Question about watching The Wire for the first time in 2024

I finally started The Wire last month after hearing about it for years. I'm on season 2 now and I keep wondering if I would have appreciated it more back when it first aired in 2002. The show feels so different from the fast paced streaming stuff I watch now, with all the slow build up and focus on city politics. Has anyone else tried watching a classic HBO show years later and found it hard to get into?

3 comments

3 Comments

nathan90115d ago

Honestly, you hit on something when you said "the show feels so different from the fast paced streaming stuff." That slow build is kind of the whole point though. Are you finding the political stuff in season 2 boring, or does it feel like it's starting to click how everything connects to the drug stuff from season 1?

cole_baker15d ago

Building on what you said, the slow burn is totally the point. Season 2's political stuff feels boring at first cause you're waiting for the big drug bust moments, but once you see how the mayor and the school board are all tangled up with the money from season 1, it clicks hard. It's like the show is saying the real crime isn't just the street level stuff, its the people in power looking the other way or profiting off it. That slow setup makes the payoff way more satisfying than some rushed Netflix show where everything is solved in one episode. You gotta trust the show to take its time and earn that payoff.

emmaclark10d ago

Respectfully, the slow burn can feel less like trust and more like filler sometimes, especially when the payoff takes two full seasons to arrive.