OK JayV, your post is a work of art. (scroll down aways) I'm sitting here laughing, giggling and thinking, wow, somebody is more opinionated than I am; a difficult thing to match, let alone best.

I ssuck cock by choice and I think your reference to that, as a put-down, is classic and ssublimely telling. Instead of taking offense, I take delight. Those who don't do it couldn't even begin to imagine what they're missing.

Thank you!

The Sopranos is just Mario Puzo's stream of consciousness. The length of it shows us more than we've ever seen of the mafia, but episode for episode, The Wire holds more clips, is better stylized, and leaves the audience not just stunned, but breathless.

The world that The Wire offers is more likely to have The Sopranos in it, than the other way around.

You won't find The Wire anywhere else. Its a world hinted at in books and films, not unfolded for us and examined from every angle. No where else on tv have I gotten the POV from not only the cops and robbers, but the politicians, the lawyers, the street riffraf, AND the kids who live there.

The Wire won my heart when it showed us the black boy's world. No where else on television has the drama that is young, disenfranchised, black, poor boys' lives been sifted through and understood.

This isn't a rap video about big pimping, grillz, naked girls, or the fantastic glamour of selling drugs. Its little black boys who don't know how to sell drugs, the mothers who make them do it, and the jail bird fathers who'd rather give them up for better, then hold them down for worse.

The Sopranos is a well spun caricature, so fantastic that it blinds. The Wire speaks to what I've seen and how I've lived; it takes the blinders off.

You know, I like both of these shows.

But I am once again put off by a critical community that has utterly lost hold of its moorings and has drifted into a place where something can't be praised without being praised to a level of utter absurdity. It's the era of hyperbole, where things can't just be good, they have to be the best ever, the most, the funniest, the smartest. There's not real ability to do the most important job of the critic, which is to draw distinctions and illuminate difference, because when everything is ballyhooed beyond all rationality, theres no meaning to any praise. What possible weight can a critic lauding something have, anymore? From The Sopranos to The Wire to The Arctic Monkeys to Little Miss Sunshine Harry Potter to the iPhone, we're constantly inundated with praise that strains credulity. It's simply exhausting to be a reader of criticism, these days. Why are reviewers so quick to abandon discretion, perspective, moderation, and reservation? When did an appropriate reticence become so unpopular?

We're truly drowning in media. There is simply endless amounts of ink (virtual or otherwise) and, I'm afraid people like Traister and Miller seem to think the only way to be heard is with the largest rhetorical megaphone. It's sad, really, and it does nothing to meaningfully enrich our appreciation of the things receiving praise.

I have to say, your post may be one of the single greatest achievements of the Salon letter writing community in the last ten years. Bravo!

And if anybody disagrees, the terrorists have already won.

I am guessing "Twin Peaks" is so far ahead of everything

else, it's not even considered a mere TV show anymore, right? :)

Though I agree with Freddie on our being inundated in garbage and the pettiness of lists and the pitting of works of art in Cage Matches to the Death...The Wire simply makes my heart sing in a way no other art ever has. I love me some Art...but I've never felt more respected and included than when I watch an episode of The Wire. No translations, no music, no 'framed experiences'...just respect for the characters and for the audience. Silences, glances, quiet revelations, gunfire, and drugs. The simple fact that the top-billed actor on the show barely shows up in the 4th season because he didn't serve the story. They didn't have the guts to kill Nate on Six Feet under until the second to last episode...

The Wire has yet to hit a false, forced note yet...and here's betting that this coming final season will not disappoint.

"They screw up, they get beaten. We screw up, we get a pension."

Beats The Sopranos hands down. More complex themes, more compelling characters, and incredibly entertaining.

I started renting this show from Netflix because of the rave reviews, but couldn't make it through the first season. I gave up after the episode in which Soprano threatens his daughter's soccer coach because he was going to leave for better job. After that stupidity, I checked on IMDb, and found the shrink was in almost every episode. I knew I didn't want to watch five more seasons of him going to the shrink every episode, so I bailed.

Why so many people think this show is so great baffles me. I guess it beats watching paint dry.

Best opening credits ever. If you have Netflix, go rent the first, only, aborted season of Firefly. Joss Whedon is a minor deity, and it still breaks my heart that Firefly got canceled.

I vote The Sopranos best American TV show of all time, without a doubt. But only third best overall, restricting myself to the English speaking world. Top billing is the TV adaptation of "I, Claudius", unspeakably spellbinding and the best acting ever caught on television, and second to Dennis Potter's "The Singing Detective" - sublime. (Fourth place, for what it's worth, to "Brideshead Revisited".) These were all much shorted series than The Sopranos, so there is much merit to be found in it's sustained greatness over 6 series. The biggest factor in The Sopranos greatness arises from it's creator's complete and well-placed contempt for television itself (respect, Mr Chase), so we may never see it's quality again. He slipped it through, it was a one-off!