That's not to say it's bad. Far from it — clearly the production values are very high and I have reason to believe it's terribly realistic and generally a better portrayal of drugs gangs than viewers are used to. I get all that. But there is a reason why documentaries don't last sixty hours, and that reason is that it's mind-numbingly tedious. And I get that one of the show's aims is to display the volume of bureaucracy that the police face if they want to actually get anything done, but bureaucracy isn't quite as entertaining as The Wire seems to think it is. That's why Catch-22 is not simply a detailed account of all the various rules and regulations relating to combat pilots. That book exists, presumably: I expect it's given to combat pilots for reference purposes. It's so far failed to capture the public's imagination like Catch-22, and I put it to you that's the same reason that The Wire was never big news.
The bottom line, to me, is that The Wire is not entertaining. It's terribly worthy and gritty and all of that stuff, but it's also very, very dull. Nothing at all ever happens in it. I watched the entire first series, 13 hours of television, and I think I could safely summarise every major plot development inside one minute. Compare that to Dexter, 24, The West Wing or Murder One — loads of stuff happens in those shows and they're shorter. After 45 minutes of Dexter I find myself itching to see the next episode. After 45 minutes of The Wire I find myself struggling to pay attention to the last 15.
And part of me feels that I ought to watch it anyway. Sure, it's not entertaining, but maybe I'd like to think I'm the kind of person who can appreciate its other qualities rather than just looking for instant gratification from sitcoms. But actually, no. I'm not that guy and if being that guy means watching The Wire then I'm glad I'm not, because he's a pretentious snob. Okay, so I could watch the remaining four seasons of The Wire, or, I could watch 47 hours of documentaries and learn more things on more subjects and be entertained. There's no reasonable goal I can think of that can be best achieved by watching The Wire.
The Wire belongs in some kind of a gallery where I can feel happy that it exists while otherwise entirely ignoring it. It doesn't belong on TV. It's too boring for TV. Too relentlessly, utterly boring.
38 comments:
I think you could have pretty much just left this post at the title.
I could, but given the number of people who see the title as some kind of blasphemy, I thought an explanation was polite.
Also, I've never seen anybody criticise the show for any reason at all (not that I've especially tried to track down such an opinion), so I wanted to say slightly more than 'I don't like it', just so that someone had.
You didn't say very much more, though. You mainly said it was boring, repeatedly, which unless you have some perverse love for being bored is basically the same thing as saying you don't like it.
It basically just rubbed my critical impulses up the wrong way.
I see what you mean, but if I just write 'I think The Wire is dull because nothing happens in it' then I risk a bunch of fans turning up and tediously explaining to me how that's deliberate and how it's meant to be structured like a novel.
But it's not, it's structured like five extremely long novels in which not much of anything happens.
Ah, so I'm not the only person who thinks The Wire is monstrously over-rated and crushingly dull after all.
Good post.
Yes. THANK YOU. I'm so tired of people not understanding why I don't like The Wire and feeling like a jerk for having that opinion. Good post. :)
My thoughts exactly. Most boring and uniteresting show I have ever watched.
I know The Wire isn't for everyone but no one that's seen more than the first season has posted and I've never heard anyone that has seen the entire series say they didn't like it. The first season is a little gritty with a narrow scope focusing on the drug trade which most of us can't connect to because it isn't seen in our neighborhoods but that just sets up the next 4 seasons. The city opens up to show you the dying working class, police/political structure, the school system, then how the media attention effects all of them. It seems like a little more goes wrong in the show than could in real life, I hope anyway but it's done that way to make statements throughout the series. After watching so many tv directors crank out slightly tweeked clones of top rated network shows, why wouldn't you be interested in something different? Btw, the 4th and 5th seasons are why everyone says this show is the best and they wrap up this series excellently, give it a chance.
I did give it a chance. I sat through what, thirteen hour-long episodes? It utterly failed to grip me. Perhaps the reason that nobody who has seen more than the first series has said they don't like it is because nobody who didn't like it bothered to watch past the first series.
Yeah, I just finished watching the first season, and eps of the 2nd season before giving up. Perhaps many started watching it later and it was better, but it seems that people that started from the beginning were also hooked right away. I just don't see how this show is ever going to interest me. For the record, I do generally prefer "serialized" like this (ie - current favs of Lost & Dexter) and am very bewildered as to what others see in it. I'm also watching The Shield right now and am halfway through season 1, and that one I AM enjoying a lot so far - things HAPPEN!
im very open minded and i love american shows, but the wire bores me, i want more "the shield" and less "eastenders"
You can not like it, but the claim that "nothing happens" is demonstrably false, and what pisses off a lot of fans I think. You're right, there aren't usually any BIG HUGE events in a single episode. Everything is sprawled out. Most of the big plot arcs stretch out over multiple seasons.
