everyone has raved so much about this show. I finally went and downloaded Season 1 of The Wire. Am I wasting my time?
No. It's a great show.
But, if you aren't singing along to the intro music and devouring the episodes one after another by the end of Season 1... it may just not be your thing.
Well it took me a couple months, but I got through all 5 seasons. Great show for sure. I'm glad I got into it. There are so many things I could discuss about it, but one thing that I wanted to mention. It was really strange to see so much of the show focus on Stringer and Avon and then have them completely transition into Marlo and his crew. At first I was reluctant as a viewer to go along with it. It's like... you watch shows like the Sopranos and it's about Tony Soprano. It was tough for me to just let go of Avon and Stringer and accept that they were no longer the show. I still say Stringer was probably the best character of the entire 5 seasons. But eventually you just accept Marlo and company.
There were several examples of that through the 5 seasons. Did anyone else have the same kind of experience? Like... when they first introduced the Docks in season 2 it took me a while to give a crap about the Sobotkas. I'd sit there and be like, "ugh who gives a crap about these people", but eventually it just pulls you in. Took me an extremely long time to really get into the political stuff, but eventually you look forward to seeing Carcetti. It was the same way with the final season and the newspaper stuff. I can't think of another show that can do that. McNulty drives the entire first couple seasons and then pretty much disappears in season 4 and yet you dont' really mind. It was pretty awesome how that show was able to just introduce brand new characters and yet you accept them as much as you accepted the people you got attached to earlier on like DeAngelo. Then by season 5 when you see a brief cameo by Nick Sobatka or the brief meeting with Avon Barksdale, it's all that much cooler. It's really interesting how they were able to do that. As a viewer, you're so invested into these characters and so supremely interested in the development of their storyline that when they introduce 4 middle school kids you're thinking to yourself, "That's all good and well, but I'd almost rather see what's going on with Avon in prison". Then those characters become the ones you are interested in. "The heck with Avon... what's going to happen next with Michael?" They pulled that off extremely well.
Random question... I just listened to the podcast where Bill Simmons talks with Jason Whitlock about the show prior to the finale. Do you know if Simmons ever wrote anything about the finale? I'm curious what his take was.
I don't have much to say directly about your post besides "Yes. Exactly."
I didn't care about Frank and Nicky but eventually, you do. You don't care about Carcetti or Tony but then....you do. You don't care about Bunny or Micheal or Namon, but like 4 episodes in....you really do.
I will contrast this with another show, Friday Night Lights.
I love Friday Night Lights...the first season was awesome. But I never once cared about the Coach's wife's storylines (multiple storylines. I used to mute the TV with my friends and make my own dialogs), and I never cared about Sareson's friend's story line with Tyra really either (that kid reminds me of Powder)...even all that included FNL is one of the best or perhaps the best drama put on by network TV in the past 3 years. I'd say only Lost is better. Still though, it doesn't come within a country mile of The Wire. The Wire is to TV like Ben and Jerry's is to McDonald's cones. The Wire is like the Barry Sanders of TV shows. Every single character on there makes your give a [dang] and I've never seen that happen before, and I almost want to say I never will again.
Two more things:
Characters I never warmed up to on the Wire:
The old guy that ran Marlo's rim shop
Ziggy. I freakin hate Ziggy.
Beadie. Beadie was the vanilla of McNulty's 32 flavors of women.
