My boyfriend and I are HUGE Wire fans, so much so that we once watched three episodes back to back during season 2 and season 3, so you know that takes some serious dedication to a series!  The Wire has not only excellent, top of the line acting from it’s talents, but it also offers a riveting script that is just gritty enough to remain real even if the subject matter or plot lines take somewhat far fetched turns (which they rarely did during seasons 1-4). 

However, now, with season 5, there is a bit of hackiness coming into the writing and the story line.  For example, Lester and Jimmy Mcnulty come up with a far fetched scheme to get the feds to pay attention again to their wire tap of the new gangster extraordinaire, Marlo Stanfield, who has a lot of bodies on him and who also seems like the biggest sociopath since Tony Soprano in any series, only he doesn’t even seem to like animals.

Some of the actual dialogue is also a bit weak in season five, which really disappointed me.  I keep thinking, well, maybe the next episode will be back to normal, but we’ve watched six episodes so far and each episode has been good, yes, but still below par for the previous 4 seasons high precedent. 

In season five of the Wire, we see Jimmy McNulty screwing up his life again after meeting a wonderful woman who in season 4 he seemed to be enjoying a domestically blissful life with by going out and getting drunk and womanizing again.  We follow his self destruction again as we say to ourselves, ooh, Jimmy no, and that part is also a little hard to watch, although true to his character, so kudos to the writers on not writing a fair tale into this season I guess.

I miss the characters that really made us love them in previous seasons, like Bunny, Randy, Prezbo the teacher/cop, and others that we either haven’t glimpsed in this season or see very little of.  My boyfriend also mentioned that the story line of Omar, the renegade Robin Hood of drug dealers and thugs, isn’t really fulfilling and I have to agree so far.  Could season five get a lot better still?  Sure, but I’m not going to count my chickens til they hatch, and if there’s any indication so far, it looks like it will definitely be the weakest season of the Wire so far.  I’ll keep you Wire fans posted!

It’s so funny that we are watching and absolutely loving the HBO show “The Wire”, because we were both reluctant to try the series out because we thought it might just be another lame cop show.  Boy were we wrong.  Although the first season took a while to develop the main characters, once you were hooked in to the story line, you really began to care for the characters, and you even liked the bad guys and wanted to see them succeed, not just the “good guys”.  Shows that have this sort of dichotomy are rare, and it just goes to show how good writing can manipulate people’s emotions and make them think of how there are always two sides to every story.

Each season of the wire has focused around different stories and different groups of people from different walks of life.  The 4th season centers around an inner city Baltimore school that has gone completely out of control, and of course there are also subplots galore, even with one of the Wire favorites, Omar, who loves to mess with the drug dealer’s stashes, and makes a good living from it.  However, he finds himself on the defensive when there is a price on his head and he’s thrown into jail on false murder charges.

The only character that is not really likeable or compelling in the fourth season is actually the object of the latest Wire, named Marlo, a new kid in town who’s taken over most of Avon Barksdale’s corners, and seems to have a penchant for making people mad and not following the rules - he’s a cocky guy, and it’s hard to take him, and he definitely isn’t likeable, but I think that’s what the writers wanted this season.  In other words, you cared if you saw Stringer Bell or Avon Barksdale or Omar get killed, but you would actually relish the idea of this Marlo guy getting killed because he has no charisma. 

With the cops now chasing after evidence against Marlo, and having a hard time finding the “bodies” to get him, you find yourself rooting for the kids at the inner city school and hoping that they don’t take the path that so many of their peers do, especially when being tempted all the time by Marlo’s henchman to play corners and sell drugs.  Marlo’s henchman are just as unlikeable and cold blooded, Snoop and Chris.

Each season of the Wire is unique and brings in new characters, but the really cool thing about it is how they hook you in and at first you think nothing is happening for the first episode or two, but the acting is so good and the emotions run high, and you soon find yourself caring for these characters like they were family. 

We just started season two of the acclaimed HBO series “The Wire”, and I must say, although we started off slow on this and questioning whether we really liked it or not, we are now as addicted to the show and the characters as we were to The Sopranos.  In keeping with the tradition of great scripts and even better acting, The Wire is a superb show that focuses on the characters and makes you like all of them - from the killer thugs to the hapless bystanders to the cops that chase them down via elaborate wires and various other methods of secret surveillance.

