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Liface posted:I think The Wire is the best show ever made. I checked the first episode of the Shield out on the recommendation of some of the posts in this thread that were saying this was the second best show ever after The Wire. There is a Shield thread for newbies that is very active. There is no Wire thread. Make of that what you will. It's not a generic cop show though, if by that you mean it's another NYPD Blue or a dumb procedural. The "tearjerker child molester subplot," well, that sort of thing really isn't what this show is about. That sort of thing is always background at most. At the very least give a show more than the pilot to prove itself, pilots are always kind of shaky. I'm certainly not the one to ask for comparisons between the two shows, though, as I still can't get through the first few episodes of The Wire. The Shield is great though because things actually happen.
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Mar 27, 2011 04:57
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IRQ posted:There is no Wire thread. Make of that what you will. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3117388
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Mar 27, 2011 05:02
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Fine there is a much less active thread for it.
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Mar 27, 2011 05:11
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Not really, look at the page counts.
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Mar 27, 2011 05:13
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You will be doing yourself a massive disservice if you turn your back on 7 seasons of high quality tension, drama, stress and horror (with a fair mixture of laughs) based on having seen only the first episode of the show. I'm a huge fan of The Wire, I know for a fact it's the best television drama series ever made, but I love The Shield. They're not the same kind of show outside of the very superficial fact they both deal with cops and drug dealers, but The Shield is the only other show close to The Wire for me in terms of dragging me into the storyline and investing so strongly with the characters. I only wish there was another show close to as good as this (Sons of Anarchy I enjoy a great deal, but it's no Shield and certainly no Wire), I've been left hungry.... like the wolf.
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Mar 27, 2011 05:55
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Jerusalem posted:I only wish there was another show close to as good as this (Sons of Anarchy I enjoy a great deal, but it's no Shield and certainly no Wire), I've been left hungry.... like the wolf. Breaking Bad's been hitting the ultra-fast-paced drama itch that I've had since The Shield ended, you've tried that yet?
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Mar 27, 2011 06:01
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I've only watched the first season but I loved it, it kind of fell under my radar so I should probably get back into it.
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Mar 27, 2011 06:04
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Second season's legit one of my favorite single seasons ever, right up with Sopranos S5, Shield S5, and Wire S2. Watch the hell out of it.
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Mar 27, 2011 06:06
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Honestly, for all The Shield fans who haven't tried Breaking Bad, the first season is some of the darkest poo poo I've ever watched. I honestly didn't know if I would continue. Then, in the second season, there were moments of tension that are worthy of The Shield. I mean, it had me yelling at my tv.
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Mar 27, 2011 06:09
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I just recently finished marathoning this for the first time since it ended. I forgot what awesome show this was. There were a lot of talented actors on the show, but it still blows my mind what an incredible job Chiklis did with his character. Vic Mackey is going to go down as one of the most amazing and complex characters in television history. I love this picture.  "The edge is where we live. All of us, all the time. People try to convince themselves otherwise, it's just an exercise in self-deception." -Blackadder- fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Mar 27, 2011 |
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Mar 27, 2011 06:46
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Liface posted:Is there any reason to keep slogging through the episodes given this first impression? I've got much love for both series having analyzed both to death. They're two incredibly different but equally amazing series. While I usually try to make insightful posts, the only thing to say here is that if you keep up with the show you will eventually feel what can only be described as shameful guilt at having made that initial judgment call, wondering about the alternate reality where you stuck with that opinion and missed out an such a marvel. Stay with the show. For everybody else, 
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Mar 27, 2011 07:05
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That little casting always made me laugh.
