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The Wire suffered in quality as time went on as well. It was a great series overall, but the magic of that first season was not recaptured in later seasons
Really? I don't know season 4 of The Wire (the schoolkids) was pretty much mic drop tv for me. It took me 3-4 episodes to get into GoT to figure out names, alliances and whatnot since I did not read the books. I'm still catching up, even though I can't help but think it's like Lord of the Rings with mostly humans, a spikey throne, brothels and a handful of characters I just don't care about, not to mention whenever I hear "Winter is Coming" I think "Omar is coming!"
The Wire suffered in quality as time went on as well.
Really? I don't know ...
I think you missed a lot of what I wrote especially:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
Does that make it better than The Wire? Besides the fact that the jury is still out, comparing The Wire and GoT is like comparing the best rock music album to the best classical symphony. On what basis can such a comparison be made? They're not intended to achieve the same results, so any cross-comparison is going to be crude at best, based on which analogs you choose to use in the analysis, and therefore as close as The Wire and GoT will probably end up being, it would probably need to be considered a tie.
Unless you like both genres equally, you cannot rely on your personal interest to gauge which of the two series satisfies its respective criteria better than the other. At lunch after church yesterday, a friend was rattling off details and names and such like they were as familiar as her children's names, favorite colors, favorite foods, etc. It's a lot - I agree with you there - I cannot keep it all straight - but I'm not as much a fervent fan of the genre as others.
The Wire suffered in quality as time went on as well. It was a great series overall, but the magic of that first season was not recaptured in later seasons. It made it much better than The Sopranos, yes, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss GoT like that. GoT hasn't lost luster vis a vis what made its first season great.
I don't agree with two points. Which means either point.
The Wire did not suffer in quality as time went on. With five seasons, some people liked one over the other. Some loved the Kids of Four, others thought it slow. Yada yada. But I hang out in a lot of TV chat areas, and the idea that it dropped in quality over time is not universally accepted. In fact, it's not really even a majority viewpoint. The general consensus (and I read a LOT of online coverage of TV) is that it's one of the view series to end as strongly as it did.
Second, GoT did have an issue this season. Now first let me state, I'm a GoT fanboy, so in my eyes, it can (almost) do no wrong. But a great number of "regular" viewers (IOW, not fanboys) thought the first half of this last season dragged quite a bit. And they commented on it specifically because up till now, there was no dragging. Hardly ever. Which is amazing for this many seasons.
Now the final run of 3-4 episodes was incredible. And like everything else, when you're left with such a strong amazing finish, you tend to forget the lead up was not quite as good as before. So in viewers minds, Season Five became another winner. But many forget how slow it started.
But as I commented way way above, these are very different shows, and I don't think can be compared. And especially a show still running (GoT).
I'm not a fan of any of these shows. If I had to choose one, I'd say the Sopranos was the best of the three.
I'm a big fan of the mob genre and still found the Sopranos to be mildly disappointing. It's often called the "Greatest Show of All Time" but I didn't find the story and character arcs to be very interesting. I could see how the fan following grew to be as large as it did, though, because Gandolfini gives a charismatic performance as Tony. There are also moments in the show that are pretty funny (i.e, the Pine Barrens episode). I really had to work my way into this show, but once I literally forced myself to watch the entire first season, the characters started to grow on me. I still found it a bit too "soap opera-ish" for my taste, however.
The Wire simply isn't my cup of tea. I don't need a TV show to see the inner workings of America's inner cities and school districts since I was raised in one of America's most violent cities. There was nothing special about the acting, imo.
Game of Thrones is a difficult show to follow. As someone who's already biased against the fantasy genre, I need a show to pick up and get going very quickly. GOT simply doesn't do that. There are a lot of characters to keep track of and there's a lot of exposition. Comes off as dry to me.
A lot of people didn't like Boardwalk Empire but that was probably my favorite HBO show.
The Wire is a masterpiece of writing whereas Game of Thrones ... is not. It's fun to watch and very good for the genre, but dialogue is very uninspired.
What are some examples of great dialogue from the Wire?
Most wire fans I know tend to fall in one of three categories.
Category 1: "The Wire is the greatest show ever because it's a layered, deconstructionist critique of the post-industrial Black ghetto that sheds light on the multi-dimensional, anti-symmetrical gradations of the American capitalist framework and in its systemic repercussions across a broader range of elements in civil society."
Category 2: "Marlo is gangsta!"
Category 3: "It's really sad. Somebody should do something about Baltimore."
It's subjective. I love the Sopranos, like GOT and never could get into the Wire. Rating one show over another is just an opinion. Anyone claiming they definitively know which is better is a little too self absorbed.
The Wire could be slow too. But it had some great scenes. No dragons, white walkers, and sorcery nonsense. Marlo is a guy you might **** off by accidentally hitting his car door at the gas station.
"The point of the co-op is we stand together. No one f**** with us."
"Nobody f**** with me now."
"Well, that doesn't mean there couldn't be some unforeseen circumstance..."
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