Wired

I just, finally, finished watching 'The Wire'. This has been a long burning love of mine that started around 3 years ago when a friend of mine lent me series one (which I still have.....), raving about how amazing it was. It took me 3 attempts to watch the first episode and then I was pretty much hooked. I watched the entire first series with another good friend in a couple of days, went out and purchased series 2 and watched it in two days, and then went out and purchased series 3 and watched it all (13 hours) in a day. Sat on her bed. Eating peanut M&Ms. Smiling like fools. It was a good day.

And then I stopped for a year.

One reason for this was because the DVD was not yet out and I refused to watch it on some crappy website with the sound out of sync to the video or having to wait for constant buffering. In this year I watched series 1 and 3 another time, and watched series 2 (by far my favourite) around 4 times. Reviews in this time started appearing online of series 4 and how it was the best yet. Sites like metacritic scored it at 98 (http://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-wire/season-4) which is still the highest ever combined score of any TV series.  When I got round to watching series 4 it blew me away. I was amazed at how good it was. Although I still prefer series 2 I can see that this was the 'best' series they ever did. 

And then I stopped for 2 years.

Series 5 had been out at the time I watched series 4, but I just didn't watch it. Maybe it was because I didn't want it to end or maybe it was because I had a busy social life at the time (it was because I didn't want it to end) but I just didn't want it to end.

 Enter, my lovely girlfriend who had tirelessly made me watch nearly all (5 and a half series) of 'Lost' (which is actually a lot better than I thought it would be), whilst having to listen to me rant about how much 'The Wire' was better than it. It must have been very annoying. Especially for this girl. She likes 'Lost'. A lot. Anyway I convinced her to watch 'The Wire' with me and we have just finished it all. 

In my opinion it is as perfect a TV show as can be. It's not about crime or good v.s. evil it's about people and community. By the end, nearly every major character in the 'crime' side of things has changed but 'the game' remains the same. It's depressing, uplifting and contemplative. 

I liked it.

A lot. 

Better watch the last series of 'Lost' now.

(It won't be as good)