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Mar 27, 2011 07:10
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Fag Boy Jim posted:Not really, look at the page counts. Less active lately. Jeez whatever, at least this demonstrates that they are equally good shows right? (except The Shield isn't terribly boring)
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Mar 27, 2011 10:26
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One thing the Wire thread doesnt have is a discussion about the Shield ! Seriously, The Wire is better overall, nothing in it is boring, the Shield is just more compelling. The Wire is more mature and will always create more arguments and spawn more discussions than the Shield could ever hope to. That's a straight up fact. To the viewer that needs convincing to keep watching the show this thread is about: The Shield does the "episodic case" thing unlike the Wire, it's true. Episode begins with a murder, ends when it's solved. To me it usually means bad, limited storytelling. I could never watch CSI. But remember how Six Feet Under had it's episodic death? Like that show The Shield uses the episodic plot device not as the purpose of the episode but as a way to keep the pace relentless - to the show's credit it almost always is! Moreover, the episodic crimes always takes the background to the more intereting and developped story arcs, which are, as people here will try to convince you and others, really worth watching the show for. Give the characters some time to shine and you'll probably be hooked by the end of season 2. That was a drat good finale too now that I think about it.
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Mar 27, 2011 12:10
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I'm just in the 10th episode of the 5th season and I have a feeling the last episode is going to be Vic's "I drank your MILKSHAKE!" finale to forest whitaker edit: Haha, drank the milkshake. Your ex-wife's pussy tastes like sweet butter. FearOfABlackKnob fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Mar 27, 2011 |
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Mar 27, 2011 14:36
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I really love the comment someone made earlier regarding The Shield vs. The Wire that said that The Wire was the better work of art, but The Shield was a better television program. As in, The Wire defied conventional television with its slow, deliberate pacing and the fact that it's so grounded in reality that it feels like a documentary at times. And to be honest, I have no idea how anyone watched The Wire on a week-to-week basis. It's a much better series when viewed in season-long binges. Conversely, The Shield has seven seasons in which each episode is immensely entertaining, because unlike a show on HBO, it had to maintain viewer interest week in and week out. Somehow, despite being forced to have an interesting plot within each episode, The Shield has an overarching story that makes everything so much more compelling. It does perfectly what so many series are trying to do now, which is to have a Plot of the Week along with a serial storyline (just on FX, both Sons of Anarchy and Justified do this, with varying degrees of success). As has been said before, both shows are amazing, but in vastly different ways. Arguing about which is better is a waste of everyone's time, since the world is a better place given that both series exist.
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Mar 27, 2011 16:02
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The Wire is the best show ever. The Shield is my favourite show ever.
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Mar 27, 2011 16:08
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Jesus Christ.. Shane.. Lem... oh god Season 5 was some of the best TV i've ever seen. FearOfABlackKnob fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Mar 27, 2011 |
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Mar 27, 2011 16:45
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Yeah even though I prefer episodic Shield, season 5 was loving great I'm not at all a fan of the last two seasons, interested in what you think.
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Mar 27, 2011 17:30
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This show is great. I thought I'd despise Vic after the pilot, but I'm about to start episode 9 of season 1 and while he's a complete dirtbag he gets results and loves his family. Still, the whole Terry thing's gotta come back to bite him in the rear end, right? (Don't answer that) I'm addicted to this show, going to be binging through it whenever I have free time. rawdog pozfail fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Mar 28, 2011 |
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Mar 27, 2011 17:45
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Fag Boy Jim posted:I'm not at all a fan of the last two seasons, interested in what you think. While it's really worth watching season 6 and 7, I feel the same. For me it's because the last two seasons exist only to bring closure to the Strike Team's story. All the other characters have had their stories told. Sure they mayput a baby in Sofer and Lupus on Claudette but they needed to introduce Billings and Tina to keep things shaking in the Barn while everything got tied for Vic and his team. They're good characters okay, but while the story drives forward full speed for the Strike Team everyone else is stuck to a standstill. Previous seasons were more balanced that way. It does bring a fantastic ending but it feels a little forced and laborious before we get there.
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Mar 27, 2011 23:19
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The character I think missed out the most in the final seasons was Julien. After they did the pray away the gay storyline they just sort of forgot about his character development and he just became a generic "I play by the rules" cop. I guess they might have figured the actor couldn't convincingly do inner turmoil, but if that was the case why keep him around at all?
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Mar 28, 2011 00:30
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Julian became utterly useless after S4 or so, and I never liked what they did to Dutch, him and Billings never seemed to work well in my view.
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Mar 28, 2011 00:33
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Jerusalem posted:I've only watched the first season but I loved it, it kind of fell under my radar so I should probably get back into it. Absolutely watch Breaking Bad. I'm willing to bet you would love it.
