Breaking Bad, The Sopranos or The Wire

The Wire is not like a typical cop show. David Simon the creator said that The Wire is supposed to be the equivalent of a long novel with a multitude of characters. It's not a fast paced show like The Shield but it does reveal its treasures over time. It can be overwhelming to start with because there are so many characters to introduce but then it settles into a groove. By the time the first season ended I was hooked.

 

The Wire takes a while. As David Simon says, nothing at all happens in the first chapter of Moby Dick or most any other novel, and The Wire is written along the same lines.

Also note that The Wire consciously avoids buttons.

 

I remember watching "The Sopranos" when the first episode aired. I wasn't impressed. Kind of gave up on the show - until I happened to catch the show where Tony's uncle is discovered as someone who enjoys giving oral pleasure. After that show, I waited for everyone with baited breath.

A guy I worked with always talked about "The Wire" - and I remember he came over to my house one night and we watched an episode together.
I think it was midway thru Season 2.

I kind of have a general rule of not joining a long narrative (i.e. chronological series) in mid stream - so I ignored "The Wire" for a long time - even after getting that brief taste during season 2... But I recently realized HBOgo allows me to watch every episode on my AppleTV (for free). I also noticed I can do the same using DirecTV's "on demand" service.

I am absolutely hooked on "The Wire." The way it moves back and forth between the police, the dealers, the street thugs, the politicians, the dock workers, etc. has me astounded. I think The Sopranos laid the ground work for shows that came after it, and I see a lot of similarities besides the fact that each show aired on the same network.

Both shows started with actors that were not well known - and I think the decision to use unknown actors helps anchor the story.
You don't waste time thinking "Hey, isn't that so and so" With one exception... I immediately noticed Steve Earle and Clarence Clemons in their brief roles on The Wire. Ditto for Franki Valli on The Sopranos.

I read that Harvard teaches a class about The Wire. The rationale they gave was that it collected so many different facets of the drug problem into one place. When Omar told the Barksdale crew's lawyer in front of a jury that they are the same - I couldn't believe what I heard.

I do think of "Hill Street Blues" often while watching The Wire.

That was a little more slapstick... but it had a lot to say... my father turned me on to Hill Street Blues... he was a paramedic who worked
for the Philadelphia fire department - and there was one opening scene where the police were arguing about who was going to pick up
a severed limb and take it to the hospital. They even said something like "Let the fireman do it, they love this kind of stuff..." but
in the end one of the two cops picked up the limb when he noticed it still had a watch that was ticking... "Hey, look at that ! Takes
a licking and keeps on ticking !" Roll credit sequence.

My father commented that every fire house in the country was on the floor laughing at that moment in time. I think he was correct.


I've seen "Breaking Bad"... need to start watching from episode 1 - but not sure it will appeal to me as much as The Wire. The focus seems
inward. The show is about Walter. It's not about us. I can tell its going to be a great ride when I start watching it - but not sure it will
ever match The Wire.

 

Sopranos wins because it has an element of humor that the other shows simply do not have. And I think this is a problem with most recent shows I have seen...they are sorely lacking in humor and are exercises in misery (see Boardwalk Empire or Breaking Bad).

 

Just voted for The Wire because it is the best. I had not seen one minute of The Sopranos until last month and I had no idea about the ending that pissed everyone off years ago. Then I hooked up with my neighbor's HBO Go through my Roku box. Great show, but not as good as The Wire.

 

Impressively close poll results.

 

I wrote this 6 months ago before the final 8 episodes of Breaking Bad. Having now seen Breaking Bad in its entirety, my vote still goes for The Wire. However, I have a hard time choosing a clear #2 between Breaking Bad and The Shield (yes, I know it's not in the poll, but it should be).

How cool is it we have these 4 excellent shows available to watch whenever we want to.

 

There's plenty of humor in Breaking Bad, it's just extremely dark.

 

I would argue the same about The Wire. The humor is there, but it's definetly not the focus of the show.

I thought it was pretty funny when the young gangster in The Wire went to the florist and requested an arrangement shaped like the
towers.

But The Wire could definetly use some Paulie Walnuts character.

