The Wire

I would say this is true.

Your taste in movies and TV never ceases to puzzle me. You're a working comic but you took me to task this week for my claim that the US Office is better than the UK version. I'm not alone in thinking this -- it wasn't me being contrarian. The US version is balls-out hilarious and the conceit is easier to swallow. In the UK version, David Brent is completely incompetent at his job. Unless I am missing something about British hiring/firing procedures, it makes no sense for him to be at his job for as long as he is. In the US version, Michael Scott is tremendously bad at the administrative part of the job but actually has several moments where he completes a big sale. The show is absolutely hilarious. And not nearly as depressing as the UK version. Not that depressing is bad -- it's just that, in America you can move to a new city or bullshit job without a lot of effort, so it'd be false for everyone in the office to be miserable. And the background characters are realy well developed whereas they weren't in the UK version.

But we both agree that The Wire is the best show on television. I don't know about you, but I would go so far as to say it's the best show I've ever seen. I like it a lot more than The Sopranos which, while amazing, certainly has its downside. I like it more than Freaks and Geeks. Freaks and Geeks was a great comic tragedy and really relatable for folks like us, but it lacks the gravitas that The Wire has. The big cliche about The Wire is that it's literature on television. But it's a true cliche -- it's like The Great Gatsby mixed in with the best of Philip Roth.

Yes, I probably wouldn't be talking to you if it weren't for this show.