The wire, probably the best tv show ever?

On season 2 episode 5 of this Magnificent tv show it only plays for 22mins then ends,anyone else noticed this?

I was bored rigid after forcing myself to watch about 9 episodes of season 1.

Really enjoying watching the wire again, not seen it for a few years any fans out there?

Best TV show ever IMO. All those that defend the BBC fail to explain why they can't produce a show even a fraction as good as the Wire or any of the other top HBO shows.

Best TV show ever IMO. All those that defend the BBC fail to explain why they can't produce a show even a fraction as good as the Wire or any of the other top HBO shows.

1. That's a matter of your opinion.

2. Even most US TV networks and cable networks don't come close to the high bar you've set the BBC.

3. HBO has nearly 5 times as many subscribers as the BBC does licence fee payers and a HBO subscriptions costs about twice as much as the licence fee.

4. The BBC drama budget is nowhere near as big as HBOs. This is because huge difference in revenue, of cuts to the licence fee and the fact that the BBC have to spread that licence fee across more platforms than HBO. If the BBC tried to complete then it would spend it's entire budget producing at most 4 or 5 drama series a year.

5. Several of the best shows ever made by HBO were actually HBO/BBC co-productions eg Band of Brothers, Rome etc. Other BBC show were made with HBO such as Parade's End, The Casual Vacancy and the forthcoming remake of I, Claudius.

If you're talking about the sheer grittiness of the subject matter of The Wire, the BBC doesn't make many dramas like that as they have to appeal to a wide audience/demographic otherwise the BBC gets attacked for wasting taxpayer's money on making programmes that nobody wants to watch, at the same time as the Government attacks them for making programmes that people want to watch.

I love The Wire and I need to start the re-watch as it is a good 5 years since I watched the whole lot over a 2 month span (got the box-set).

This and The Sopranos are two of my favourite long running series. Boardwalk Empire is pretty good, especially cinematically, but I don't find the story as engaging, which is a shame as Steve Buscemi is a hero of mine.

3. HBO has nearly 5 times as many subscribers as the BBC does licence fee payers and a HBO subscriptions costs about twice as much as the licence fee.

Think about that a minute. It can't be true. I just looked it up to make sure and it isn't. Given that everyone who watches TV in the UK requires a TV licence and the population of the US is about 5 times that of the UK, it would mean just about every household in the US subscribes to HBO. The most accurate figures I can find show that there are just over 28 million HBO subscribers and just over 25 million UK TV licence households.

Iquote]4. The BBC drama budget is nowhere near as big as HBOs. This is because huge difference in revenue, of cuts to the licence fee and the fact that the BBC have to spread that licence fee across more platforms than HBO. If the BBC tried to complete then it would spend it's entire budget producing at most 4 or 5 drama series a year.

I would say that 4-5 top quality dramas a year would be far better value than thousands of hours of rubbish. People don't want TV for the sake of watching TV anymore. People pick and choose, make the best programmes matter.

5. Several of the best shows ever made by HBO were actually HBO/BBC co-productions eg Band of Brothers, Rome etc. Other BBC show were made with HBO such as Parade's End, The Casual Vacancy and the forthcoming remake of I, Claudius.

So why can't the BBC make these shows alone and then sell them overseas and retain all the profit?

If you're talking about the sheer grittiness of the subject matter of The Wire, the BBC doesn't make many dramas like that as they have to appeal to a wide audience/demographic otherwise the BBC gets attacked for wasting taxpayer's money on making programmes that nobody wants to watch, at the same time as the Government attacks them for making programmes that people want to watch.

But people did want to watch the Wire. It was one of the most popular and acclaimed drama series of all time, especially on DVD.

If you enjoyed the wire, give The Shield a go

The Shield was very good, not as good as the Wire because it had too many "criminal of the week" episodes but the final season was as good as any final season of a show there has ever been (better than the Wire's final season) and the last episode was incredible.

Just finished mad men and looking next box set,looks like the wires worth watching.

The Shield was very good, not as good as the Wire because it had too many "criminal of the week" episodes but the final season was as good as any final season of a show there has ever been (better than the Wire's final season) and the last episode was incredible.

I agree on every point!

We did think that the Wire was in the 'Justified' subset of needing to get your brain into gear with hearing a particular sort of voice to understand it. Some of the characters (Snoop, for instance) speak in a combination of slang, mutter and slur which means you do have to pay attention or you risk missing whatever their point is.

We have some TV shows that we can have on when we're tired or a bit hard of thinking, but both the Wire and Justified fall into the 'really must pay attention' category, along with things like Underbelly (Australian real life dramatisation which has multiple sub-plots and lots of people working for both sides).

Unfortunately we now appear to have run out of things like this to watch, which is a shame. The US TV market seems to cancel everything that looks stimulating after the first season these days.