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shadowkatBefore I discuss the Wire, a bit on Game of Thrones - which I actually think is as good as The Wire, in its first 9 episodes. Albeit quite different, and definitely not everyone's cup of tea - it is in some respects riskier, more violent, more in your face, and far more offensive. The Wire is downright comforting in comparison. Also The Wire has less irritating characters than Game of Thrones - no Joffrey's that you want to strangle. Thank heavens.
What they have in common is only 11-13 episodes. Have come to the conclusion that there's something to be said for having only 13 episodes or less a season. Really does make a difference. That and limiting your writing staff to two - four people. The Wire only has two writers - Ed Burns and David Simon, who take turns writing each episode, but both write the story. Which I think lends to the compact and tight novel structure of the series. Multiple writers can make a story feel a bit all over the place - collaborations seldom work well. And in that respect, I think Wire is a step ahead of Game of Thrones in that department, Game has about four to five writers, which may well be one too many. The dialogue's more consistent when you have two writing voices instead of five to twenty.
The Wire, while wonderful, is slow in places. The first, second, and fifth episodes are a bit weak at the beginning. But will state the fifth episode picks up speed. Game of Thrones? Has similar issues. But those aren't that big a deal. They are building characters and story - that, as any good writer or reader of lengthy serials or novel fiction knows - is part of the package. If you can't handle the slow build? Short stories may be your cup of tea. I'm not a fan of most short stories personally, mostly because I think its harder to pull in the reader fast, capture the characters fast, and provide a good plot, and good story fast - most writers tend to fall into one of two traps in short fiction - too much plot no character, or all character no plot. If you want to read two fanfic writers who have mastered the form of short fiction in my humble opinion?![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beer_good_foamy and rahirah , tv show writer? Rod Sterling of Twilight Zone. Books? Stephen King (See The Body), Eudora Welty - Petrified Man, Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles, and The Veldt.
In EW - there's a lengthy article regarding last week's character death and how that just isn't done on network tv. Except this isn't network tv - it's HBO. And HBO does it all the time. Granted, usually not the lead character, which when I saw their ad campaign, I admittedly wondered how they were going to handle that one. Although for anyone who has read Game of Thrones, Clash of Kings, and Storm of Swords - you know as well as I do that it wasn't that major a character or the lead. It's a bit like the Wire, I suspect, the lead or central character starts out to be one person but shifts over time. In most novels, good ones, with ensemble casts, attempting to duplicate a semblance of reality - there isn't a hero or lead character and there is not one in Game of Thrones or Song of Ice and Fire. Trust me on that - there is not one hero or one lead character. If you think there is, you are going to be surprised. What made me roll my eyes - was one idiotic viewer posted on EW.com that the show would not be able to survive after last week's big death - to lose such a major character, the most likable (sigh, apparently some people like self-righteous nitwits - which actually would explain the election of President Bush, wouldn't it?), is an insane move and no one will watch after that.Of course people will watch after that. People read the books after that. Also, I hate to say this? But Ned's not going to be the only major character who dies in this series. Martin is a bloodthirsty writer, the body count would make Stephen King blanch. If you can't handle character deaths, you might want to stop now. On the other hand - I can assure you that none of your favorites die, well not yet at any rate - I haven't read Feast of Crows or Dance of Dragons, so who knows. Assuming of course your favorites are my favorites. The characters I wasn't all that fond of do kick the bucket, but I wasn't fond of Ned Stark either. Nice of the writer to kill off the people I don't like, don't you think? Not every writer is that accomodating. It's actually the other way around.
Sorry that was admittedly more than a bit.
Just finished watching Episode 5 - entitled The Pager.
It took a while to get into. Lots of wandering around with D'Angelo and his crew. Also Omar and his crew, with not much happening. But, there's a nifty turn around the middle - when they figure out the numbers on the pager. And three - make that four good scenes. 1) Lester confronts Daniels and makes it clear he doesn't just want to go to the dance he wants to rub some tit. Cop speak for accomplishing something. 2)Jaye tells McNulty how he can resolve the case and get himself back on Jaye's detail, where he wants to be. And does a song and dance about kissing my butt. I rather like Jaye in spite of myself. 3) The cop everyone wrote off, figures out the pager code much the same way he'd figure out a word puzzle - by doing photo-copies of the keys on a phone pad and playing with the numbers. I loved that scene. There's also some hilarious lines in this episode.
For me, watching The Wire - brings back memories, and well hits close to home. Just this past week I walked past two people having the following conversation:
Dude: You are walking fucking slow, like a gangster, what's that about.
Gal: Well, fuck, what you think it's about, I'm spent.
