Breaking Bad, The Sopranos or The Wire

Having lived in West Baltimore for five years (1999-2004), I'd say that The Wire was a very well-made show but not all that "enjoyable" for me.
Too close to home (the kids going into the alley with the stray cat and the lighter fluid comes to mind). My favorite HBO series remains Deadwood.

 

Breaking Bad for me. My favourite T.V drama ever!

 

Mine too. Favourite show, period.

 

40.00 is a steal. Even a wise guy would appreciate that price.

 

BB was better for me second time. I loved all the charactors. But, LOST the second time didn't have the wow factor anymore.

 

I can't make a final decision between Sopranos and Breaking Bad.

 

Sopranos stands up to repeated viewings, where Breaking Bad felt familiar/finite after just one time through. I was able to re-watch Sopranos in its entirety, years later, and I couldn't do that with BB. There's definitely more of a sprawl (depth, detail, more characters) with The Sopranos, and especially with The Wire. No doubt all three shows are great, though

 

Agreed. It's the characters that make the Sopranos so enjoyable to watch. Breaking Bad had fun lines of action going on, but once the Jessee/Walter relationship turned sour, I felt the show was much less fun to watch. Breaking Bad was an action film, The Sopranos was a drama. The secondary characters on Breaking Bad: Hank, Walter's wife and son, and Hank's wife were all very superficial characters. I think Skyler's little romance with her boss was the only storyline that gave her any real depth -- otherwise her growing distrust of Walter was just wearying after awhile. I never found Hank that likeable, not like the fun of characters of Paulie, Silvo, Christopher and a dozen others. That was the huge difference for me between Breaking Bad and the Sopranos, The Sopranos had tons of well-fleshed out characters -- Breaking Bad only had few -- Walter, Jess, Saul. My two favorites, Skinny Pete and Badger were underused. And in the long run, I find Tony Soprano much more fun to spend time with than Walter White. Tony had a certain twinkle in the eye joie de vivre that brought a flustered humanity to the role, Walter White was too icy to be fun. Breaking Bad was very good, but the Sopranos was just better. The Godfather vs The Godfather III.

 

Great post, but Walter White a was much more devious character. Mark Margolis / Tio who played the mute with the bell ringing chair was also a joy to watch ( brilliant in Scarface ).

 

The Sopranos doesn't have Saul Goodman

 

What set The Sopranos apart was humor. BB and The Wire certainly had their share of funny moments, but there are many scenes from Sopranos that are laugh-out-loud funny. Example: Tony has been commissioned to intimidate an orthodox Jew into granting a divorce, short of actually killing him. Despite repeated beatings, the guy refuses. He tells Tony the Biblical story of the Masada, in which a small group of Hebrews committed mass suicide rather than surrender to the Roman army. "They chose death before enslavement. And the Romans? Where are they now?" he asks rhetorically. "You're looking at 'em, a--hole," Tony replies. Finally Tony calls his Jewish friend Hesh Rabkin for advice. The guy may be ready for the next life, but he still has to live in this one, Hesh says. "Make like a mohel -- complete his briss." Faced with this painful prospect, the guy finally grants the divorce.

 

"Look at you now!"

 

Hands down, my favorite line from The Sporanos was A.J. when he was told his grandmother (Tony's mom) wasn't attending his Birthday party.
Right in front of Phil too.

A.J.: "So what, no f*#&ing ziti now?"

NSFW


I don't want to embed the video, due to a curse word in the title. Just remove the space in "you tube"
https://you tu.be/QQXx8z0ERbQ

 

I have a soft spot for the eloquent Carmine Jr.

 

These were great too


Start about 2:00 in..

 

This is one of my favorite episodes, it has incredible depth in writing, story structure, cinematography, and performance.

In the scene you mention, where Ariel talks about Masada, Tony is also wearing a bathrobe and sandals (like a Roman proconsul), having just been called out of bed during a tryst with his mistress. While they confront Ariel, Silvio is absurdly holding a half-eaten "Italian" submarine sandwich. Earlier in the episode Carmela sarcastically suggests they go back to a little hill town in Italy, putting a wall around it and pouring oil on any travelers that knock at the gate (foreshadowing and mocking Ariel's inspiration from the resistance to the Romans at Masada). There is also an echo of the Christ story here, with righteous, psalm of David-quoting Ariel being sold out by the corrupted Sadduceans Teittleman and Hesh, who are in league with Tony in the role of Pontius Pilate, who earlier had punched the replica of Pontermo's "Visitation" hanging over his bed (depicting pregnant Mary's visit to Elisabeth, herself pregnant with John the Baptist) while yelling at Meadow to turn down her music.

