http://poursomegravyonme.co.uk/2009/09/01/man-on-the-wire/

It’s actually quite an interesting phenomenum when you apply it to US TV, which obviously has much longer running series. I still watch Smallville because I’ve been watching it for so long, even though it makes me want to put my foot through the telly.

How much TV do people watch out of some kind of loyalty? I think I probably need a separate post about ‘the soap effect’.

I absolutely loved TWW. Still do. And adored practically all the characters. CJ (obviously), Josh, Toby, Leo, Donna, Sam, the Pres….aw heck, just about everyone except the cursed Mandy, the loathsome Amy Gardner (boo! hiss!) and the you-are-no-Sam-Seaborn-stop-trying-to-be-you-whiny-ass Will Bailey. Beautifully crafted, special, funny and serious tv that said something worth saying just about every week and was hugely influential to boot. I know what you mean about S60, which was flawed, but for me it was always just a doomed attempt to recapture TWW magic but you can’t make running a comedy show seem as worthwhile as running the country so it was never going to work as well. Have any of you ever tried Sorkin’s “Sports Night” though? A sort of early S60 set behind the scenes of a sports newscast and a pre-cursor to TWW – it was really good as well.

(BTW, on the Ainsley front, I thought she disappeared because the actress got the regular gig on CSI Miami? I could be wrong….)

But the part of your post that really struck a chord with me Sherby was about the Soap Effect – for me it didn’t kick in for STTNG (which I watched once a week on BBC2 right till the bitter end) but fellow ST show Voyager and also (shoot me now) JAG. I somehow got sucked into watching them because they were more or less on all the time, despite the fact I thought they were terrible. I forgot about that soon enough and became addicted, just like you describe. Now they’re both finished, but still on endless repeat, and if I switch either one of them on, I can stand about a minute before wanting to put my foot through the tv. ARGH.

The only drama series that I have on DVD is Battlestar Galactica (the new version of course), which is well worth a look even if you’re not in to sci-fi (and is well worth a blog post of its own). You should really try and watch the rest of The Wire, it’s just superb, and is almost designed to be watched multiple times. And that’s another blog post I need to write (you can’t call something the best TV show ever and not blog about it!!).. The only thing with writing about The Wire is that everything has already been said about it, so it’s a challenge to think of a fresh angle.

I can’t believe that people still criticise US TV, but then there are plenty of people who go completely the other way and slate UK TV. There was a time a decade or two ago when the US produced a lot of schlock TV, but since the advent of HBO, those days are long gone. I don’t like it though when people become so polarised as to only liking UK TV or US TV – they’re clearly both good at different things… And there is the third new blog post that I have to write!!

I’m a big fan of The Wire, but I’ve only seen up to episode 4 of season 4. I have it all on DVD but there’s so many other things to watch. I don’t understand there can be so many critics of American television these days when there is so much quality coming from there. I regularly watch 24, Entourage, Chuck, The Big Bang Theory, Lost, House, Heroes, Dexter, Scrubs, the list probably goes further but there’s too many to think of!

I’m interested to try a repeat viewing just to see what my opinions are on the early seasons a second time around. The complete series on DVD always seems to be on offer for around £50 with seems a total bargain (and if you spot this deal and have never seen the show then it’s a no-brainer). I just wonder if I would ever find the time to watch 150+ episodes when I struggle to watch what I currently have on my Sky Planner.

I’m currently re-watching ‘The Wire’, but FX have had the good sense to show one episode a week, making it easy to fit in the schedule, as opposed to BBC2 showing 3-4 episodes a week. Hopefully Channel 4 will choose to show them all from the beginning again at some point.