What Have You Been Watching Lately? (No Spoilers)

beyondthefourth said:
Anything with Deadwood or The Wire alumni in tends to get given a chance by me.

Titus Welliver does decent impressions too:
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Have you tried 'We Own This City' written and produced by the creators of 'The Wire'? Also set in Baltimore but not ostensibly related.
 
beyondthefourth said:
Anything with Deadwood or The Wire alumni in tends to get given a chance by me.
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Been watching some old Law & Order recently, because it's perfect 'Don't think too much, do something else while watching, everything wrapped up in 45 minutes' TV
(the original, that is - not SVU, the British version or any of the other terrible spinoffs.......)

The cast of The Wire are constantly turning up as extras. I think we've seen Clay Davis in three different episodes as three different characters!

Other than Idris Elba & Dominic West, they were basically all jobbing East Coast actors before The Wire. And yet David Simon brought them all together and made the best TV show of all time*

(*Yes, the Sopranos was good. Breaking Bad was good. I'm watching Mad Men at the moment and it's great too. But for me, The Wire still stands head and shoulders above all of them as the pinacle of modern television).
 
tonyw said:
Been watching some old Law & Order recently, because it's perfect 'Don't think too much, do something else while watching, everything wrapped up in 45 minutes' TV
(the original, that is - not SVU, the British version or any of the other terrible spinoffs.......)

The cast of The Wire are constantly turning up as extras. I think we've seen Clay Davis in three different episodes as three different characters!

Other than Idris Elba & Dominic West, they were basically all jobbing East Coast actors before The Wire. And yet David Simon brought them all together and made the best TV show of all time*

(*Yes, the Sopranos was good. Breaking Bad was good. I'm watching Mad Men at the moment and it's great too. But for me, The Wire still stands head and shoulders above all of them as the pinacle of modern television).
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But Jamie Edgar who played Marlo Stanfield
Michael B Jordon who played Wallace
The late excellent Michael Kenneth Williams who played Omar
Wood Harris who played Avon Barksdale
Very good in their own right not jobbing. Obviously there were a lot of extras as there are in a lot of series where there are lots of cast.
 
bazzer9461 said:
But Jamie Edgar who played Marlo Stanfield
Michael B Jordon who played Wallace
The late excellent Michael Kenneth Williams who played Omar
Wood Harris who played Avon Barksdale
Very good in their own right not jobbing. Obviously there were a lot of extras as there are in a lot of series where there are lots of cast.
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Jamie Hector, I think (who plays Jerry Edgar in Bosch!). He was in a Law & Order episode. So was Michael Kenneth Williams! (and Herc and Bunk and Rawls and Burrell and all of the Sobotkas and.........)

My point is not that they are not a group of fine actors. They all are. And many have gone onto big things.
My point is that when they were cast in The Wire, they were jobbing East Coast actors, mostly appearing in minor roles in East Coast TV shows. None were particularly recognizable at the time the show started.
It shows that more TV showrunners should cast on the basis of talent rather than star power........
 
The Wire turned 20 years old recently, despite all the new streaming sites none have come anywhere near to it. Tempted to put The Soprano’s on a par with it but it probably wins out as the best of all time.

I doubt it will ever be surpassed now, the streamers don’t have patience/courage HBO had back then, they were behind the two greatest tv shows of all time in a relatively short timespan.
 
tonyw said:
Jamie Hector, I think (who plays Jerry Edgar in Bosch!). He was in a Law & Order episode. So was Michael Kenneth Williams! (and Herc and Bunk and Rawls and Burrell and all of the Sobotkas and.........)

My point is not that they are not a group of fine actors. They all are. And many have gone onto big things.
My point is that when they were cast in The Wire, they were jobbing East Coast actors, mostly appearing in minor roles in East Coast TV shows. None were particularly recognizable at the time the show started.
It shows that more TV showrunners should cast on the basis of talent rather than star power........
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Michael B Jordan I believe had acting credits as did Wood Harris but yes they’ve all gone onto better things.
 
Another favourite show of mine returns on Monday with a brand new season and that is Blubloods
 
holdsteady said:
The Wire turned 20 years old recently, despite all the new streaming sites none have come anywhere near to it. Tempted to put The Soprano’s on a par with it but it probably wins out as the best of all time.

I doubt it will ever be surpassed now, the streamers don’t have patience/courage HBO had back then, they were behind the two greatest tv shows of all time in a relatively short timespan.
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I reckon that the quality of the writing, directing and acting of The Sopranos is up there with The Wire.

