re: I'm a free born man of the USA! (The Wire finale, spoilers)

quote:

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I admit I am only half into season one, but its really hard for me to imagine this approaching The Wire (reasons above).

The first ep is great.

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I was hooked from the beginning - but, the money train, Kavanaugh and the final 2 season run are well worth the effort. I'm not denying that The Wire is great, but I can't pretend it didn't have down moments. Was it better on a consistent basis than The Shield? Probably, and that's certainly true of The Sopranos. But, The Shield gets some highs and lows that are tough to equal, and that is also true of The Sopranos.

I wasn't even arguing with the guy who said nothing else approached The Wire and The Sopranos, with BB closing - and I was just curious to know if he'd seen The Shield and not considered it in this rarefied company.

Those are really the best 4 dramas with which I'm familiar - again, with their "parents" (so to speak) Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue coming next.

As a caveat: I never watched Homicide, but it has virtually the same source material as The Wire - Belzer and Andre Braugher were exceptional on the crossovers with L&O, and Belzer ultimately brought his character, based on the same source as Jay Landsman to L&O. Okay - stick with me on this trivia (this is a thread about The Wire, after all) - "Jay Landsman" the character on "The Wire" was based on a real Baltimore policeman named Jay Landsman. The real life Jay Landsman was also the character basis for Richard Belzer's multiple series' character John Munch.

But the real life Jay Landsman also played LT/MAJ Dennis Mello on The Wire.