Lol

He hung himself on a doorknob, didn't he? Like just free fall on his ass.

God I can't google sh*t without seeing spoilers. Fml

He body was on the same side of the doorknob where the belt was tied, with his legs crossed and hands placed in his pockets

It's obviously completely ridiculous and no investigator would ever think he hanged himself in that configuration. I was making a joke about Wire fanbois -- the show is so amazing because of how it shows the corruption of institutions and its marvelous verisimilitude, etc. Really just top notch verisimilitude with that hanging plot point!

Lol I thought you were making a joke about the fact that the institution is so inherently flawed that it doesn't matter if it's unlikely an inmate hanged himself in that manner, don't nobody give a shiiiiieeeeeeeet about no ******s. And added in verisimilitude to tease thug.

(sun)

So is the joke on the writers of The Wire, or a reference to how stupid hired guns can be?

Sorry for pressing, it's just pissing me off about how stupid that scene was. It's hard to enjoy the show further at this point if the writers are being that sloppy, which seems unlikely because they are wrt everything else

It just didn't matter. It wasn't impossible to hang himself in that manner and nobody bothered to investigate.

I think that's the show's explanation but it is really hard to believe the state cops would botch the investigation so badly.

It really is impossible IMO

Thread's gotten good, great post by CX.

I want to make a case for Mad Men. It had its identity down from day one, with one of the most clever and engaging series openers of any of the top tier shows. The world of Madison Ave in the 60s and Don Draper, in all his Satanic glory, are introduced with unusual confidence and force. Most shows have to rev their engines up a little--Breaking Bad felt almost like a comedy in S1, and the Wire's first few episodes are, to me, oddly bland and hesitant feeling--but Mad Men came out of Weiner's head (pun intended) fully formed.

Mad Men may have had the most consistent five season run of any of the shows listed. The relative badness of season six underscored what a feat the first five seasons were, in terms of sustained quality. Very few missteps or off-key notes, again, as compared to the other shows in consideration, which all have notable, even season-long missteps and off-key notes.

I'll also make the case for Mad Men having a broader, and subtler emotional palette than most of these shows. That's hard to defend, but I think since there's generally less at stake in a life-or-death sense, the actors have to get more out of less and create more emotional ambiguity--Pete Campbell, for example, who's gotten what he's always wanted but is still a miserable twerp, but who is somehow sympathetic and means well at times, yet seems doomed to self-destruct. Likewise, the world of Madison Avenue in the 60s seems simultaneously unbelievably wild and fun, and also somehow suffused with a creeping dread, with all the chaos of the late-sixties happening on the periphery. I feel like the emotional ambiguity and instability of this world and its characters is a real achievement and is one thing that separates Mad Men from the pack. All the other shows, if nothing else, essentially believe in the foundational integrity of their respective fictional milieus, i.e. the Italian mob, Baltimore, methcooking in ABQ. The world of Mad Men, otoh, is a mirage built on shifting sands, something that is signalled when prominent characters like Paul Kinsey lose their **** and become topknotted Hare Krishnas.

I will take Hamm's Don Draper against any of the four main solipsistic, egomaniacal alpha dogs (Tony Soprano, Walter White, and to a lesser extent Jimmy McNulty). Although I'll concede Tony Soprano is probably the heavyweight favorite in that category, Draper would give him a surprisingly good fight in terms of self-destructiveness, selfishness, bitter humor, and viewing pleasure.

Needless to say, direction, set design, editing, etc. are all top-notch. I think the easiest argument to make against Mad Men is perhaps that its highs are lower than the other contenders' highs, and that may be so (not sure, though, MM has some powerhouse episodes--the lawnmower one, for example), but its lows are also less low. If the Wire is Barry Bonds, Mad Men is Tony Gwynn.

I'm still in Mad Men s2 but I have no doubt I'll feel similar.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...kings-1336694/

Trying to get this back on the go

Buff Disciple,

It's not the 10 episodes. The Wire's 5th season suffers from a terrible murder hoax unfit for even network TV, and the WOAT character shift. When Lester is shown the hoax and then jumps on board I managed a GOAT thizz face. Aside from the stupidity of Lester never getting with an idea so stupid, the fact that they turned it into a rimshot-esque jokey scene was just insulting. Season 5 is fine entertainment, but it has certain parts of it (David Simon's obvious axe to grind with his old newspaper bosses, for example) are laughable when compared to what the show was doing for 4 straight years.

I'd also argue another strike against The Wire is season 2. It's a great season, as good as any other, but it just feels out of place. 1, 3, 4 and 5 each fit with the others much more seamlessly than season 2. As far as consistency, it feels like an impromptu addition to a house. It looks great, but seems like a clear side-step from the rest.

EDIT:

Whoa, nice post Constantine. I think you're right, the Dickens comparison may actually be unfair to The Wire. Haha.

EDIT 2:

Definitely. Draper is a killer on every level. It's interesting that much of the audience is behind Draper even through his "villainy", much like they were with Tony. However, the latter was a clear sociopath who the writers purposely tried to make distasteful, and failed, while the former is written with a complexity that understands why you'd "root" for him. There's small things like that all over Mad Men, and Draper, which may not put the show over Sopranos but I think it puts Jon Hamm and Don Draper over Tony ever so slightly. I don't know if I can ever feel bad for a rich, famous, and "really really really ridiculously good looking" person, but I kinda feel bad for Jon that he's lost the best actor emmy 5 years in a row. No shame in consistently losing to Cranston, but then BB skips a year and he loses to Kyle Chandler. Not that Chandler wasn't a boss in Friday Night Lights, but it was still a bit funny.

