In this episode I talk again about stranger things, but this time I contrast it with the Wire. Like I said in the last episode, stranger things is a vibes show, whereas the wire is a complete characters and writing driven show.

I talk about how the writing in the wire made it so that the characters and situations drove the action in an almost inevitable way in a world that almost has its own completely consistent internal logic. Like once you have the situations and the characters, things unfold as they must, with regular random elements steering things one way or the other.

The wire essentially never did any sort of heightened reality, and they did basically no deus ex machina, and all of the tension is character based and grounded in realistic situations.

I also talk about the Mad Men vs the Wire Shakespearean vs Greek tragedy comparison that I read somewhere. In the former the action is driven by the will of the protagonist, whereas in the latter the action is based on fate. I’m as attracted to the former in stories as much as anyone, but the latter is my fundamental worldview.

But I do end with the fact that I’ve rewatched stranger things a few times over the past five years, whereas I haven’t rewatched the Wire in almost 10 years.