Folks who have watched Breaking Bad, The Wire, and The Sopranos; how would you rank them?

I'm biased because I'm from Maryland and have been in Baltimore for a while so I put the wire first, then sopranos, then breaking bad.

They are all great shows but The Wire and The Sopranos really broke new ground for storytelling on TV. Breaking Bad stood on the shoulders of giants, I guess.

I would like to say that BB is better than The Wire, but it isn't. Sopranos I assume would be at the bottom.

The Wire

Justified

Breaking Bad

Sopranos

It is criminal that Justified is never included on these lists. Only McNulty compares to Raylan Givens.

Here's the Guru's opinion:

The Wire has the best social commentary out of the three. Truly fantastic. Also great characters and great acting. Breaking Bad I think has the best story, and the visuals of the show are remarkable. Also great characters and acting.

The Sopranos I have only seen the first 4 seasons or so. I stopped watching, not becuase I didn't like it, I did, but...well I can't remember why I didn't I'm sure something came up. But that never happened with the other two so I put it last.

Tough one, but I say

The Wire

Breaking Bad

Sopranos.

The social commentary of The Wire edges out the great story telling and visuals of Breaking Bad.

The Wire & Justified rule

"The Mary Tyler Moore Show" blows all those puppies away.

The Wire

The Sopranos

Breaking Bad

They are the three greatest shows ever.

The Wire, the Sopranos, and Deadwood are the elite.

Breaking Bad a rung or two below. White man macho fantasy

[quote].??..? wrote:

The Wire

Justified

Breaking Bad

Sopranos

It is criminal that Justified is never included on these lists.

No. There is a reason it is not included

I'm about to start the Sopranos but I rank Breaking Bad over The Wire. The Wire was good, almost like a good, slow novel but I liked the action and acting in Breaking Bad better.

The Wire was the best show at it's time but I feel it's been surpassed. And now that everyone is jumping on the Breaking Bad bandwagon, you have the TV hipster types trying to go back to The Wire to appear sophisticated instead of trendy.

Hopefully Better Call Saul has some excellent writing as well.

I've never actually seen the Wire but Breaking bad is definitely better than the sopranos. Stick with breaking bad it gets a lot better in series 3

The Wire had an opinion about the drug trade. BB was agnostic. BB didn't say, "the War on drugs is ludicrous". It didn't highlight that poor people are the ones who most often end up in jail. BB said nothing about the mindless zeal of the DEA.

The Sopranos are first and the others are not even close.

Breaking Bad and Justified are guilty pleasures at best. Akin to "The Shield" a few years back.

Watchable but not much more

I agree, Justified can hold it's own with these three amazing shows.

I confess to not having seen the Sopranos from gun to tape, and like the guy below, can't now remember why I stopped watching, but it's telling, for me, that I did.

The Wire and BB, I just gorged on both.

This may be a cop-out, but I think it's impossible to compare them as their creators clearly had such different aims in mind. David Simon was clearly enraged in a Dickensian way about the war on drugs and was using the Wire as a vehicle to express that rage. The acting was awesome, characters great, the "verite" was groundbreaking......it succeeded utterly as both a work of art and as a polemic.

Gilligan, on the other hand wanted to explore the law of unintended consequences using the vehicle of an ingenue chemistry teacher as he turns utter badass.

The cinematography of BB is outstanding, the best of any drama series I can ever remember. Each scene is almost a mini-work-of-art in it's own right. And the character Walter White will be remembered for as long as TV itself is remembered.

Each show also has incredible supporting characters - Omar, Wallace, Clay Davis, the brooding Avon.......and BB has Skyler (seriously underrated in my view), the hilarious Saul, Hank et al.......

Again each show has moments of directorial self-indulgence - on the Wire where McNulty and Bunk go through a whole scene saying nothing but the word f uk and in BB where Gus is blown to smithereens and comes out still standing and adjusting his tie.

But at the end, both shows are incredible testaments to their creators. Personally, I think it's invidious to rate them - enjoy them on their own merits.

Wire

Breaking Bad

Sopranos

The Wire is the best TV drama ever. Brilliantly juxtaposed cop drama with city hall politics, union/waterfront workers, education and journalists. Captured every aspect of each and even got the goofy half southern half northern Baltimore accent right in a few characters.

Breaking Bad and Sopranos are almost a tie. Sopranos jumped the shark a bit by staying around a season or two more than needed. And the finale was a dud. Both had wonderful characters and concepts (drug dealing high school chemistry teacher, mob boss who goes to therapy).

I would add Deadwood to the list.

I have not been able to get into Justified. Might try it again as I really like Oliphant from his Deadwood days.

1. The Wire - not one bad episode in 5 seasons

2. Breaking Bad

3. The Sopranos - had some episodes that were less than stellar

Been watching season one of The Wire over the past few months, and while good, it hasn't really pulled me into it and made me add every disk to my Netflix queue. It's got the Brendan Fraser clone as the lead detective, the lesbian cop who likes to make out with her gfs, the guy from Fringe that everyone wants for their boss, the gang-banger with his homo boyfriend, and the self-reflective drug dealer questioning his way of life. Guess it must have felt edgy in its day, but you see that stuff on the main networks during prime time nowadays.

I'd rank them:

Breaking Bad

Sopranos

Justified

The Wire