The Wire is about a group of detectives and cops that are assembled to help bring down a new drug ring - at least one that’s new to them, that’s becoming a little too violent.  The show is set in the slums of Baltimore, and the first season centers around an investigation and subsequent uncovering of a drug ring run by Avon Barksdale.  Barksdale remains an elusive character until one cop who pretty much keeps his mouth shut on works on his miniature pieces of furniture figures out who he is by putting a name to a face from a local boxing club.

We are introduced to so many character this first season that we can barely keep their names and faces straight, but we ultimately end up caring about what happens to each and every one of them, which is a hard thing to do for most television shows, especially where the line between good and bad becomes very thin and unrecognizable in most cases.

Now that we are on the second season of the series, we can barely wait to watch the next one, and it’s not because each episode ends with some huge cliffhanger, it kind of ends on a low key note, like the Sopranos usually did, we just genuinely can’t wait to see our characters in action and what’s going to happen in the next one and how the plot develops.  The plots are original. 

Those that expect a lot of violence like the Sopranos has may be disappointed though, it’s low on violence except few scenes that graphically depict murder scenes, but the disturbing graphic violence of the Sopranos caliber won’t be found here, and it’s actually refreshing and it works because the series still maintains that gritty, slightly reckless tone.  I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who can follow a script for a while without getting impatient and can get the names down before giving up on it - it’s well worth the wait. 

Breaking Bad, a newer comedy on the AMC network, was something that we had recorded in our DVR for several months before actually taking the time to sit down and watch the first episode.  Finally, we ran out of room on the TV it was recording on, and were forced to watch it.  Being “forced” to watch something never had such a good outcome!  We both really loved this show, which stars the uber talented Bryan Cranston, whom you may recognize as the zany and flawed, but loveable father in “Malcolm in the Middle”. 

Bryan pulls off much of that same loveable yet flawed and zany way in this show, only he’s a man who is dealing with more than too many kids and a screaming wife.  He is a mild mannered high school chemistry teacher who we see in the first episode, also happens to get very little respect from people in life, including sometimes his own wife, her macho brother, and an employer at a car wash where he moonlights to support his son who has cerebral palsy, and his pregnant wife. 

You feel for the buy because he seems kind of like that poor schlep who is really smart but just got stuck working a job that barely pays the bills.  He seems earnest, yet you always sense there is a volcanoe brewing beneath his exterior that is waiting to make both a hilarious and frightening explosion.  He’s the guy who’s had it with people, and to top it off we see him suffering from an awful cough and being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in the first episode. 

His character, Walter White, decides to live life a bit more on the edge after his diagnosis, and forgos telling his wife or son that he is dying of lung cancer and possibly only have months to a few years to live.  We see him lash out at strangers who are making fun of his son in a store, tell his boss to f off at his second job, and attack his wife in bed like he never has before, if you know what I mean. 

The pilot alone shows one of the most interesting character evolutions I’ve ever seen, especially in just one hour, and the pilot I would say is probably one of the best pilots I’ve ever seen, because it made me want to immediately watch the next episode.  If you’re looking for a feel good show, this probably isn’t it, as it is laced with satyrical, dark comedy the whole way through, and yet you find yourself rooting for this gu who’s never gotten a break from anyone, and well, he’s just not gonna take it any more! 

It gives new meaning to the Tim Mcgraw song that you should “live like you were dying”. 

Natalie was finally given the big old boot from the Big Brother 9 house this week, and I think a lot of viewers were sighing a big sigh of relief.  I was wondering if it was just me that she annoyed, but even my boyfriend can’t stand her.  There is something about a religious hypocrite that really drives people wild, and she’s is that, to a T, either that or the BB producers are very good editors and make her appear that way. 

I’m not sure if a woman of God would be wearing outfits that look like something a hooker would wear on a street corner or be doing favors for Mattie under the covers if you know what I mean (wink, wink).  It’s true if you haven’t seen the footage - there’s footage of Natalie mysteriously disappearing under the covers in Mattie’s nether regions and emerging later only for him to thank her and call her a good girl.  Umm, ok, that’s not very Christian!