 

Whoa, that's some insightful analysis! Admittedly I haven't watched the episode in a while, but I doubt I'd have caught those allusions anyway.

 

Thanks, well these are details that only become apparent after re-watching, which, as others have pointed out in this thread, is what sets The Sopranos apart from most other shows - Upon first viewing the show is surely entertaining, but additional viewings reveal an amazing depth of artistry beneath the surface.

 

I think in the order of the poll list.
The blu ray box that gets the shelve adornment is Breaking Bad.

 

Judged by their respective series finales, I'd have to give the crown to Breaking Bad.

 

Yeah....left in the dark with Sopranos.

 

And the soundtrack to that episode was a bit "wanting"...unlike Breaking Bad.

 

'The Wire' was my favorite TV Drama of all time(despite the weaker 5th/Final Season), but once 'Breaking Bad' started(which I was on watching from episode #1 on AMC), I was hooked on it like the Crystal Meth Walt & Jesse started cooking. There were so many edge of the seats moments and while some shows you cannot wait until the next episode, with 'Breaking Bad, there were several times when I could not wait until the commercial break was over for the next scene. There was a lot of Dark Humor in 'Breaking Bad', that it could be considered a 'Dramedy'. Great acting not only by Cranston and Paul, but also Esposito(Gus) and Cruz(Tuco), Odenkirk(Saul) and Banks(Mike). Glad a lot of these characters are being brought into 'Better Call Saul' with Gus entering the storyline this upcoming season and hopefully more screen time for Tuco. Now just need to bring back the Cousins. I think Tio made a brief appearance in 'Better Call Saul' last season, but it has been so long, I forgot most of the episodes.

The Sopranos was very good, but I enjoyed it mainly for James Gandolfini acting as Tony. There were too many boring episodes centered around his family as his Sister and Son were annoying characters-IMO. I also wish there would have been more actual scenes centered around Organized Crime activity and wish there would have been a character for the entire run of the show that would have been deep undercover FBI Agent, and set up as a surprise in the end to take Tony down. There were just too many episodes where I thought it was a wasted hour(and also too many scenes with the Psychiatrist).

Too bad that 'Hannibal' & 'Deadwood' were not provided the opportunity to finish out all of the planned seasons(although there is still hope for 'Hannibal' if it can get picked up by a Streaming Service or a Cable Network-Hello AMC!, in a few years, but would just need to figure out a way to 'undo' the ending to Season #3 and how to get the main actors' schedules to all be available to reboot the show for the original planned 7 Seasons, so for 4 more Seasons), as those were great Dramas.

I also rank the first 5 Seasons of 'Sons of Anarchy' as being very close to 'Breaking Bad', but Season #6 was just violent for being violent. I did not mind the violence in the first 5 Seasons, as it fit well into the story lines(like what happened to Opie-Ryan Hurst, who is now on the WGN Show, 'The Outsiders', which I missed Season #1 last year, as was not aware of the show until this past December).

'Tyrant' on FX has also been excellent. Likewise for past FX Dramas, 'Rescue Me' & 'Justified'.
'The Strain'(FX) is just a fun entertaining show that I look forward to it's concluding season(or final 2 seasons), as it is the best Vampire TV Show I ever watched.

Hard to rank other great shows, as I still need to see most of the seasons of 'The Shield', the final Season of 'Damages', and need to see all seasons of 'House of Cards', 'Narcos' and a few newer shows('Stranger Things', 'True Detective'-at least the 1st Season, from the past 2 years, but 'Breaking Bad', 'SOA' & 'The Wire' will be hard to top for me. Also, would like to see 'Dexter'(Showtime), 'OZ'(HBO) and 'Six Feet Under(HBO) eventually, as heard great reviews about those Dramas. There was also an Irish Organized Crime Show(Brotherhood) on Showtime about 10 years ago that I want to watch.

I am most likely in the minority, who like 'The Killing'(AMC), although only saw the fist 2 Seasons, as I think the final 3rd Season was shown on a streaming service(Amazon?), so would like to see that final season.

Besides 'Hannibal'(NBC) that ranks in my Top 5 Dramas of all time, my other favorite 'Non Cable/Streaming' TV Dramas were 'House', 'Homicide-Life in the Streets' & 'Friday Night Lights'(and would now most likely include 'The Blacklist').

 

SOA was alright at first, but it quickly turned into a corny drama series. What's with the cheesey bikes, white tennis shoes, and over acting? The Jax character was so transparent it was terrible. The entire finale was anticlimactic too, I predicted how Jax would die before it even happened.