You have to rewatch, imo. The serial killer plot is only slightly out of character/far-fetched.

S2 is not at all out of place on rewatch and is arguably as good as s3 and s4. I think s4 is the clear favorite, personally.

Even the failure to fully flesh out the newspaper editors in s5 was possibly due to getting shorted on # of episodes and/or episode length. Which I understand doesn't count for much, but it's a consideration for me.

Final episode was very very, good which kinda makes it easier to just run with s5 on rewatch. Embrace the serial killer and allow Simon the chance to vent about his old newspaper. It's a different viewing experience, imo.

Think it's time to rewatch the wire and sopranos.

Turn this into a rewatch thread for all the GOATs and just post random interesting scenes/comments/etc.

CQ,

I just started Mad Men, and I'm digging it so far, so the promise of consistency makes me happy. (If it turns out you're wrong about it, I'll sue you, though.)

And I like your phrasing, namely "... and also somehow suffused with a creeping dread, with all the chaos of the late-sixties happening on the periphery ..." and the end of the first long paragraph, where the embedded TV-shows-as-cars metaphor doubles as a callback to the Goodie debates (intended or not).

TB,

I didn't realize that about the Emmys, but it's not that surprising. 1) Walter White is the star around which the satellite characters of BB necessarily revolve. In contrast, Don Draper is the largest planet in a solar system full of other pretty big planets. 2) WW is more of a scenery-chewing role, where he gets to have cancer and stagger around moaning with yawning death-hole (i.e. his mouth) agape, having one climactic emotional moment after another. DD, otoh, is written about a person on planet Earth, and as such, a lot of what his character has to portray is various moments of uncertainty and inertia. It's obvious which one I would vote for, but I'm not surprised the more "dramatic" role won the Emmys.

The only shows I haven't seen on the list are Deadwood and The West Wing maybe I should start with those.

Rei,

I can't imagine you won't love it. Its aspirations are literary, but interesting **** also happens, which is pretty much all you can ask for imo.

not to nitpick cuz i think your posts are fantastic, but us ducati owners don't really measure superiority with top speed. anyone can twist the throttle n go fast in a str8 line, its all about the ability to lean the bike over to its ultimate lean angle.

/derail

oh my rankings are very similar to yours and i agree on generation kill. i was going to mention it earlier but since it was just a mini-series and generally doesn't get much love didn't bother.
however it is one of my personal favs (tho not on the same level as BoB which is really GOAT).

I want to also expand on this point a little. I hope all of you young mother****ers reading this thread appreciate what a miraculous goddamn golden age of TV viewership we're in. The Sopranos constitutes as clear a dividing line as exists in any art form. TV is better than film now, fullstop. I mean, think about that. Think about how insane it would have sounded to suggest that even fifteen years ago, let alone thirty. Well, no one would have suggested that, because TV was demonstrably inferior to film in every department--direction and acting talent, quality of writing, seriousness of intent, etc.

Who would have thought, even ten years ago, that David Fincher would be producing and directing a Netflix original TV series with Kevin Spacey starring? Who could have forseen the way Hollywood's intelligent talent would stampede toward TV like a herd of dying steer toward a cool stream? This is a medium that is actually encouraging writers, directors, and actors to tell complex, multi-dimensional, confusing stories, largely with unhappy or at least ambiguous endings. Those films stopped being made in, I think, 1989 or 1990. And honestly, I think it turns out that what was perhaps at first a marriage of necessity turns out to be an extremely good match--it turns out complex drama might be better suited to TV than movies anyway. A film like the Godfather, is, of course, impossible to beat in many arenas, including cinematography, acting, and general iconography. Yet, the spaciousness and world-building afforded Tony Soprano by multiple seasons and dozens of episodes, gives his character a depth and complexity that film, imo, couldn't possibly afford Don Corleone.

It's absurd the wealth of quality TV dramas we have right now, and it really does feel like an artistic golden age, maybe comparable to the early seventies for film. That we even have a list of shows in the OP of such a high caliber to bicker over is pretty amazing, considering fifteen years ago we would have been debating the merits of NYPD Blue versus ER or something.

NYPD Blue is a great show

Who are you calling young? Aren't you like 33 or something? I bet you haven't even grown your first patch of salt-and-pepper pubes yet. I bet your ear hair is still unnoticeable from forward profile.

As was Hill Street Blues although I haven't seen either since broadcast so not sure how well they hold up. But one thing is for sure in my mind. Milch is the GOAT tv guy to date. With these 2 along with Luck and Deadwood (lets forget about John from Cincinnati!) this guy is the absolute nuts and I want to see something new from him.

I liked John and kind of wanted to see where it was going. Kinda.

Chase worked on both Northern Exposure and Rockford Files, both very good shows. If he does another strong show he's in the conversation with Milch as GOAT imo

Aren't you like 19? If your TV consciousness began post-Sopranos, you're who I'm talking to, you scamp. Also, though my ear hair is mostly noticeable in profile, I do have a bum knee that acts up when it gets rainy--that must give me some old points.