Natalie seemed like she was almost gonna pull off winning the POV, or so the editors would have you believe since they led us to believe she had the lowest puzzle-solving time on the screen the last they showed it.  Natalie is really good at puzzles, so that really put a kink in Sheila’s plan when they all found it was going to be a puzzle challenge.  However, Adam aka “A Baller” pulled it off, and consequently pulled himself off the block. 

Sheila couldn’t convince both of the guys, a gutless Adam and Ryan to both vote Natalie out of the house, so Adam ended up giving her a sympathy vote while Ryan voted her out, making Sheila cast the deciding vote.  Nice way to try to garner another jury house vote Adam, but not very smooth move for you game play.  I understand you’re a “nice guy”, but if you couldn’t see that Natalie is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and all her Jesus talk wasn’t a thin disguise for her true reason to be in the game - pure greed for the 500k prize, then you are easily fooled and don’t deserve the 500k. 

Ugh, this is another BB season where the most deserving contestant isn’t going to win the money, and that is James.  I guess that’s part of the frustration when you watch a reality show though, you really can’t control the outcome, especially in a house full of clueless people. 

The new edition of The burned out Apprentice show helmed (hosted) by none other than Mr. Self Promotion Donald Trump has actually got some pretty good TV moments in store if you, like me, had burned out on the show after the great first season.  Even though the first season did drag on too long, with Bill Rancik winning (by the way, he’s now hitched to a popular entertainment tv host), it was an innovative idea, thought of by none other than the pioneer of reality tv himself, who was also behind Survivor and several other British reality tv shows.

As it looked like the Apprentice would surely be cancelled, Mr. Trump, or his producers, seemed to pull another new trick out of their hat that has reportedly had the show renewed for another season, one of the oldest tricks in the book, to get celebrities on the show and watch them go at it just like the regular folks do, maybe even worse. 

This is a good idea, because if you think about it, most celebrities have big egos and already have certain ideas about how they should be treated and talked to, and throwing them into this kind of situation, where brains and resources really are all that back you up, was an interesting study in human “pack” mentality.

Throw in some eccentricity, like they did in casting Stephen Baldwin, a born again Christian, Gene Simmons, and the guy from the Sopranos who played Big Pussy who apparently believes the he is really a part of the mob in real life, and you’ve got one entertaining show.  Oh, he was also smart enough to recast another of the most reknown tv villains, Omarosa, who was the villain of all villains in season one with her primadonna ways and conniving backstabbing. 

The new Celebrity Apprentice leaves you waiting for the next season, to see which egos will butt heads this week.  It’s definitely interesting, and I’d recommend that anyone who wants to see heads butt and egos clash try to watch this scintillating bit of guilty pleasure tv. 

For all you history buffs out there, this HBO series is going to have to be at the top of your Netflix qeu or your Blockbuster to rent list.  Not only is the acting superb and the actors spot-on for the characters they play, in look, poise and mannerisms, but the opulent sets are enough to make you believe what you are watching is a true piece of history.  Too bad the opulent and expensive sets are the reason this show did not renew for a third season, which I’m really disappointed about, and from the looks of the reviews the second season is getting, I’ll be even more disappointed when there is no more “Rome” for me to watch.

I just finished the first season, which takes place in those last few years that Julius Caesar was in power, and ends with Caesar’s demise at the hands of at least dozen of his own senate, on the senate floor in the political forum no less.  It brings back memories of those high school history classes, where I was actually, for once, glued to the lesson for that day and not bored in the least.  I think even if you don’t have a taste for history, you can appreciate the Rome series as an epic film of sorts, each show being a mini movie on its own.

The show is full of all the things that modern day addictive tv has, like romance, sex, intrigue, murder, and betrayal, only it is presented in such a way that never comes off as forced, because it is, after all, based (if not somewhat loosely) on real life events.  The actors are British, as far as I can tell, and many of them I’ve never heard of, although their styles make me think they were or are theater actors. 

Kevin McKidd plays Lucius Vorenus, a noble but poor man who is raised through the ranks by Caeasar, as a means to get the people on his side since he is a poor man’s hero, and the excellent Ray Stevenson plays Titus Pullo, and the show largely shows the events of Rome through their eyes.  Both men are more than capable actors,and they both have since gone on to bigger and hopefully better things, with McKidd playing “Journeyman” on the new network show, and Ray Stevenson is set to play the new Punisher avenger in the comic series movies. 