They both looked like they had stepped right off The Wire. That grit. The rhythm of the words. The dull blue brick of the hospital walls, the grime on the floor, and the dull and somewhat worn sheets - echoing the one I'd gotten stitches put in after being mugged by a sidewalk, although it was admittedly grimier and on the verge of shutting its doors due to bankruptcy. The tiny desks. The red tape. The line - "you have money, it don't matter who you are, you can do what you want". Sitting here watching the drug dealers on tv, I see in my minds eye the real adult sized articles in orange sitting across from me in Leavenworth Penitentiary, talking about their deals, talking about how they hit that guy for selling short, and that guy for not paying up, or how they didn't do it this round, they be innocent, man, but that don't mean they didn't do it before. The court docs for one guy took up two drawers. Transcripts of witness testimony of a drug deal gone south, and a hit man who took out five to six people - now doing twenty to life, and wanting off for ineffective assistance of counsel. He looked like an older version of D'Angelo, actually, except his eyes were stained yellow the way someone's teeth are stained with tobacco grime, and his arms had white lines up and down them, and he trembled not like one does with an essential tremor, but from a need for something else. Bubbles reminds me a bit of him. But Bubbles is a lot prettier and a lot less gone.
I thought as I watched and rewound the episode, okay it's slow here, and there, but oddly compelling, and now, I'm suddenly riveted. The point I got riveted? When they figure out the code on the pager - and suddenly it comes together. You see the cops ask Omar, nice Omar, polite Omar - who reminds of a younger version of gentlemanly bank robber I once knew, albeit gay as opposed to straight, if he'll snitch on Avon. But that ain't done says Omar, who live by his own code. So they figure out the pager, and D'Angelo's boys see Omar's boy playing pin-ball and they decide to take that boy down to teach Omar a lesson of sorts - all the while doing it on a pay phone, using the pager cloned by the cops which is tallying the numbers and the calls from the pay-phones they are using. It's a simple enough code - uses the dial of the phone - not arithmetic, otherwise the kids wouldn't be able to figure it out. Having no real education or math skills. They are stuck in a cycle, just like my bank robber was - and I remember thinking as I sat beside that man back then, all those years ago, fighting for his parole from Leavenworth...back to Ohio, that he was trapped too in a way.
Momster says it's about survival of the fittest. Are you a Darwinist, now? I ask. Always been, echoes the Momster. Nature is no different than capitalism - it favors the strong, and destroys the weak. I feel sorry for the animals, the lions, the tigers, the rhinos, the elephants - in Africa. Yes, I say, relegated to huge zoos that human predators visit. Depressing. I'm not a fan of social darwinism and capitalism is starting to have a bitter after-taste and a bit of stink to it, that sticks in your nose and in your craw, days later than it should.
What they have in common is only 11-13 episodes. Have come to the conclusion that there's something to be said for having only 13 episodes or less a season. Really does make a difference. That and limiting your writing staff to two - four people. The Wire only has two writers - Ed Burns and David Simon, who take turns writing each episode, but both write the story. Which I think lends to the compact and tight novel structure of the series. Multiple writers can make a story feel a bit all over the place - collaborations seldom work well. And in that respect, I think Wire is a step ahead of Game of Thrones in that department, Game has about four to five writers, which may well be one too many. The dialogue's more consistent when you have two writing voices instead of five to twenty.
The Wire, while wonderful, is slow in places. The first, second, and fifth episodes are a bit weak at the beginning. But will state the fifth episode picks up speed. Game of Thrones? Has similar issues. But those aren't that big a deal. They are building characters and story - that, as any good writer or reader of lengthy serials or novel fiction knows - is part of the package. If you can't handle the slow build? Short stories may be your cup of tea. I'm not a fan of most short stories personally, mostly because I think its harder to pull in the reader fast, capture the characters fast, and provide a good plot, and good story fast - most writers tend to fall into one of two traps in short fiction - too much plot no character, or all character no plot. If you want to read two fanfic writers who have mastered the form of short fiction in my humble opinion?
beer_good_foamy and rahirah , tv show writer? Rod Sterling of Twilight Zone. Books? Stephen King (See The Body), Eudora Welty - Petrified Man, Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles, and The Veldt. In EW - there's a lengthy article regarding last week's character death and how that just isn't done on network tv. Except this isn't network tv - it's HBO. And HBO does it all the time. Granted, usually not the lead character, which when I saw their ad campaign, I admittedly wondered how they were going to handle that one. Although for anyone who has read Game of Thrones, Clash of Kings, and Storm of Swords - you know as well as I do that it wasn't that major a character or the lead. It's a bit like the Wire, I suspect, the lead or central character starts out to be one person but shifts over time. In most novels, good ones, with ensemble casts, attempting to duplicate a semblance of reality - there isn't a hero or lead character and there is not one in Game of Thrones or Song of Ice and Fire. Trust me on that - there is not one hero or one lead character. If you think there is, you are going to be surprised. What made me roll my eyes - was one idiotic viewer posted on EW.com that the show would not be able to survive after last week's big death - to lose such a major character, the most likable (sigh, apparently some people like self-righteous nitwits - which actually would explain the election of President Bush, wouldn't it?), is an insane move and no one will watch after that.Of course people will watch after that. People read the books after that. Also, I hate to say this? But Ned's not going to be the only major character who dies in this series. Martin is a bloodthirsty writer, the body count would make Stephen King blanch. If you can't handle character deaths, you might want to stop now. On the other hand - I can assure you that none of your favorites die, well not yet at any rate - I haven't read Feast of Crows or Dance of Dragons, so who knows. Assuming of course your favorites are my favorites. The characters I wasn't all that fond of do kick the bucket, but I wasn't fond of Ned Stark either. Nice of the writer to kill off the people I don't like, don't you think? Not every writer is that accomodating. It's actually the other way around.
