybe start with Dora the Explorer, it's more your pace.

The thing about The Wire is there's a long history to it. The creators of the show, David Simon and Ed Burns, had a long history of working that scene. Burns as a homicide detective in the Baltimore PD since the 70s, Simon as a police reporter for the Sun since the early 80s. In the mid-80s, Simon began working on what would become his first book about Burns' department "Life on the Killing Streets" that got adapted into one of the first serious post-Law and Order network tv cop dramas around 1992. After this rise to notoriety, Burns retired from policing to be an inner city school teacher (which was a struggle) and Simon began doing a story on inner city drug markets in Baltimore but quit working journalism because he was so fed up with his employers. Burns and Simon paired up full-time and the project eventually got turned into a second fully-fledged book, "The Corner" published in 1997, which was an even bigger critical/commercial success.

So in the wake of this, "Life on the Killing Streets" is coming to an end, Baltimore's public profile keeps rising (not in a good way), and the pair are presented with a opportunities to pitch another television series from a David Simon book. This time they go with HBO, who has become more highbrow than network tv. In 1999 they do the miniseries, the Corner, which airs the following year.

It's another success, so HBO gives the pair another shot at creating a fully-fledged series out of it. In the final days of the Clinton era, they write up the pilot script for The Wire. The start filming in fall '01, but are interrupted by 9/11 (to which references are added in), finishing in November of that year.

Then, it's finally greenlighted for a full season and another 3 months elapse before filming resumes.

There's a bit of a shift in tonality between the pilot and the rest of season 1. The pilot wanted to be artistic and buck convention as much as possible, but also wanted to sort of set-up the rest of the season (all being shot on the cheap). It came out in an era when L&O still reigned and CSI was the new hit show. So some scenes are a bit hammy and overwrought and the characters don't feel as real as they do later on. It's a show in transition.

The pilot is basically the halfway point from "The Corner" book/series (ie. graphic drug use, open markets, gritty shit) and the "Homicide" book (inside look at police department function, how they operate, etc.). And as the first season and the rest of series progresses, a more wide-scope view of all the elements of both Simon books would be integrated into The Wire, as well as both Simon and Burns' life experiences/backgrounds (ie. journalism, inner city schools, city politics, labor unions, organized crime, etc.). It becomes a broader critique of failed neoliberal policies and total institutional breakdown in urbanity all within the frame of the drug war. It can be extrapolated to a ton of other American cities as well.

It's the fruit of decades of experiences, writing, and labor.

Commie

>i just watched the first episode
>makes long post on Sup Forums about it
go fuck yourself. Watch it all. Let it sit with you and you'll realize why people love it.
It can be a drag and sometimes feel like a chore getting through but in the end it'll be worth it.
The Sopranos is better cause it is more enjoyable to watch/higher entertainment value I guess.

FYI there's a book about the history of/making of The Wire out this week

Mate, I know how you feel.

When I first started The Wire, I dind't get how people like this show.
It gets better somewhere in Season 1, and Season 2 is regarded as a really, really good season.

However, if you're into ghetto stories, Season 4 is the best and it is ultimate Kino. I don't even use this fucking word, but 4 is the absolute best. It even has the best OP theme song.

The show does get good. I stopped after the first episode or so of season 5. They did something silly in it and I haven't watched it in 2 years or so.

S5 is about the media/newspapers. Its worth a watch and even more relevant today.

The serial killer thing turned me off.

I had some of my biggest keks at mcnulty fabricating the whole thing

Jay Landsman predicted fentanyl

Bane?

maybe Breaking Bad is more your speed, kiddo