I would argue that more happens in The Wire than in any other TV show. What might make it seem like "nothing happens" is that there are usually many different stories going on at once, and you only get a little piece of each one in a single episode. Over time, all the pieces add up. The show just requires patience. Some people have it, some don't.
GIVE IT A CHANCE?
I watched AN ENTIRE FUCKING SERIES. I didn't enjoy it. I'm not watching four more. That's not giving it a chance -- that's watching the entirety of a show I don't like. Only a moron would do that.
It is refreshing to see others who don't like this show. I have spent a great deal of time in newsrooms and police stations and I find the dialogue and characters contrived. It sounds to me like a bunch of dorky white guys trying to sound tough and "black." The cinematography is gritty and realistic and the plotting is good, masking the fact that the rest of it is contrived and boring. It reminds ,e a bit of David Kelley who I also don't "get" -- too much unbelievable quirkiness too. Hope Treme is better.
To be completely honest, this utterly ridiculous. I can understand some people liking the wire less than others, absolutely, but to say nothing happens seems kinda silly. I love Dexter as well, and Dexter isn't really any more fast paced than the wire. I'd say the first 3-4 episodes of the wire, while youre still getting familiar with the characters, can be tedious. but the reason the wire, like dexter, is so good is because you get wrapped up into the characters and their stories.
When is it that Dexter is most exciting? Is it when he's killing people? Or is it when the suspense of him getting caught builds up and builds up to a point where you need to watch the next episode. Where Doakes gets closer and closer to catching him, or Rita asks more and more questions? those are the exciting moments, and they are exciting because you care about what happens to Dexter. You care because the show is good.
The wire certainly isn't a bunch of gun fights every episode, but besides the first few episodes where the characters are introduced, something significant happens to all of them every episode. Their stories get built up more and more and it is very exciting and very action packed and so much happens because you care about the characters. you care about the characters because the show is good. so if you don't care about the characters, okay that's fine, but to say "the show is good but its boring" is wrong and contradictory. if the characters bore you in a character based story, you certainly don't think its good. so if you really somehow watched it and didn't like it, be man enough to say you don't think it's good or you don't think it's well made because the characters don't do it for you. don't hide behind the made up excuse that it is boring.
just to emphasize, have you even read catch-22? what exactly happens in catch-22? he runs missions then they up the missions then he runs some more then they up the missions then he runs some more then he goes to rome then he runs away. the reason catch-22 is so goddamn good is because you care so much about Yossarian. Catch-22 is made the same exact way as the wire. it is strictly character driven in order to expose the world the characters live in. So what youre saying is you somehow found a way to not connect or like any of the characters in the wire. sweet.
I have read Catch-22. I liked that it satirised bureaucracy by exaggerating it to absurd levels and applying it in places it doesn't belong. The Wire just presented it and said 'hey, look at this bureaucracy'. I didn't like that so much.
It's true that I didn't connect to most of the characters. Most of them were morons or bastards or both, and while I'm sure that was deliberately done to up the realism, I found I didn't like them and I lost interest. I kept watching, but it demanded more attention than I could give it, so when something I cared about did eventually happen I expect I missed it.
The thing I think Dexter did best was to take an emotion that most people have -- fear of everyone finding out your secrets -- and making it very real and scary. The universal emotion I got from The Wire was being pissed off at bureaucracy and morons in government. I can get that from the news, and I care what happens in that because it's real.
I'm not going to say it's not good because obviously it is. But I can't expect anything with genuine merit to appeal to everyone, so I can't expect to like everything I recognise as good. And yet people genuinely argue with me when I say I didn't enjoy it. What the fuck? Do they think they'll convince me I did?
the reason you dont like the wire is because you are an idiot. its that simple. for anyone to comment on the series as a whole without having seen it is ridiculous. if youre not hooked by the first 13 episodes it means that you are not intelligent enough to enjoy it. in fact i think its a good thing. leave it to the folks with brains, go and watch your friday night lights and csi reruns
YOU SEE WHAT THESE PEOPLE ARE LIKE?
