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Is The Shield any good?

Orang Utan said:
That reminds me of something someone said in The Wire. You should watch it. It's really quite good.
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I've watched the first three seasons of The Wire and it is very good indeed. I think I'm one of the first people to recommend the series on Urban as far as I remember.

It doesn't mean it's the only show I can like though.
 
im now downloading the first series of The Wire - apparently its quite good, not entirely who recommended it though.............
 
Both quality programmes in their own way. I love the fact that the Shield is on US network TV (NBC) and can still push the barriers as far as they can in terms of subject matter etc. Can be quite uncomfortable viewing at times and always gripping. Worth watchuing from the very beginining for the ongoing character development.
 
I loved The Shield when the first invetigation into the team happened but it sort of plateau'd after that - still a very, very good TV prog. Has nice long story and character arcs and some quality acting.

For me, The Wire is better because the minor characters seem more rounded.
 
i love the shield, and watched the first 6 episodes of series 1 in a back to back marathon.
Then at the end of series 2 it moved to some tv channel i don't get :(

What ever happened to the money train i'll never know. top soundtrack though.

i've never seen the Wire.
I heard the name and assumed it was some sort of Grays Anatomy shite. They're gonna have to change the title if they want ME to watch it :mad:
 
I don't understand the comparison between The Wire and The Shield?

You might as well compare either with Mork and Mindy and decide which is "best", surely?
 
Have just started getting into series one which we picked up on DVD.
It is pretty good 'cops and robbers' fodder I think.
Happy result is that I also just picked up series three in the charity shop for £6, just need to find series two now.
 
Yeah I dld'd on a recommendation from here and am half way through series 4 after watching it in blocks at the weekend when it's just me here. Excellent series :cool:

I keep meaning to watch some other stuff (hard drive is getting a bit full :eek: ) but my resolve weakens a few days after the end of each series.....and I'm off searching for the next.... :mad: :D
 
I watched it on the tellybox when C4 broadcast the first couple of seasons, and then the timeslot started slipping and I couldn't be arsed.
 
Oh well it's defo a good one to watch a few at a time....I hate that *waiting a week* thing you have to do with the telly! :mad: :D

Here kyser - massive congrats to you an the missus on the little one, btw! x :cool: :)
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Both are brilliant but both come from totally different perspectives in terms of what the creators wanted from them. The Wire is very specifically about the whole war on drugs in the US and it influences almost everything within the show where as 'The Shield' strikes me as being more about the complexities of human relationships and the notion of split loyalties. What both do very well is blur the lines and question the whole notion of what, and whom, is good and bad.

What is true though is that both piss, along with a lot of other US TV drama, all over from a very great height anything that British TV has produced during a similar time period.

Thats the debate thats worth having.
 
Stoat Boy said:
The Wire is very specifically about the whole war on drugs in the US and it influences almost everything within the show...
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I don't think it is, imvho. There's a lot of references to it in the first 2-3 episodes of the first season but after that it fizzles out to be a procedural. The Wire is a bit up its own arse about being Not Just A Cop Show whereas The Shield isn't afraid to throw in the occasional explosion or gratuitous stripper. As it happens, I quite like procedurals so I like The Wire for that.

Where I think The Wire is better than the The Shield is in the character development/rounding out of the criminals/non-cops. The Shield is a bit like The Bill in that respect - the crims are just a rotating, interchangeable morass of people and you never really see the same person twice. Oh, it's the Biz Lats, oh, it's the 1-9ers. That's esp true in the later series.

Markus Degarian (the crazy Armenian) is really two-dimensional and we never learn much about where he (or any of the other Armenians, or the other crims) "come from". Antwon Mitchell is a bit more developed but even then it's still pop psychology [i wanted to insert spoilers here - what's the code?].

The same is true for the cops, especially in comparison to how e.g. Tony's crew is developed in The Sopranos. There's a lot in the first series about Julian and his conflicts, and in the series after there's more about Dutch and how work affects him, but we still don't, for instance, know what Vic did before he was a cop or why Gardocky seems to know everything technical. But we know much more about Paulie Walnuts, his army career, his imprisonment, his bizarre love life...

