Quote:
Originally Posted by SarcasticRat
The Wire was just far more ambitious, complex, and literary, while Breaking Bad is just another (very good) TV show.
This reminds me of that whole "
The Wire is novelistic!" angle of praise, and as someone for whom the defining characteristics of novel-ness have always been interiority and language, it's always struck me as pretty weird. If anything, long-form motion picture is a hell of a lot better suited to the (easily digestible) portrayal of intricate systems than the literary forms are. The most common line of comparison is the multi-dimensionality of the characters, sure, but for such a wide-net adjective as 'novelistic' that comparison covers only a tiny stretch of novel-specific territory.
I'd sooner buy that
The Wire is "like" a form-genre pairing that hasn't quite been codified yet and is (currently) sui generis.
I love the **** out of
BB but I kind of agree with your first paragraph, and think opinions of it will probably fade a bit in the next few years. Still, things that make me feel emotions have been increasingly hard to find in recent years (
), so my #1 spot will always give preference to whatever's most entertaining.