Ricky Gervais, the unsung, but yes he’s in the credits, hero of The Office, the American version, has another hilarious comedy where he plays a similar character to his Office (British version) character called Extras on HBO right now.  It’s about movie extras who are trying to make their way to the top in the tough world of Hollywood while working humiliating lower level jobs as tiny bit parts in movies.  Ricky Gervais plays one of the extras.  He has a lousy agent who doens’t do anything for him, and from the first episode, he seems to have terrible luck with women, just like his Office character.

Unlike the Office though, he is not as much of an idiot, intellectually in this show, and he actually understands complex words and how to use them in sentences.  He also apparently knows how to talk to people, but has a bumbling room mate (a woman) who doesn’t seem to know how to keep her foot out of her mouth.  Gervais however, is almost a Larry David like character in that he gets stuck in situations that are impossible and ends up digging himself in to a deeper hole, even if he has the best intentions.

Nonetheless, Extras is fun to watch, and Gervais is still the master of the uncomfortable moment, the expression, and acting like a guy who really means well but ends up looking like the a$%hole in the end almost every time.  You can’t help but root for the poor fool, and yet you love watching as he gets himself into embarrassing situations time and time again.  Bottom line is if you like Curb Your Enthusiasm and the British versioni of The Office, you’ll really like Extras.  Oh, you may want to have subtitles on, since the accents are pretty heavy at times. 

The new season of Larry David’s show (he’s the co-creator of Seinfeld) is one of the best he’s done yet, in my opinion.  One thing that we both noticed though is that the hilarious comedian and idea man has lost tons of weight.  Come to find out, it might be because, just as his character experiences, the poor guy experienced going through a divorce in real life lately with his wife of several years!

Oh, where to begin with the episodes.  Of course, they’re all kind of Seinfeld-ian in nature, where some little incident always makes it’s way back around to bite him in the butt.  Among some of those incidents is him taking a bouquet of flowers from a friend’s mothers grave when he can’t go find any flowers for his wife.  Of course, his friend finds out he did it and he’s in hot water. 

Then there’s the one where he donates money to a charity and puts his name on a plaque, only to be outdone by his frienemy Ted Danson who donates “anonymously” and gets more credit than if he would have put his name on a plaque for being modest.  Larry does the same thing, only to have that faux-pas come full circle when he’s being chased by hoodlums on the street and the security guy won’t let him in because his name doesn’t appear on the plaque.

The infamous divorce episode is when Larry’s wife Cheryl, played by the great actress Cheryl Heines, is on a plane that she is convinced is going to go down, and calls Larry on one of the plane’s phones, only to have him dismiss her and have her call him back because the TiVo repair guy is there and he can’t hear him and her at the same time.  Cheryl tells Larry she’s leaving when she comes home, and she actually goes on a date with the guy that was sitting next to her on the plane just a couple days later. 

A guy with hair, and that really bothers Larry since he’s bald.  Oh, then there’s the bald episode that’s all about being discriminated against because you’re bald.  Anyways, to sum it up, there is some great writing in this season, and it looks as if Mr. David did a lot of the writing himself judging by the credits. The show’s not for everyone, and I do have some friends that just don’t really think it’s funny, but if you get into it, it’s even better than Seinfeld.  It’s really just a more vulgar, dirty version of Seinfeld!   

OK, I never thought I’d say this, but that new show that’s based on the cavemen that were made (sort of) famous by the Geico commercials, isn’t as bad as I had thought.  My boyfriend actually DVR’d the show for us just to take a look at, since we both thought it would more or less be a train wreck that we just felt compelled to see, and we were almost surprised when we found ourselves laughing and giggling at certain points during the show.

The show centers around 3 cavemen who are living amongst modern men or “homosapiens” and find themselves caught in situations of discrimination, or at least what they perceive as discrimination.  It also is just kind of funny to see these men with acentuated brow bones, chins, and a lot of hair walking around amongst regular guys. 

There is the quintessential sensitive guy, the jerk who thinks that cavemen should only date within their “genus” - you’ll get that joke if you see the first show - and the regular guy stuck in the middle who’s just trying to be the “regular guy” who has a normal life, but has a wimpy brother and a smartass best friend.  You might be pelasantly surprised if you watch the show, but if not, then turn it off!