I think the strength of the Sopranos is entirely based on the strength of James' Gandolfini's performance.

None of the other two have anything close. Take Gandolfini away and you don't have a show

I would argue something similar for Daniel J. Travanti in "Hill Street Blues". I'm somewhat surprised he
never did anything notable after that series concluded.

 

Anthony Hopkins likely would vote BB:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/14/anthony-hopkins-breaking-bad-letter_n_4098441.html

 

... not quite everyone .

But I voted for The Wire, especially because of season 2.

 

SPOILER ALERT

The episode-ending scene of Sobotka walking slowly down the pier, unknown, to his death was one of the longest minutes of my life! I wanted to scream through the television screen.

But, yeah, Season Two and its unexpected left turn toward the longshoremen and away from our regularly scheduled Cops 'N Dealers storyline was when I realized something important was happening on THE WIRE, that it wasn't "just" the best cop show I'd ever seen.

 

I've only seen Breaking Bad and the Sopranos. I don't know if I can choose which I like better. The Sopranos wins on the "realness" of the characters - they were like living, breathing people. Breaking Bad is a bit more comic-book-y, but wins out on pure story.

 

Deadwood definitely belongs in the conversation. Those four shows are my favorites, but I couldn't possibly pick one.

 

i'm a mob lover (Godfather, Goodfellas) so easily went with Sopranos...

 

this Poll is missing the best of all these shows "The Shield"

 

I've been thinking a lot about how The Wire shows the emergence of a new type of "organized crime"... with a similar kind of structure as the traditional cosa nostra... but the members are black, not Italian.

The scene where McNulty wanders into Stringer Bell's apartment and sees how impeccable it is furnished is fascinating.

When he picks up a book in Stringer's library and comments that he "never really knew the guy" it seems fitting.

Stringer didn't really seem to care about the violence - he constantly seemed to suggest he would have preferred to make money
without it. If he had the courage to take down the politican who betrayed him, he'd be the dramatic successor to Michael Corleone.

The one thing I can't comprehend is how much money there is floating around to be spent on those corners. I wish they showed more
of the actual transactions. I suspect there is a pretty strong mix of customers in real life, with many of the buyers who live nowhere near
those corners.

Hamsterdam was pretty interesting - but I think that was more about Simon trying to make a point - than what it would look like
if someone attempted that strategy.

Was that based on any true life incident ?

 

I vote Breaking Bad for maintaining tone, quality, acting, writing and overall consistency throughout its run.

The Wire at its best was better, but the desire for each season to have its own arc hurt a bit, the dockworkers season was a dip, and the abbreviated fifth season was hurt by the lack of time.

The Sopranos started extremely strongly, but got weaker over time. And that cop out ending just left me with a bad taste...

I'd say The Shield belongs in this competition, as well, and is in some ways a predecessor to the anti-hero focus of Breaking Bad (and so many others, such as Dexter, etc.).

 

In terms of pure entertainment value I would have to agree. Remember the intense drama of 'Ozymandius'? That was a typical Shield episode. This show just never let up.

 

I would agree that there is humor...just nowhere near as often as in The Sopranos. The humor in Breaking Bad is not my cup of tea.

I freely admit that The Wire might be a better show but I simply like The Sopranos better. I think Breaking Bad is deeply flawed. I fully accept that one may think those shows are superior to the Sopranos.

 

While many of THE WIRE's plotlines are pretty much direct lifts from actual Baltimore stories, apparently Hamsterdam was pure speculation. I was somewhat disappointed it wasn't true! Someone, possibly Simon, commented Hamsterdam couldn't be kept secret long enough to grow to the level depicted in THE WIRE.

Still, one of my favorite story arcs in the show. I loved how they cut directly to the mayor's office the next morning: "What? WHAT? WHAT?"

 

The weak ending of The Sopranos puts it below Breaking Bad IMHO. The Wire is a really, really close second.

 

I chose the Sopranos, but Breaking Bad is a very close second.

 

Although I love BB, I have to go with the Wire. It could be the other way around in a couple of months as the last season of BB hasn't aired in the Netherlands yet..
Watched a couple of Sopranos-episodes and decided it wasn't for me.