re: The Wire questions

Yeah, I thought the decline of the newspaper in Season 5 was so well played and accurately portrayed. It was a bit boring at first, but it quickly got very interesting. The fact that it was the Baltimore Sun made for a very unique twist that only Simon and his writers could pull off.

That's the beauty of the show. It's not set in NYC, nor L.A. There were roughly 80 or so characters that made regular appearances. It's got to be difficult to throw that many actors into a season, yet still allow character development to ensure that the audience has the ability to recognize such.

I loved...I mean LOVED The Sopranos. The Wire, however, absolutely crushes the hell out of David Chase's masterful six-season series. The Sopranos often got too far fetched and overly-fictional and also tried to depict a phenomena that is all but wiped out in the northeast. By Season 6, as good as some of the writing was, the Sopranos reached waaaay too far and tried too hard to make sure each character's last appearance on the show contained some sort of over the top storyline (Chris's death, AJ's suicide attempt, Phil being turned on by his own crew with a drop of a hat and getting shot down in Oyster Bay, Bobby's metaphoric "Blue Comet" murder, etc). Let's not forget the last episode was quite a clusterfrick...but all of the "you just don't get it" types will say that it was a "genius ending" because it leaves everything open to interpretation.

The Wire, meanwhile, tried not to bring closure to every single character. Hell, some were completely ignored. The final episode's main resolution scene was McNulty and Lester being retired (after basically all but quietly fired) in Irish pub mock wake tradition. It was fitting being that the two of them were arguably the show's co-main characters (along with Daniels). There were never many moments in the show where things seemed just too over the top or pushed to get shock value. The show was consistent and the plots were often complicated, but sensible. All I can say is that there likely will never be another show like it and HBO lost its two best shows within a year. Now, Entourage and Big Love are trying to pick up the slack and seem to be doing it...but the audience that watches and loves Entourage, primarily, is not the same one that watched the Wire, either.