Also, I think The Shield changes remarkably in tone after the first two seasons, which I suspect is because you have so many more people writing it instead of just Shawn Ryan (who seems like a huge douchebag if you watch the DVD extras btw). Fun fact: Ryan claims that he wrote the whole first season on an epic bender listening to a Kid Rock album. Eventually the neighbours called the cops and he named Julian and Danny after the two cops that knocked on his door to tell him to STFU.
 
JWH said:
Also, I think The Shield changes remarkably in tone after the first two seasons, which I suspect is because you have so many more people writing it instead of just Shawn Ryan (who seems like a huge douchebag if you watch the DVD extras btw). Fun fact: Ryan claims that he wrote the whole first season on an epic bender listening to a Kid Rock album. Eventually the neighbours called the cops and he named Julian and Danny after the two cops that knocked on his door to tell him to STFU.
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:D
 
'course, all you torrenters miss out on the DVD extras. Shane Vendrell's actor is hilarious and
JWH said:
Markus Degarian (the crazy Armenian) is really two-dimensional and we never learn much about where he (or any of the other Armenians, or the other crims) "come from". Antwon Mitchell is a bit more developed but even then it's still pop psychology
because in the interview scene whatshername says it's cos his lil sister was raped, because his son's gay
but you never really see anything else that hints at that in the rest of the series, and it's never much explored whether his rhetoric is for real.
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Mackey and Tony S are both well-portrayed as people who are totally convinced that they are helping other people when they get what they want and think the world revolves around them, it's only periodic with Mackey - it's as if the writers say "oh, shit, it's been a while since we made him look like a psychopath, let's chuck some dialogue in".

And as for the women in The Shield - they may as well be those symbols that are on toilet doors, they're so two-dimensional! What do we know about Wyms except what Julian has told her? What do we know about Danny apart from
her baby is Vic's
?
 
JWH said:
'
And as for the women in The Shield - they may as well be those symbols that are on toilet doors, they're so two-dimensional! What do we know about Wyms except what Julian has told her? What do we know about Danny apart from
her baby is Vic's
?
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That doesn't make any sense to me. We find out a hell of a lot about Whyms and Sofer over the years and CCH Pounder as Claudine Whyms in particular was fantastic. The Shield had different priorities and was less character driven than The Wire and more concerned with plot, suspense and tension, but those two female characters are no more or less complex than The Wires equivalent character, Kima Greggs. In terms of character, my only real criticism of The Shield is that it sidelined Julian's character after a couple of seasons.
 
Reno said:
That doesn't make any sense to me. We find out a hell of a lot about Whyms and Sofer over the years and CCH Pounder as Claudine Whyms in particular was fantastic. The Shield had different priorities and was less character diven than The Wire and more concerned with plot, suspense and tension, but those two female characters are no more or less complex than The Wires equivalent character, Kima Greggs. In terms of character, my only real criticism of The Shield is that it sidelined Julian's character after a couple of seasons.
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The women in The Wire aren't much better, I agree. But at least with Kima we see some of her home life, that she's doing a degree, that she's making plans with her gf etc.

I can't think of a single personal thing that I've seen/discovered about Sofer (how long has she been in? where's she from? why does she sometimes represent Cop Solidarity (esp with Julian) and other times go against it?). It's much the same with Wyms - you only hear anything of her backstory when that thing with her daughter happens - and yet potentially she is one of the most interesting characters on the programme. (I have to say that I went off Wyms when I started watching the DVD extras and CCH Pounder came across pretty much like Wyms i.e. a mardy cow and it's never explained what her problem is). I think the thing with The Shield is that they never tell you anything about the characters unless it's going to be used in the next 30 minutes - they're not great about planting seeds for the future if it's not plot-driven.

I also agree with you about Julian. He's got a face like thunder - all that intensity and rage bubbling just under the surface - and yet the writers allow him to go off the boil after the first couple of seasons.
 
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