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The Wire vs Breaking Bad no holds barred cage match!

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The Wire vs Breaking Bad

  • The Wire

  • Breaking Bad

Results are only viewable after voting.
poofyhairguy said:
The Wire was revolutionary in its time.

Just straight up today being judged with a modern perspective Breaking Bad obviously seems less dated (especially if you can't find The Wire in HD 16:9) so most people will say it was "better," but this decade everyone and their dog (Netflix, Amazon, Showtime, etc.) is doing adult-themed drama well. Back when The Wire came out there was nothing like it, it was revolutionary. It felt like a real life The Sopranos.

So I voted The Wire even though I would rather watch BB right now.
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amazon prime has all 5 seasons in HD 1080p. I'm currently rewatching it. Just started season 5
 
The Wire was released on bluray a little bit back. You can pick up the boxset on Amazon for about $75 I think.

BB has a lot more oomph than The Wire, but The Wire has a lot more character depth and better dialogue. BB is all about Walt and Jessie and they are incredible characters, apart from them only Gus really hits home hard. BB is definitely a lot more fast paced while still being an incredible show without crossing into silly action territory.
 
The Wire. Easily one of the best shows of all time. They really nailed it with the authenticity. Breaking Bad is a good show, but it's not in the running for greatest show.
 
Zeze said:
The Wire is a slow roast that you need to appreciate over time.

BB grabs you from the get go, and it's one epic man's tale.

BB wins hands down. I appreciate The Wire though.
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I agree with your description. I've described them as, The Wire is a novel and BB is a graphic novel (basically a fancy comic book).
But I can't pick BB as better. Love them both.

Ok, if forced, I'll pick a winner. It's....

30toshh.jpg
 
I never finished watching the wire, gave it till into season 4. Too boring for me, BB, I have watched it 3 times.
 
twinrider1 said:
Ok, if forced, I'll pick a winner. It's....
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Yeah Homicide is the earlier series on network television from the creator of the Wire. It's very good as well and you can see that they are both created by the same person.

The Wire vs. Breaking Bad? I can't decide really.
 
I absolutely loved BB. But recently tried to re-watch it and couldn't quite to do it after some episodes or maybe a season or so. I think the reason being that it relies heavily on the element of thrill, and a lot of unrealistic situations - which don't hold up so well on a re-watch.

The Wire is as deep and realistic as anything in American media gets (the foreign movies are obviously a lot deeper). It poses some questions to the viewer, about life, about society, about fate - how much is it in our hands and how much is predestined due to circumstances. Like a fine classic movie, you can appreciate it multiple times. Obviously it is no Lawrence of Arabia, but as far as TV goes, it is just about as good as it gets. I voted for it

Another thing about The Wire - the theme of inevitability of many things. Something I have come to realize and understand more and more over time as I look around myself. That a lot of things are just meant to be. Some people can have good intentions, or many can be scoundrels, but there is this inevitability about things, about human nature, that no system, nobody has managed to change and never will.
 
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poofyhairguy said:
The Wire was revolutionary in its time.

Just straight up today being judged with a modern perspective Breaking Bad obviously seems less dated (especially if you can't find The Wire in HD 16:9) so most people will say it was "better," but this decade everyone and their dog (Netflix, Amazon, Showtime, etc.) is doing adult-themed drama well. Back when The Wire came out there was nothing like it, it was revolutionary. It felt like a real life The Sopranos.

So I voted The Wire even though I would rather watch BB right now.
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Wire all the way. And as a resident of Baltimore, I can assure you, the content is NOT dated.
 
zinfamous said:
Tough one, but I go with The Wire.
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I agree.

Both are very good, but don't mess with Omar.

That and The Wire comes off as way more realistic, I was one myself who had trouble getting into it at first. It takes a little more than 3 or 4 episodes of the first season to really start getting into it.
 
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MongGrel said:
I agree.

Both are very good, but don't mess with Omar.

That and The Wire comes off as way more realistic, I was one myself who had trouble getting into it at first. It takes a little more than 3 or 4 episodes of the first season to really start getting into it.
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I'm actually working on both, about 1/2 way through BB, just started The Wire. I'm into The Wire from the getgo, actually, but am so busy, am having trouble sustaining watching TV shows (I bought both of these series on disk). I have 5 movies checked out from the library right now, they are due in 8 days.