Sorry that was admittedly more than a bit.
Just finished watching Episode 5 - entitled The Pager.
It took a while to get into. Lots of wandering around with D'Angelo and his crew. Also Omar and his crew, with not much happening. But, there's a nifty turn around the middle - when they figure out the numbers on the pager. And three - make that four good scenes. 1) Lester confronts Daniels and makes it clear he doesn't just want to go to the dance he wants to rub some tit. Cop speak for accomplishing something. 2)Jaye tells McNulty how he can resolve the case and get himself back on Jaye's detail, where he wants to be. And does a song and dance about kissing my butt. I rather like Jaye in spite of myself. 3) The cop everyone wrote off, figures out the pager code much the same way he'd figure out a word puzzle - by doing photo-copies of the keys on a phone pad and playing with the numbers. I loved that scene. There's also some hilarious lines in this episode.
For me, watching The Wire - brings back memories, and well hits close to home. Just this past week I walked past two people having the following conversation:
Dude: You are walking fucking slow, like a gangster, what's that about.
Gal: Well, fuck, what you think it's about, I'm spent.
They both looked like they had stepped right off The Wire. That grit. The rhythm of the words. The dull blue brick of the hospital walls, the grime on the floor, and the dull and somewhat worn sheets - echoing the one I'd gotten stitches put in after being mugged by a sidewalk, although it was admittedly grimier and on the verge of shutting its doors due to bankruptcy. The tiny desks. The red tape. The line - "you have money, it don't matter who you are, you can do what you want". Sitting here watching the drug dealers on tv, I see in my minds eye the real adult sized articles in orange sitting across from me in Leavenworth Penitentiary, talking about their deals, talking about how they hit that guy for selling short, and that guy for not paying up, or how they didn't do it this round, they be innocent, man, but that don't mean they didn't do it before. The court docs for one guy took up two drawers. Transcripts of witness testimony of a drug deal gone south, and a hit man who took out five to six people - now doing twenty to life, and wanting off for ineffective assistance of counsel. He looked like an older version of D'Angelo, actually, except his eyes were stained yellow the way someone's teeth are stained with tobacco grime, and his arms had white lines up and down them, and he trembled not like one does with an essential tremor, but from a need for something else. Bubbles reminds me a bit of him. But Bubbles is a lot prettier and a lot less gone.
I thought as I watched and rewound the episode, okay it's slow here, and there, but oddly compelling, and now, I'm suddenly riveted. The point I got riveted? When they figure out the code on the pager - and suddenly it comes together. You see the cops ask Omar, nice Omar, polite Omar - who reminds of a younger version of gentlemanly bank robber I once knew, albeit gay as opposed to straight, if he'll snitch on Avon. But that ain't done says Omar, who live by his own code. So they figure out the pager, and D'Angelo's boys see Omar's boy playing pin-ball and they decide to take that boy down to teach Omar a lesson of sorts - all the while doing it on a pay phone, using the pager cloned by the cops which is tallying the numbers and the calls from the pay-phones they are using. It's a simple enough code - uses the dial of the phone - not arithmetic, otherwise the kids wouldn't be able to figure it out. Having no real education or math skills. They are stuck in a cycle, just like my bank robber was - and I remember thinking as I sat beside that man back then, all those years ago, fighting for his parole from Leavenworth...back to Ohio, that he was trapped too in a way.
Momster says it's about survival of the fittest. Are you a Darwinist, now? I ask. Always been, echoes the Momster. Nature is no different than capitalism - it favors the strong, and destroys the weak. I feel sorry for the animals, the lions, the tigers, the rhinos, the elephants - in Africa. Yes, I say, relegated to huge zoos that human predators visit. Depressing. I'm not a fan of social darwinism and capitalism is starting to have a bitter after-taste and a bit of stink to it, that sticks in your nose and in your craw, days later than it should.
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Date: 2011-06-17 12:08 pm (UTC)And I've avoided reading any press or critical reviews.
This is a series that being spoiled on - would annoy me. ;-)