By my feeling is that if you put the characters on a scale of 0-10 of goodness, where 0 is a perfect saint, and 10 is a purely evil, self-centred douchebag.......

......well most of The Wire cast would be in the 3-7 range. The 'Heroes' all have massive personal failings, whilst the 'Villains' mostly have some redeeming qualities (Barksdale is a mass-murdering drug kingpin, but he does have a strict code of honour and does care deeply about his community; Stringer Bell doesn't have that but is at least trying to better himself, escape his upbringing and become a legitimate businessman)

.....but the vast majority of the Sopranos cast are in the 8-10 range (with the exception only really of Melfi, and possibly AJ - although even he gets worse towards the end). They're all despicable, selfish bastards.

Which means that while watching The Wire never fails to make me think hard about the world we live in, The Sopranos just makes me hate it.......and that's why I prefer the former!
 
tonyw said:
I reckon that the quality of the writing, directing and acting of The Sopranos is up there with The Wire.

By my feeling is that if you put the characters on a scale of 0-10 of goodness, where 0 is a perfect saint, and 10 is a purely evil, self-centred douchebag.......

......well most of The Wire cast would be in the 3-7 range. The 'Heroes' all have massive personal failings, whilst the 'Villains' mostly have some redeeming qualities (Barksdale is a mass-murdering drug kingpin, but he does have a strict code of honour and does care deeply about his community; Stringer Bell doesn't have that but is at least trying to better himself, escape his upbringing and become a legitimate businessman)

.....but the vast majority of the Sopranos cast are in the 8-10 range (with the exception only really of Melfi, and possibly AJ - although even he gets worse towards the end). They're all despicable, selfish bastards.

Which means that while watching The Wire never fails to make me think hard about the world we live in, The Sopranos just makes me hate it.......and that's why I prefer the former!
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I felt Omar has to be a 1 by only killing Drug dealers, and Andre Royo who played Bubbles definitely a 2 With his story from a junkie over the 5 seasons of the wire and going cold Turkey in his sisters basement before she welcomed him back to family life.
 
bazzer9461 said:
I felt Omar has to be a 1 by only killing Drug dealers, and Andre Royo who played Bubbles definitely a 2 With his story from a junkie over the 5 seasons of the wire and going cold Turkey in his sisters basement before she welcomed him back to family life.
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Undoubtedly two of the most sympathetic characters, but they still both steal for a living through most of the show, as well as kill people (Omar intentionally!). Not sure you can call them saints, even if their intent is to do bad things to bad people!!

Although Season 5 was in general not the show's peak (but still outstandingly good) - I thought the way that the show gradually revealed that in watching Michael and Dukie, we were actually seeing Omar and Bubbles' origin stories respectively (and therefore how life on the streets in Baltimore was a cyclical thing that noone seemed able to break) was the greatest single act of the show's whole run. Just mind-bogglingly good writing........
 
tonyw said:
Undoubtedly two of the most sympathetic characters, but they still both steal for a living through most of the show, as well as kill people (Omar intentionally!). Not sure you can call them saints, even if their intent is to do bad things to bad people!!

Although Season 5 was in general not the show's peak (but still outstandingly good) - I thought the way that the show gradually revealed that in watching Michael and Dukie, we were actually seeing Omar and Bubbles' origin stories respectively (and therefore how life on the streets in Baltimore was a cyclical thing that noone seemed able to break) was the greatest single act of the show's whole run. Just mind-bogglingly good writing........
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With Omar’s score I have was because he killed only drug dealers and not innocent people a bit of an antihero I suppose.
With Bubbles it was his turnaround from habitual junkie to being clean.
Also season 5 with McNulty at first then Freamon making a fictitious serial killer to get OT payments to try and get the drug dealers.
 
bazzer9461 said:
I felt Omar has to be a 1 by only killing Drug dealers, and Andre Royo who played Bubbles definitely a 2 With his story from a junkie over the 5 seasons of the wire and going cold Turkey in his sisters basement before she welcomed him back to family life.
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I don't know Bazzer, I think that if you really dug hard enough you possibly could find a dubious facet to Omar's character.
 
m said:
I don't know Bazzer, I think that if you really dug hard enough you possibly could find a dubious facet to Omar's character.
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That trench coat was awful, I know it came in handy to conceal the shotgun but it was very dated.

Think my favourite character Bunk basically called Omar out on his morals in one episode, pointed out how fucked up his code was.
 
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