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Mar 28, 2011 05:42
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There's a lot of disturbing scenes in this show but I think - for some reason - the biggest is when Dutch strangles the cat. And this is a show where a lot of terrible stuff is done to human beings.
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Mar 28, 2011 06:42
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Junkenstein posted:The Wire is the best show ever. The Shield is my favourite show ever. I think someone in this thread said something along the lines of "The Wire is the best drama ever, the Shield is the best TV show" Which I totally agree with. The Wire was originally designed to be a novel, I think? It's an amazing show, but it could work just as well as another media form. I don't think The Shield could ever be make that transition without losing what makes it fantastic. The tension, the drama, the momentum would all be lost if it wasn't the way it was. I binged through the entire series in a couple of weeks, and even though I had all the DVDs it was hell just waiting for the next one to start to find out what the gently caress happened. I can't imagine what it must have been like when it first aired and there was a longer wait inbetween episodes.
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Mar 28, 2011 10:01
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Liface posted:I think The Wire is the best show ever made. I checked the first episode of the Shield out on the recommendation of some of the posts in this thread that were saying this was the second best show ever after The Wire. As an allegory, when I first heard about The Wire it was in the middle of airing season 2 and was loosely described as HBO's answer to The Shield (which was in like the 4th season or so). Curious, I caught an episode of it, one of the ones in the middle of the dock worker plot, and was thoroughly unimpressed. I learned later that was because The Wire is a show that you need to need to need to watch in serial. The Shield is like that too but not nearly the same extent, especially early on. You could jump in probably as late as mid-way of the 2nd season and be ok (though I wouldn't recommend it). A lot of that has to do with the starting point of the show. Shawn Ryan, the main writer and brainchild of the show, said early on they were in constant danger of being canned. The screenplay was written without any plans of shooting a pilot. The pilot was shot without any promises of giving it airtime much less a regular spot. Etc. That's a problem many shows face but because of it he tried to viscerally grab the viewer's interest asap, and with more air time secured he could spin out the drama that was rattling around in his head from there. He pushed a lot of his flashy ideas up early (knowingly at the expense of building some depth) for instance: terry getting killed at the end of the pilot was initially planned to be a mid-late season climax. But at the time of creating the pilot he felt the show may never get to mid-late season, so he reworked it so that it took place on the first episode. Anyway, I guess what I mean is yes the first season is a little rocky and smacks of yet another formulaic police drama, but that will change as you get into it. It doesn't start out that deep, but that's because it needs time to start digging. Bhaal fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Mar 28, 2011 |
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Mar 28, 2011 18:42
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Bhaal posted:But at the time of creating the pilot he felt the show may never get to mid-late season, so he reworked it so that it took place on the first episode. First... uhm, there's one major plot point you left way open that you should black bar. Second, I think the show ended up better for doing what it did with the cop-uh killing. I know my roommates and I basically fist pumped after it happened and were hooked since.
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Mar 28, 2011 19:30
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I just watched the S7 episode "Parricide." poo poo is getting real. I'm on the home stretch, boys. The scene where Vic fed Dutch some lies to get Two-man to break, and they watched the interrogation, Vic with Shane over his shoulder, was amazing.
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Mar 28, 2011 19:44
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All this alignment talk always brings me back to this shot: It's almost hard to believe this is from Season 1, the way that things turn out. LOOK AT THOSE loving HALOS!
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Mar 29, 2011 00:30
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Junkenstein posted:The Wire is the best show ever. The Shield is my favourite show ever. I have said this before, it really kind of highlights the differences in the shows.
