The Wire... FINAL SEASON...

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U2Fanatic4ever

U2Fanatic4ever

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I am deeply saddened that this is the last season starting tonite... this is the best damn show on tv in the last 5 or more years!! even better than The Sopranos. So with a heavy heart I will watch this incredibly written and acted show with all the attention I can muster every sunday nite till the bitter end..

It will be a sad day in tv land when the final minutes tick away on the finale of this show...

There are so many great characters I don't know where to start..

I would say: Omar, McNulty, Snoop and Bubbles stand out right now...


What say all you? I would love to hear ur input on this...:D
 
I love the show and have posted me thoughts about the show in other threads.

It's on right now, I'm Tivo'ing it and will watch later tonight.

Few shows are willing to veer off in different directions like this show has done, and will do this season as well.

Best Drama I've ever seen.
 
No spoken words said:
I love the show and have posted me thoughts about the show in other threads.

It's on right now, I'm Tivo'ing it and will watch later tonight.

Few shows are willing to veer off in different directions like this show has done, and will do this season as well.

Best Drama I've ever seen.
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I completely agree with you... Best Drama ever... no question.

<< I am DVR'g it now and will be watching in a few minutes..


The characters on this show are so rich, complex and just plain real. Truly one of the things that struck me the most about this show from the very begining.. Which I have watched, every single season.. I also love the different directions that this show takes..

David Simon is a genius!

here's a taste of what's happening this season:

'Wire's' latest target: The Media



BALTIMORE, Maryland (AP) -- In four previous seasons, "The Wire" chronicled this city's failing or corrupt institutions -- the police department, labor unions, City Hall, public schools -- that swallowed even the pure souls within them.


Baltimore's newspaper, The Sun, is largely the focus of "The Wire's" final season.

Executive producer and lead writer David Simon's latest target is arguably his most personal. For its fifth and final season, which begins Sunday, "The Wire" ventures into the newsroom of The Sun, Baltimore's newspaper of record, where Simon worked for 13 years as a police reporter before he took a buyout in 1995.

Unsurprisingly, Simon isn't pleased with what's happened since then. "The Wire" shows The Sun struggling to maintain its relevance amid profit-hungry corporate owners, obtuse editors and a drastically reduced reporting staff.

Foreign bureaus close. Veteran reporters who know their terrain are cast aside. And into the void steps journalism's boogeyman: an ambitious reporter (played to weaselly perfection by Tom McCarthy) who lacks talent or scruples and refuses to let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Current Sun reporters and editors don't dispute that recent buyouts and budget cuts have hurt the paper. But they don't believe The Sun is any more vulnerable to a Jayson Blair-like fabulist as a result.

The show "no more depicts the real-life newsroom of The Baltimore Sun than 'Law & Order' depicts the real-life criminal justice system of New York," said Timothy A. Franklin, The Sun's editor.

Said Nina K. Noble, an executive producer of "The Wire": "I don't think David is pointing any finger at The Baltimore Sun in particular. I think he's frustrated with the state of media outlets around the country."

Still, Sun staffers won't have much trouble finding versions of themselves in "The Wire's" newsroom, which was recreated on a soundstage because shooting in the real newsroom proved too expensive and logistically difficult. While no current reporters appear on the show, several former ones do, and some plot threads appear to be drawn from Simon's experiences.

"I think people in the newsroom understand that there's a personal angle in this upcoming season for David," Franklin said.

That's putting it mildly. Simon has had a tempestuous relationship with his former employer that, by many accounts, persists to this day.

He has savaged former Sun editor William K. Marimow on several occasions. Franklin says Simon took him out to lunch when he succeeded Marimow in 2004 and was "very frank" about where he thought The Sun could improve. And he's known for firing off long, profane missives when the newspaper publishes something that upsets him.

"David just goes crazy over things you wouldn't think he'd take offense at," said Jean Marbella, a metro columnist who's been with The Sun for 20 years. "No one will ever show you these letters, but they end up being legendary."

Some in the newsroom are amazed that Simon remains peeved over things that happened under Marimow and his predecessor, John Carroll, both of whom came to The Sun from The Philadelphia Inquirer in the early 1990s. Simon told The New Yorker that Carroll and Marimow "were tone-deaf and prize-hungry and more interested in self-aggrandizement than in building lasting quality at the paper."