I've started watching The Wire, again. I say again because I tried twice already; everybody around me tells me that I would like it, that I should like it; I don't.
My intelligence and ability to "get it" are questioned, almost on a daily bases. I hate it.
I'm on Season 2. Sometimes the dialogue makes me feel like I'm watching an after school special, or "Our Town: the Ghetto Edition". Also, maybe I don't know enough about stevedores, but the story lines in Season 2 just aren't believable. My husband is an investigator, and has just given up on it. He feels the same way.
Thanks Andrew, it needed saying.
I struggled through the 1st episode after much haranguing from most of the people I know. I found it bland and would agree with the earlier post saying the dialogue was contrived. It had been pitched to me as something totally ground-breaking but I was really disappointed to discover it was just another DA drama. I honestly thought it would try to portray the dealers' and gangsters' humanity, but it sought to stereotype them in the same old lazy patronising ways.
I know it's a different country, but I know a few guys who grew up in the gangs of Manchester. They just don't relate to each other in that almost formal way the wire does it. I live in London now and the number of white, middle class Londoners who purport to know about drug dealing gangs because they've watched the Wire is hilarious!
Another part I found unrealistic is the level of attention they get from authorities when just going about their lives. So have the authorities in the US (same applies to UK) suddenly starting giving a fig about black-on-black crime now? Because I know the Gooch boys over here get left to it until they start flaunting it out in predominantly white communities.
I don't understand the fanatical, almost religious, devotion that Wire fans have. I've seen real tears shed over criticisms, and had a screaming row with my boyfriend when I had the temerity to suggest that it was somewhat unrealistic. The attitude of the anonymous poster here sums it up entirely. There must be something wrong with you if you don't like the Wire, surely?
As I've hopefully demonstrated, I have legitimate criticisms, largely different from yours, though I agree on the tedium, and I'm a very sharp cookie; certainly sharper than one who omits apostrophes for fear of incorrect usage.
(That was a cheap shot, sorry, I just couldn't resist!)
i'm sitting through season 3 with my husband, trying to understand why we're bothering. We watch a lot of great tv, stuff that is considered well written and valuable, and every episode of this bores to me to tears. I like slow moving scripts. I like stuff that takes a while to build. But I can't even tell you what goes on in the wire half the time. So little to grab onto it. Yawn. One big fucking yawn. Even with the gorgeous McNulty, who is really an arsehole.
i should add, I see the inate value of this show as it compares to dross like NCIS etc, but its not enough to save it for me.
I completely feel what you say in your initial post. I sat through the full hour of the first episode and it dragged on like I couldn't believe. I willed myself to like it, WILLED, but I just could not see the appeal at the end of it. I'm going to try watching a few more episodes, but my hopes are not high.
After people giving rave reviews about the show and prostrating themselves in a worship pose before it, I expected it to actually be gripping, but I think you're entirely accurate - it is quite mundane, slow and the characters themselves are neither fascinating nor endearing.
wahay
just typed "am i the only one who didn't like the wire" into Google!
I didn't like it either!
Doesn't compare to The Sopranos or the even better Madmen.
Just didn't believe it, nothing new, stereotypical acting, characters and sets.
Yawn. Just glad I didn't manage/waste a whole series.
Ohhhh, I'm a tough black female cop holding my own in a man's world .... but I'm also a sweet lesbian trying going to night school to improve myself!
Ohhhh, I'm a stereotypical headcracking Irish cop .... but I'm also delightfully good at puzzles!
And so on. The 'characterization' of this series consists of taking stock characters and giving each exactly one unexpected twist, thereby making them 'complex'. It is enjoyed by people who also like CSI, or are so brainwashed by hype that they've already decide they love it before the first episode.
I have to post anonymously because my friends would disown me if they knew what I thought -- there is a religious response from the converted...
;-)
I can happily enjoy CSI. It's fun if you don't take it too seriously.
The Wire has very little appeal if you don't take it far, far too seriously.
Of course you don't HAVE to like The Wire. And no one should really hate you for disliking it.
Indeed, most TV viewers in the English-speaking world have either never seen The Wire, or watch it for a short time, completely don't get it, declare it to be boring, and then get back to watching Two and a Half Men or whatever.
Here's a parallel for you - I don't have much taste for wine. When connoisseurs rave rapturously about the amazing qualities of some rare and expensive vintage, I have no idea what they are talking about, because it all tastes the same to me. I could say the same about opera, which personally strikes me as unbearably tedious.