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Mar 29, 2011 03:36
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Bhaal posted:A lot of that has to do with the starting point of the show. Shawn Ryan, the main writer and brainchild of the show, said early on they were in constant danger of being canned. The screenplay was written without any plans of shooting a pilot. The pilot was shot without any promises of giving it airtime much less a regular spot. Etc. That's a problem many shows face but because of it he tried to viscerally grab the viewer's interest asap, and with more air time secured he could spin out the drama that was rattling around in his head from there. He pushed a lot of his flashy ideas up early (knowingly at the expense of building some depth) for instance: terry getting killed at the end of the pilot was initially planned to be a mid-late season climax. But at the time of creating the pilot he felt the show may never get to mid-late season, so he reworked it so that it took place on the first episode. Where did you hear all this? These details are all telephone-like contradictions of every interview I've read and all of the commentary tracks. The Shield was never in danger of being canceled. From the start it was one of the hottest pilot screenplays being shown around town despite Shawn Ryan's self-described limited experience dealing with networks. FX was a nobody network at the time, with a mandate of "no cop shows" which they even went back on specifically because of their love for the show's original take on the genre. It had some big name creative talent (relative to the networks position) like Clarke Johnson attached to the series from the very beginning and the pilot was as hot as the script. From there the show was a constant avalanche. That's not to say it was 100% a go, but it was comparatively far more stable than most other pilots that get produced, and most shows that get pitched. That stuff I'm 100% certain about, while regarding the Terry plot-line I'm just relatively sure that Ryan had always planned to kill him off at the end of the pilot and only later regretted it, wishing instead to have spaced it out.
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Mar 29, 2011 04:32
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EvilTobaccoExec posted:Where did you hear all this? These details are all telephone-like contradictions of every interview I've read and all of the commentary tracks. The Shield was never in danger of being canceled. From the start it was one of the hottest pilot screenplays being shown around town despite Shawn Ryan's self-described limited experience dealing with networks. FX was a nobody network at the time, with a mandate of "no cop shows" which they even went back on specifically because of their love for the show's original take on the genre. It had some big name creative talent (relative to the networks position) like Clarke Johnson attached to the series from the very beginning and the pilot was as hot as the script. From there the show was a constant avalanche. That's not to say it was 100% a go, but it was comparatively far more stable than most other pilots that get produced, and most shows that get pitched. I think he's misremembering this (EXTREMELY SPOILER-HEAVY) interview: http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2008/11/shield-shawn-ryan-post-finale-q.html (this stuff here is just about the pilot) You've said often that you wrote the pilot without ever expecting it would be made, and that you made it without ever expecting it would go to series, let alone a series that would run this long. With 20/20 hindsight, if you had known what the show would become, is there anything you would have done differently with that pilot? Boy, I don't know. I know you and I have had conversations about, "Is the Vic Mackey who shot Terry Crowley in the pilot the same Vic Mackey who exists in the series afterwards?" Different people have different opinions about that. I think it worked. Maybe I would have held it back in episode two if I knew we would be on, but when we made that pilot, you have no such assurances. You have to establish who your character is and what the dilemma is. If we had some assurance, it would have been cool to have Reed Diamond on the show for four or five episodes and see Vic and Shane wrestle with what to do. Certainly, there could have been a very good story to tell about that -- maybe they try to set Terry up so he loses his job before he can rat on them. But that's just me thinking right now about it. Also: quote:There is definitely a heightened aspect to it, and this is the difference I think between "The Wire" and "The Shield," "The Wire" strives to be utterly sort of journalistic. I've always come from a place as a fan of TV from looking for that I like to say cool, sort of entertaining thing. And so I fully acknowledge there are aspects of Vic that we always tried to keep in the believable, but were in the high portion of the believable and of what was cool. But Chiklis will tell you, once every couple of months somebody would come up to him and say, "I'm a police officer and I know a guy like that!"