While Simon is not doing interviews to promote "The Wire" because of the Hollywood writers' strike, he told The Associated Press by phone Thursday that his low regard for Carroll and Marimow stems from his contention that they did not take seriously his concerns that a reporter for The Sun was inventing material.

"It's about journalistic fraud and their unwillingness to deal with it," Simon said.

In response, Carroll said the reporter in question was disciplined after a story that resulted in a retraction, and that the reporter caused no further problems.

"I happen to think that the mistakes that occurred in the paper when I was there were fewer and less serious than the mistakes made in most of the best papers in the country," Carroll said. "But we certainly made our share."

Simon's revenge against Marimow has taken many forms -- including the introduction of a loathsome police supervisor named Marimow in the show's fourth season.

Marimow, who succeeded Carroll as The Sun's editor before being fired in 2004, is now back at The Inquirer as editor. He said he was amused by the character named for him but wasn't so pleased when he heard a tape of Simon profanely denigrating him.

"In demeaning the work that John and I did, in my opinion, David demeans himself, not us," Marimow said. "I think that when someone harbors a grudge for so many years, it begins to poison the person who harbors the grudge."

Marimow points to two lengthy articles written in journalism reviews in the late 1990s that praised him and Carroll for revitalizing the paper.

"When you assess David Simon's portrayal of The Sun and his assertion that John Carroll and I ruined the newspaper, you don't have to take his word for it and you don't have to take my word for it," Marimow said.

The Sun's television critic, David Zurawik, believes Simon's obsession with what went on at the paper more than a decade ago has hurt his storytelling. Zurawik, who like many critics has championed "The Wire" as a brilliant, landmark series, argued in his fifth-season review that the newsroom scenes lacked the insight and topicality of the story lines about police, politicians and schools.

"Simon left The Sun in 1995, and his newsroom villains are patterned on editors and a reporter long gone from Baltimore," Zurawik wrote. "But Simon presents his story as if it is taking place at The Sun today."

Zurawik also faults Simon for writing the newspaper story line "like a morality play," with obvious heroes and villains -- something "The Wire" has scrupulously avoided in the past.

Simon posted a measured response to Zurawik's review on Romenesko, a media news Web site, thanking him for voicing his honest opinion. He also thanked The Sun for allowing the show to use its name to explore the difficulties confronting newspaper journalism.

"Tim Franklin is right: The people on the ground in Baltimore, though there are less of them, are doing the most to produce the best newspaper they can," Simon wrote. "He and his staff have nothing of which to be ashamed, nor was it our intent to in any way shame them."

That may come as a relief to Sun staffers, but there's still plenty of anticipation in the newsroom about the paper being featured on a series watched by millions -- a show that has done little to counter the perception of a dysfunctional Baltimore characterized by violence, drugs and poverty.

"A lot of us are fans of the show and watch it pretty closely," said John Fritze, The Sun's City Hall reporter. "We're all waiting to see how it's portrayed."

Are people nervous?

"I'm not sure nervous is the right way to put it," Fritze said. "Maybe intrigued."

Franklin said newsroom employees were much more concerned about the impact of billionaire Sam Zell's takeover of the newspaper's parent, Tribune Co., than they were worried about how they'd be portrayed on a TV show.

Perhaps they're following the lead of Mayor Sheila Dixon, who has her own doppelganger on "The Wire" -- a female City Council president who's too cozy with developers. Dixon said in an interview that she watched the fourth season with great interest because of its insight into why schools fail. But she's more skeptical about Simon's take on city politics.

"I was asked in the gym, when I was City Council president, is this how I behaved? And I said, 'No, this is not how I behave,' " Dixon said. "They want to get good ratings. Are there elements of certain political things that happen? Sure. But the style that they portray it? No."

For one thing, Dixon said: "I'm not a curser."
 
Harry Vest said:
I can't wait to see this series!!!
I'm a big fan of The Shield and other fans have nothing but good things to say about The Wire.
Click to expand...


i would highly recommend getting seasons 1-4 as well maybe even before season 5.
 