Perhaps The Wire is like that wine, or opera. It's not for everybody, but the people who like it do know what they are talking about. And it is popular with people who generally have good taste, if it were possible to measure such a thing. If you are a person who purports to have good taste and you still don't like The Wire, then perhaps it's not that there's something wrong with the Wire. Maybe it's you.
So it's not that I think you deserve a flogging for heresy. It's just that... well, I can't help feeling sorry for you, because you'll never experience what I've experienced through The Wire, which touched my soul in ways that no other TV program could come close to doing. And yes, I realise that makes me sound like a sanctimonious prat. But did I mention it is the greatest show ever?
Dude, I work in TV, and I feel ya. I'm a big fan of serialized, high-concept shows (when they're done well), but The Wire misses the mark completely (IMO).
I'm on Season 2 now, just because I've got nothing else to watch at the moment. Like you, I get a lot of people telling me to 'give it a chance', but if you've seen an entire season of a show and still aren't hooked, you've done your bit. To go further, I think Treme is pretty boring too. It all just feels so contrived. Meh, to each...
Thank you for this blog post. It's very satisfying to see the reasoned arguments of the non-converted vs the ridiculousness of the frenzied Wirettes.
"If you are a person who purports to have good taste and you still don't like The Wire, then perhaps it's not that there's something wrong with the Wire. Maybe it's you."
Please. Deliberately trying to antagonise someone by telling them they have no taste, added to your earlier comment that we go back to watching "Two and a half men" shows your opinion up for what it is.
Couldn't agree more - watched the first season was bored and frustrated throughout.
Most over rated show in Television history
I'm on Season 5, because it's free on The Audience Network. I think the show is very good and I've enjoyed many of the characters. That being said, do I really like the show? Not really. I think I watch it because think I should. It has some fine attributes, but I don't look forward to the next episode as I did with The Sopranos, or I do with Breaking Bad. It is well-made, and I suppose fairly true to life, but maybe watching documentaries would serve the purpose better than watching something fictional that's good for me.
Agree totally. After finishing The Sopranos I wanted to watch something that was rated as highly. If you google 'Whats the best TV show ever', The Wire pretty much comes top on every site. So I went with it and watched the first season. All I can say is I wasted a good few hours of my life. Nothing exciting happens, characters are boring and dull and I would even go as far to say its bad acting. So I have since watched Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead and both piss all over The Wire!!
I am getting very tired of the "If you don't like The Wire then you must be an idiot" argument. Is this how people are measuring intelligence now? Oh yeah, the first thing I do when trying to figure out if I'm dealing with an intelligent entity is to sit it down in front of The Wire and then ask it to rate the show out of ten. Anything less than 5 out of ten means I can eat it.
Myself and my husband are halfway through season four. We will watch all of them eventually. It's taking a while because it is, IMO, quite dull in spots. Yes, it's realistic. Yes, there's good character development. But it is just not grabbing me as most other HBO shows have in the past. I agree with the original poster who says that perhaps a few different documentaries would have dealt with the in depth subject matter better than a fictional show.
I too was pretty much bullied into watching it by friends and family. My life would not be complete it seems without watching a television show. Well I've watched it, and while I find it mildly enjoyable, I feel I could have certainly lived my life without it.
Obviously, this makes me an idiot. I clearly don't enjoy it more because I don't understand it. It couldn't just be that it's not my cup of tea. Before the pot shots start flying and people tell me to go watch Two and a Half Men etc. I'll give you my personal list of shows I feel are better than The Wire.
In no particular order:
The Sopranos
Deadwood
Rome
Battlestar Gallactica
Game of Thrones
Remember, it's just my opinion, offered in the spirit of free and open debate. I haven't threatened your family or stolen your shoes. Try to keep calm.
This is brilliant, so glad I am not the only one to think it is completely overrated!
Yeah, this show was suggested to me because I liked breaking bad, and tbh, I also found it unspeakably dull. I'm up to season 3 now, its been a long slow haul, watching it is like work. Funny thing was, season 1 I thought it was ok but massively overrated, but season 2 was horrid, and kind of ruined it for me. Omar is cool though. For the record, anyone who thinks i'm an idiot cos i didnt like it, I basically spen 4 years curing cancer at a university lab after 4 years earning a degree- I'm no dope; liking this show is not an intelligence test. Get over it.
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