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Mar 29, 2011 04:52
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User-Friendly posted:I think he's misremembering this (EXTREMELY SPOILER-HEAVY) interview: http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2008/11/shield-shawn-ryan-post-finale-q.html That must be it. Thanks for posting that again, I haven't read that since after the finale. Sepinwall's interview is pretty-much a must-read for anyone who's completed the series. It touches on so many big topics that still get brought up in Shield discussions. Such as.. -Julian's arc fading out -Dutch and the cat, and Dutch and the last serial killer -Comparisons to The Wire and Sopranos -the series timespan (although this is better addressed in S7 commentary) Also glad I reread that, because that shed's light on the Cherrypopper's storyline issues mentioned earlier in this thread. Strangely enough, both Dead Snoopy and I were right about who the episode made upset. The episode commentary (by Jay Karnes, D.J. Caruso, and Scott Rosenbaum IIRC) covers Chicky's objections to the storyline, while this interview covers Catherine Dent's objections to the storyline. But neither story mentions the other actor's thought process. Funny. Edit: The two stories end pretty differently though. Dent ended up being okay once she saw the episode, while Chiklis just felt uncomfortable about it the whole time and wanted to move further away from those plotlines. Apparently he almost made the woman playing the madam cry because she thought he really hated her. Having two daughters made the storyline really personal to him and I suppose he just didn't like going there as an actor. That leads Karnes into a really funny observation about how much Michael seemed to enjoy the scene from the pilot where he tortures the pedophile. EvilTobaccoExec fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Mar 29, 2011 |
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Mar 29, 2011 05:37
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I just finished it tonight. My dear lord, what an amazing show. The last couple episodes were just god-tier. Vic's confession was absolutely amazing, so many awesome lines in that sequence. Olivia, after hearing about Terry's murder: "Is that it?" Vic: "How much memory has that thing got?" Olivia: "You are a sick and twisted man." Vic, totally unaffected: "Anything else? I gotta meeting." Was it just me or did Chiklis seem thinner in the 7th season? He seemed skinnier to me for some reason, or maybe just looking old.
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Mar 29, 2011 05:53
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Drewsky posted:I just finished it tonight. My dear lord, what an amazing show. And of course the classic line ending the penultimate episode... Oliva: Do you have any idea what you've done to me? Vic: I've done worse. Being on that home stretch for the final season with the intensity cranked to 11 and that whole scene draining me, I just lost my poo poo after hearing that. Favorite line of the series by far. If you didn't catch it, the name of the penultimate episode is... "Possible Kill Screen", which if you've ever seen the documentary "King of Kong" or know a lot about old-school arcade games you'd be familiar with. If not, it's the perfect title. "Kill screen" being the term for old arcade machines where the best of best players reach such high levels that the games literally run out of memory and malfunctions. The title has a lot of significance, but the two main implications being a reference to the memory on the Olivia's recording device and also simply about Mackey being this absolutely astonishing player, he's spun so many wheels and maneuvered so well he's broken real life and gotten this crazy blanket immunity for every horrible thing he's done. EvilTobaccoExec fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Mar 29, 2011 |
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Mar 29, 2011 06:03
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Here's a relevant clip from King of Kong.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wY1dkCKZ7Q (this one explains the term) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTj7NSHVwSk&feature=related (this is just the funny origin of the "possible" part of the term) And because I'm posting videos... Chicky as Curly of the 3 Stooges... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czu2_WPCYz0 I also enjoy watching clips of the Shield and the Commish back to back for the hell of it. EvilTobaccoExec fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Mar 29, 2011 |
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Mar 29, 2011 06:16
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Yup, when I saw the episode title I thought it may be in reference to it, but then I brushed it off. I thought there was no way such a niche documentary would be referenced in The Shield. Then I read Sepinwall's review and it was confirmed. So awesome.
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Mar 29, 2011 06:18
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IRQ posted:Less active lately. I'm amazed by how singularly wrong you manage to be about things, talking about how bad a show The Wire is here and then making GBS threads over Seinfeld, referring to it as "unwatchable dated crap" in the HIMYM thread. Have you began trolling the AD thread yet or is that on the to-do list? How does it feel to be wrong about everything in life.
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Mar 29, 2011 15:20
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EvilTobaccoExec posted:If you didn't catch it, the name of the penultimate episode is... "Possible Kill Screen", which if you've ever seen the documentary "King of Kong" or know a lot about old-school arcade games you'd be familiar with. If not, it's the perfect title. "Kill screen" being the term for old arcade machines where the best of best players reach such high levels that the games literally run out of memory and malfunctions. The title has a lot of significance, but the two main implications being a reference to the memory on the Olivia's recording device and also simply about Mackey being this absolutely astonishing player, he's spun so many wheels and maneuvered so well he's broken real life and gotten this crazy blanket immunity for every horrible thing he's done. I had no idea what Kill Screen meant, that's absolutely brilliant.
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