Chuck klosterman and bill Simmons enjoy smelling each others’ farts.

klosterman

klosterman

Nothing, up to this point, can touch the first 4 years of The Wire. Comparing Breaking Bad to The Wire is doing the former a real disservice because it is an excellent show and one of my favorites. However, it’s scope is very narrow, it’s characters few in number and the conflicts depicted now predictable. The Wire, especially season 2, destroyed whatever paradigm HBO had created in it’s cable drama genre and thereby set the bar incredibly high for television shows. As good as Breaking Bad is, it simply has not, and maybe cannot, reach the greatness of The Wire. Notwithstanding the foregoing: it destroys Mad Men and The Sopranos, both of which became a parody of themselves by season 3. Klosterman further damages his argument by offering his laudatory critique of LOST as a side-note to the column at issue. When one has a benchmark like LOST as a guide, one can understand that Chuck’s tastes must run more towards the popular and that’s fine, but placing Breaking Bad above The Wire is simply inaccurate. Finally, coloring The Wire’s fans as a “secular cult” relies on the “straw man” fallacy of logic and further undermines his categorization of the show.

I view ‘Breaking Bad’ a little bit like Van Halen. Van Halen was the greatest 80′s hair metal band that ever existed, no question… but not so great as to transcend the category.

It’s a plot-driven drama, and the best there is. But in terms of characterization, it’s lacking, especially compared to the aforementioned three (or even other notable series, like Deadwood or Rome). Beyond Walt and Jesse, everyone is more or less stock (some embarrassingly so, like the sleazy lawyer or Taco), and while the cinematography and other somewhat periphery elements are first rate, in the end you watch BB for the same reason you become glued to a John Grisham novel: To see what will happen next.

Lost was a show that infuriated me, and should have infuriated every self-respecting writer out there. The entire series was plot-driven, far moreso than BB; the characters were as static as one would expect from any network drama. Just when you thought you understood ‘the rules’, the island is moved, or characters time travel, or some other totally bizarre event takes place solely to throw you for a loop. Then, with fewer and fewer episodes to go, they jerry-rig a half-explanation of everything whilst tugging at your heartstrings with Jack’s fate in a finale that can only be enjoyed once. The writers of this show went toe-to-toe with the internet and ‘lost’. Afterwards, they had the gall to weather criticism with the insulting claim that it ‘was always about the characters’, as if those of us expecting answers on a show that gave us no reason to watch other than for answers were all intellectually-stunted buffoons that couldn’t grasp the majesty of what we’d witnessed. To keep the musical analogy alive, I’d liken Lost to the Bee Gees or some other 70′s disco heavyweight; it’s embarrassing to admit now, but at one time they were as big as anyone.

Mad Men is an acquired taste; I liken it to Bob Dylan. There is a formula, but thankfully, it’s complex enough to evade skepticism, and while it is ultimately brilliant, one has to wonder if the effort is always there. It does play the “how crazy were people in the 1960′s!” card a little often, and the stilted cadence of the dialogue gets tiresome, and save for Freddy Rumsden, virtually every character is impossibly elegant and intelligent… but I don’t think a more fully-drawn character than Don Draper exists anywhere on television. Chuck makes a point about how the drama is lessened because it involves no life-or-death scenarios, but I think that touches upon the very brilliance of Mad Men; the viewer is invested enough to feel a true sense of gravity over relatively trifling issues (after all, I sure wouldn’t want to lose my job). And the point about the characters being mere products of their time is a gross oversimplification; one wonders if Chuck’s even seen Mad Men beyond the first episode, where Don wows Lucky Strike in the comically foggy conference room.

The Sopranos was the first of such shows and undeniably the most popular; without the Sopranos drawing viewers into HBO, it’s very likely the Wire wouldn’t exist (certainly not for five seasons). It gets the Republican vote, no question, and beyond that I think Tony stacks up against near anyone as far as great characters are concerned. But the “after the first 2 seasons…” argument Chuck so casually touches on is a valid one, in my view; where does the Sopranos ever go? There’s so much filler, and so many nearly identical characters, and so many instances of an imperiled Tony that barely register because the show clearly couldn’t go on without him… one wonders if the Sopranos was a victim of its own success, and forced to expand far beyond what Chase’s original arch suited because of its breadwinner status. Musically… perhaps it’s the Rolling Stones? (Fitting: The season 2 finale prominently featured a track from Voodoo Lounge, one of the Stones’ later, post-apex, ‘keeping our private jets fueled’ albums).

So now I can finally reveal my decadent obstinance, and suggest that John Lennon and Dominic West have more in common than their shared British ancestry; they both headed the very best entities of their fields (of course, in the case of the Beatles, it’s very likely they’d have suffered without John. On the other hand, arguably the best season of the Wire occurred with very little McNulty). The Wire too has a formula, and it even lacks some of the complexity of Mad Men’s, but in other respects the show is so dogmatically authentic one can’t help but feel like they’re visiting old friends when rewatching it. The one instance in which the show compromised its own ethos was with Omar; always armed with the biggest gun and the coolest lines, and fans of the show regard him as a superhero. Some time ago, a common argument in any Deadwood vs. the Wire debate was that Deadwood was superior because of its beautifully crafted dialogue; opinions are never wrong, but this one simply is. ‘Beautifully crafted’ to some is self-indulgent and inauthentic to others (the charge of inauthentic is itself rather minor, until you realize the show’s chief pursuit in every other respect is authenticity). No show, certainly none of the others mentioned here, has dialogue as well-constructed as that of the Wire; completely authentic yet necessarily expository, and when the time calls for it, downright classic, be it with humour or tension (unlike Mad Men, which is overwitten in contrast).

The Wire; so entertaining and yet so culturally significant… well, like I said, the Beatles of television. If anyone read this far, thanks.