The Wire > The Sopranos
According to Last Week's Poll
Or rather, most people who voted in last week's poll felt The Wire ended better than The Sopranos.
The very last episode of The Wire evar aired last night, so I figured it might be interesting to pit its ending against the way controversial ending of The Sopranos to see which one most people preferred, especially since this past season of The Wire hasn't been without its issues as well.
I didn't realize when I created the poll though that those fags over at HBO, who really have been testing my patience for the past three years now, weren't gonna put the last episode On Demand until today. So you couldn't really say for certain which series ended better until the poll was damn near over.
At any rate, here's the results of last week's poll.
Which series ended better?
- The Wire (109 votes)
- The Sopranos (40 votes)
And wouldn't you know, most people preferred the ending of The Wire to the ending of The Sopranos. I wonder though, if people just voted for The Wire because they like it in general more than they like The Sopranos. Especially since, like I said, I imagine a lot of people hadn't actually seen the last episode of The Wire before they voted. And as I recall, this site's readership does prefer The Wire to The Sopranos. (It's more real, you see.)
Personally, I think The Sopranos had the better ending of the two series, with the caveats that neither of the series ended as well they could have, and I can appreciate the fact that The Wire's creators were severely hamstrung in their efforts by the TIs at HBO, who obviously hate their subscriber base. This last season of The Wire would have almost certainly been better if it had run for 13, or 15, episodes instead of having everything packed into 10 episodes with an hour and thirty-five minute-long finale. As if HBO actually has anything else worthwhile to run on Sunday nights now.
I think that last episode of The Sopranos rubbed people the wrong way (nullus?), but I've since come to appreciate it quite a bit. This last season of The Wire, meanwhile, was way more flawed to me than The Sopranos got even at its most contrived, to the point where I really couldn't enjoy the series as much. Watching those last eight episodes of The Sopranos, I don't recall thinking, "Wow, I can't believe they dropped the ball like that," nearly as many times as I did watching the last season of The Wire. Which is not to say, that I don't like The Wire, or even this last season. I'm just saying.