I agree that BB is anything but realistic...
just look at that plane crash.
. A lot of what I see in BB bothers me, TBH. The Wire comes off as super realistic compared to BB. Anyway, I dig BB, but I needed a break from it because it got pretty damn dark after a while. Some of it is pretty damn in the depths, which is maybe one of it's really good points, if you think about it. I've never seen any other TV and maybe even a movie that showed such a seedy view of drug addiction.
futurefields said:
The Wire is too urban hood ghetto for my taste

Breaking Bad is a much more watcheable show
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Myself, I can relate to the ghetto stuff easier than the suburban scene. I've never lived in the suburbs. I haven't lived in a ghetto, but I've seen them first hand, don't live far from them, feel like they aren't foreign turf where I live. I live less than 10 miles from West Oakland, have ridden my bike (and car) through East Oakland, I see news stories about the ghetto scenes around here all the time (Oakland, San Francisco, Richmond). I've met ghetto dwellers, have worked with some.
zinfamous said:
I barely finished BB because season 2-3 was effing slooooooooow.
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Yeah, that's where I am now, haven't watched an episode in over a year, probably. I'll pick it up again and finish it, still have to buy the last season, which wasn't complete when I bought the other ones.
 
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The most memorable scene in The Wire for me:

When a season started with the shopping for nailguns at the hardware store, that seemed so ordinary but curious.

And how that led to the plan for putting bodies in abandon housing and then boarding the locations. The actress was essential to how well done the show was on it.
 
I voted BB because it's one of my all time favorites. I tried watching The Wire but my wife found the first few episodes boring so we abandoned it. I would like to watch it but there's no way I'd ever find the time to catch up on so many seasons.
 
I dunno the first 3 seasons of The Wire were great, but then it ended up going one season too long. Breaking Bad was fine but I dunno...I guess I never liked Heisenberg character so it was irritating that he never got his comeuppance. BB had its moments though. I dont see it as an either or scenario since they are different enough. One's a procedural, the other is like crime fantasy. Maybe a better cage match is Breaking Bad vs The Sopranos.
 
poofyhairguy said:
The Wire was revolutionary in its time.

Just straight up today being judged with a modern perspective Breaking Bad obviously seems less dated (especially if you can't find The Wire in HD 16:9) so most people will say it was "better," but this decade everyone and their dog (Netflix, Amazon, Showtime, etc.) is doing adult-themed drama well. Back when The Wire came out there was nothing like it, it was revolutionary. It felt like a real life The Sopranos.

So I voted The Wire even though I would rather watch BB right now.
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This is a fair assessment. The Wire/Sopranos were the first "it" shows that revolutionized premium cable story-crafting. Both of those were very much different than anything before it and so set the standard for serial story crafting thereafter.

Make no mistake: The Sopranos created the idea of the suburban criminal as a sympathetic protagonist, which is what Breaking Bad is. With a decade more of content in between, Breaking Bad came about at the perfect time at the peek of this type of content.

(though I still submit that Walter White is not really meant to be sympathetic--just ask V Gilligan. The audience should understand, by the end, that he's the villain...many still don't get that)
 
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zinfamous said:
(though I still submit that Walter White is not really meant to be sympathetic--just ask V Gilligan. The audience should understand, by the end, that he's the villain...
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Whatever Gilligan thinks, I don't think it's that simple. White's motives to help his family much of the time, the fact that his targets of violence are typically people who are quite evil and threatening his life and leaving him little choice, greatly challenge that 'villain' label for him.

Rather, it seems a study in someone who has flaws, who finds he actually enjoys some of the wrongdoing he 'has to do' more than he's 'supposed to'.

The climax of his 'evil' seems to be like a moment late in the show where he admits his motive changed to become that he enjoyed the power and money.

Oh, the horror. Who wouldn't take a little satisfaction from killing a monster who was trying to kill him and others? In obtaining hundreds of millions?

The source of his money though, ultimately, was creating something very harmful to people - that harm rarely shown in the show, and White rarely concerned about the harm.

That is a sort of evil. But it's masked by the seemingly much more evil around him.

The show seems to me more an exploration of what is evil, than White as villain. He might be a villain by Gilligan's definition, but a lot of his actions were of the 'you didn't put yourself in jail, broke, instead of killing that drug lord' sort. (Spoiler next) Look at his first killing, of the relentless drug dealer who pretended to be happy not to harm White, but was found to really be plotting to kill him, leaving White little choice after he tried to avoid the violence. Just what was White supposed to do?

Gilligan might be 'trying to have it both ways' with his putting White in those situations yet wanting him to be a 'villain'.

Perhaps Gilligan was a bit of villain for his treatment of the audience at times.

The cold-blooded murder of Jesse's very sympathetic girlfriend, a mother, seemed quite gratuitous for the show to do - traumatizing the audience cruelly.

Gilligan's arc seemed intended to be 'watch a high school teacher family man become evil' - hence the name of the show - but he seems to have 'cheated' regarding him being a 'villain'.
 
Craig234 said:
Gilligan's arc seemed intended to be 'watch a high school teacher family man become evil' - hence the name of the show - but he seems to have 'cheated' regarding him being a 'villain'.
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I thought his turn to evil happened early on, at least in Season 2. Definitely when he raped his wife. I think letting Jessica Jones die happened before that. He was a despicable character.
 
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