No spoken words said:
I've enjoyed Season 5 so far.

I like the media angle a lot.
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yeah, this is a great angle to the story. I am really getting into it! I like the watch the next episode thing on mondays.. I have stopped watching on sundays now...:wink:
 
does season 5 still have the (now in high school) kids in it? i really enjoyed that they showed that perspective both from the kids and the school, great stuff. this show seems to toy around with the viewers, at least it does with me, it always finds a way to make me grow fond and root for a character that i strongly disliked at first, or dislike a character that seem destined to be a good person but for various reason grows hard and cold and shows no guilt
. i've never been so emotionally involved in a show, dont know if that makes sense or not, but this show is engaging in a way that no other show has ever been for me.
 
so far, ony Michael and Dukie are in this season.. the take on this season is the media perspective with the politics involved. The kids were the focus last season.
 
I bought Season 1 on DVD, but couldn't get my parents to watch more than the first 5 episodes with me because it was (not to be rude) kinda boring and especially difficult to understand, given all the police jargon and ebonics. How do you folks understand half of what's being said?

Does it get better?
 
No spoken words said:




Um. Are you watching this via HBO On Demand?
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this episode will not air until Sun Feb 24 for most viewers.

It is bad form :down:

to post about episodes that have not aired yet on regular HBO network
 
deep said:



this episode will not air until Sun Feb 24 for most viewers.

It is bad form :down:

to post about episodes that have not aired yet on regular HBO network
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so sorry.. didn't know I was the only one watching ahead since its available... I got kinda freaked and excited... so sue me...:mad:

and I am or wasn't trying to ruin it.. I just WASN'T THINKING OK?


IF THE MOD'S SEE my post can you delete please...
 
U2Fanatic4ever said:



so sorry.. didn't know I was the only one watching ahead since its available... I got kinda freaked and excited... so sue me...:mad:

and I am or wasn't trying to ruin it.. I just WASN'T THINKING OK?


IF THE MOD'S SEE my post can you delete please...
Click to expand...

I don't have On Demand so it's not available to me. Not sure if you're overreacting to what Deep said or not here. I did not express anger or anything, just was wondering if that's how you knew what you knew.

But, going forward, if you could keep it in mind that you're ahead of me, that would be great. I appreciate it. :)
 
No spoken words said:


I don't have On Demand so it's not available to me. Not sure if you're overreacting to what Deep said or not here. I did not express anger or anything, just was wondering if that's how you knew what you knew.

But, going forward, if you could keep it in mind that you're ahead of me, that would be great. I appreciate it. :)
Click to expand...


yeah it wasn't a reaction to ur post.. I reacted to his...

Don't worry I won't be posting in this thread anymore... :sad:


Like I said I got so excited and freaked I didn't realize what I did until this morning.. Heat of the moment so to speak...:reject:
 
U2Fanatic4ever said:



yeah it wasn't a reaction to ur post.. I reacted to his...

Don't worry I won't be posting in this thread anymore... :sad:


Like I said I got so excited and freaked I didn't realize what I did until this morning.. Heat of the moment so to speak...:reject:
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No worries.....and considering what you posted about, I understand your excitement. I'll say this: It's no surprise to me, just a surprise that it happened before the last episode. I'll say no more in case someone else comes in here. :)
 
U2Fanatic4ever said:



yeah it wasn't a reaction to ur post.. I reacted to his...

Don't worry I won't be posting in this thread anymore... :sad:


Like I said I got so excited and freaked I didn't realize what I did until this morning.. Heat of the moment so to speak...:reject:
Click to expand...

I am sorry if I offended you

I have posted spoilers before

(the mods fixed it, thanks)

it is an easy thing to do.

It happens a lot
with the east coast being three hours ahead of us here on the west coast

we just remind the poster
and move on


I am a big fan of the wire, too

I have watch every episode from season one, it is one of the best series, ever!

I hope you will keep posting
 
No spoken words said:
Deep, I've been enjoying Mad Men.
Click to expand...

great writing and execution


I was born in 55

and do have some memories of the 60s

they are really nailing it





breaking bad is worth checking out, too
 
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