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Duncan

The Wire

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It's weird isn't it? How does he manage to keep it under the carpet? I'd love for a Chris Morris type to do an interview with him and bring out a random Vietnamese guy wearing an eye patch to see his reaction... :tup:

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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I'd love to [do] a Chris Morris type to do an interview with him and bring out a random Vietnamese guy wearing an eye patch to see his reaction... :tup:

Suitably evil and I heartily approve.

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I watched the last episode of The Wire last night. Produced salty discharge.

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Is the Wire the one set in Boston? How many series now? I think I should try and catch up.

The Wire is set in and around Baltimore and there are five seasons in total, of twelve episodes each. I've watched seasons 1-3 so far and cannot recommend it highly enough.

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Is the Wire the one set in Boston? How many series now? I think I should try and catch up.

It's set in Baltimore. It ran for five seasons and ended this year.

I still haven't seen the last season, although I will when it hits DVD, but I have seen the first four and it's pretty incredible.

EDIT: Oh whoops, I didn't see that there was a new page since this was posted.

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I still haven't seen the last season, although I will when it hits DVD, but I have seen the first four and it's pretty incredible.

It's already on DVD so no excuses. Get to the watching!

They had three episodes from season one on the inflight system when I came back from the UK. I might have seen the episodes already (twice even), but it made the flight so much better and it rekindle a desire in me to go through the whole series again.

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They had three episodes from season one on the inflight system when I came back from the UK. I might have seen the episodes already (twice even), but it made the flight so much better and it rekindle a desire in me to go through the whole series again.

I'm planning to start on series 4 this week, but I'm thinking of holding off so I can goad Mrs V into watching the original series. This constant recollection of the older episodes is really compelling.

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It's so true. It's incredibly rare that I should feel like watching a TV series again (which makes me question why I bother buying them on DVD instead of just LoveFilm-ing them) -- but with The Wire, even though I'm only on Series 3, I feel like watching Series 1 again.

I can definitely understand why it wasn't necessarily a hit when it was first shown though: It's subtitles/rewind ahoy if you really want to understand what's going on.

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I've got season 5 on DVD here. But I keep delaying watching them because I know there won't be another season after this one ;( I will watch them all from season 1 some day soon. I promise!

And on the other extreme end of the spectrum: I'm really liking Chuck. I just love the over the top cheezy plots and clunky 'scifi' parts.

Oh and since they've given buster a role as store manager this show can't get any better :)

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Ok, will order the first series and check it out. To be fair I don't think I've found a single person that says it's bobbins, so it must be good!

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It's already on DVD so no excuses. Get to the watching!

They had three episodes from season one on the inflight system when I came back from the UK. I might have seen the episodes already (twice even), but it made the flight so much better and it rekindle a desire in me to go through the whole series again.

Ordered it, will arrive on Thursday. Hooray!

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Man, I saw a bit of footage with the actors doing a Q&A -- I couldn't watch it because I was like "Oh look! It's Bunk and McNulty!", except the idea of them NOT being Bunk and McNulty scared me ;(

It's funny that in one of the commentaries that one of the editors said the same thing: He visited the set one day when he started working on the series, and quickly realised he wanted leave as soon as possible so it didn't spoil the illusion for him.

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Watched the first episode of 'The Wire' last night...and was unable to resist watching the next three. The first one is a bit shaky, but it soon sucks you in!

What does need to fuck right off though is the theme music. Really, really uninspiring R&B to the point that it grates on me. Fast forward rules.

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I really liked the Bluesy intro song of the first season, myself. They have a different band (and style) for each series' intro, though, and none are as good as the original/first in my opinion.

But you're quite right: rule of thumb with The Wire is that it doesn't really kick off until around fourth or fifth episode in a season. By then, it's compulsive viewing. I watched 5 episodes of season 4 back to back last night, for example... :getmecoat

I couldn't not watch the next episode after Omar got locked up! :campbell:

The 4th series' intro music is a particularly nasty rendition if you ask me. I had to double-check you weren't referring to that before posting.

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What would you prefer? It seemed like a pretty inspired choice to me :( They use the original Tom Waits recording of the song in season two, so maybe that will be more to your liking.

Interesting - when you said inspired choice - am I missing a connection between Baltimore and R&B? Is there another reason it was chosen? I used it in the sense that it just seemed a boring and insipid track. I'm not sure what I would prefer - in fact, I'm pretty sure the producers wouldn't care anyway :grin:

I think it also links into a more general issue I have with TV series etc. always including the title sequence on the DVD. Keep them in on the first one, sure, but after that, take them out.

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Interesting - when you said inspired choice - am I missing a connection between Baltimore and R&B? Is there another reason it was chosen? I used it in the sense that it just seemed a boring and insipid track.

It's inspired because it's brilliant and captures the mood of the series perfectly. I am baffled that you can describe it as a boring an insipid "R&B" (???) track. (Blues, certainly, but not R&B.)

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I think it also links into a more general issue I have with TV series etc. always including the title sequence on the DVD. Keep them in on the first one, sure, but after that, take them out.

You can just skip them if you don't like them. On shows like the Wire which start with a cold opening, I think it would often be weird to just cut to black for half a beat between the pre-intro content and the main show. The intro, when done well, works great for pacing purposes. I'm not saying that's always the case with the Wire (I watched the entire series on DVD and probably intentionally watched the intro twice per season), but as a general rule I think that's the case. Futurama, for instance, often opens cold, cutting right into the show pre-credits sequence, and they also mix things up with the intro each episode, so you'd not only be screwing with the pacing/timing/flow of the show, you'd actually be losing content if they were cut.

Also, I'm glad they leave them there just for the sake of preservation. If I'm paying money for a TV series on DVD, I'd like to get as close to the original cut which appeared on TV as possible. Maybe that's me being an obsessive dorko, but I like having reasonably pristine (to the reasonable best of DVDs capabilities) copies of the shows as they were originally produced, not cut down for someone else's assumption of what viewing convenience would be.

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I can understand the completeness mentality totally, being an obsessive dorko myself sometimes (c.f. Volkswagen Golfs I, II, etc. :) )

I guess it's the current fashion (and has been for a while) to have a cold opening. I've not heard this term before but I'm assuming it's when it jumps straight into the action, followed by credits, then the main event and the credits have been designed precisely for those reasons - pacing/timing/flow and cutting them out would be a curious decision from the producers' view, so is a necessary evil for shows with that structure. Having agreed with you, I do skip them, because they bug me. Does that make me a philistine? :grin:

Edited by Norfolk'n'Clue

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After watching the intro for the first couple of episodes of a season, I usually put it on 1.5x or 2.0x because it becomes comical.

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Here's the thing about the opening credits. Once you understand what's going on in them, it usually takes a season and a half, when you start watching a new season you obsessively watch them trying to figure out what, exactly, is going to happen. As far as montage openings go, however you feel about the music, they are some of the best edited on TV. There are subtle hints and edits of the season to come but never in a way that actually ruins any surprise.

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