the wire.

Just as an aside: To this day, I still don't think there's been a series on TV as powerful overall as Roots. I watched it nearly 40 years ago, and I still remember parts of it well. I wonder if it still holds up today.

I loved Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men (in that order of preference).

I want to love The Wire, but I only like The Wire. I'm (slowly) watching, up to Season 3 right now. I like it and I'll keep watching, but I just don't eagerly anticipate watching the next episode like I did with the other shows. I can't quite put my finger on why but to me it's a cut below the others.

The book is awesome. It's massive and I picked it up at a garage sale for a buck or so on a whim, not really thinking i'd ever read it. But I started it, and after a bit of a slowish start, it was tremendous. It may well be the best book I ever read.

unicorn33 said:
Just as an aside: To this day, I still don't think there's been a series on TV as powerful overall as Roots. I watched it nearly 40 years ago, and I still remember parts of it well. I wonder if it still holds up today.

I'm embarrassed to say that I never read the book, but I think that was at least partly because of how the TV series affected me. I was so profoundly moved by the depiction of events and so often brought to tears. But it was also such a painful experience. I, of course, had read and learned about the horrors of slavery, but that one series made them real to me in a way I had not experienced before.

I also vividly recall what a phenomenon that series was in 1977. Just about everyone was watching it--and this was before VCRs, so we were watching in real time. I remember that the last episode was telecast on a weekend evening, and I was at a party. When the hour rolled around ((9:00? 10:00?), the party essentially stopped, and everyone sat down in front of the TV.

Student_Council said:
The book is awesome. It's massive and I picked it up at a garage sale for a buck or so on a whim, not really thinking i'd ever read it. But I started it, and after a bit of a slowish start, it was tremendous. It may well be the best book I ever read.

unicorn33 said:
Just as an aside: To this day, I still don't think there's been a series on TV as powerful overall as Roots. I watched it nearly 40 years ago, and I still remember parts of it well. I wonder if it still holds up today.