Why the comparison/contrast? They're so dissimilar in almost every aspect.
BB is naturally more popular: it's unashamedly pitched at commercial audiences. Its pop cultural memes and casual violence is classically American and instantly & to many audiences reassuringly familiar. It has much more accessible appeal as a non-critical escapist fantasy, instantly recognisable and non-threatening in nature. It's comfortable, familiar and predictable in a similar manner to much other crime drama, albeit taken from an unusually skewed aspect. The Faustian pact is a recurrent theme in contemporary drama.
My major criticism is that there's little or no exploration of the societal, cultural and familial damage wrought on contemporary society. Such baggage is far beyond the scope of this entertaining adult fantasy.
The Wire is far less accessible. There's no instantaneous gratification here. The subtlety, the obtuse interrelationships between characterisation and its saturnine development of plotlines I believe actually works against many viewer's expectations. Without thematic and episodic payoffs, many will likely lose interest, which is reflected I suspect in much of the series' dismissive criticism.
Therein, however, also lies an element of literary nonpareil that echoes through the ages. In a similar manner to classical greek drama we see that the gods are indeed capricious and jealous. Not all that appears right and fair may be so, and that which is seen as wrong is not necessarily existentially evil either. In fact the subtle dichotomies of good and evil are recurrent tropes that both enrich and elevate beyond any contemporary drama.
Some may actually find the screenplay's convoluted plotlines alienating and confusing. Not of themselves unnatural reactions to the unfortunate propensity for some to inevitably compare this Magnum Opus to comtemporary drama. The Wire vagariously defies most attempts of categorisation; the scope is just too large, and the subject too multi-faceted to allow a priori analysis.
If I were pressed to make analogous comparisons, then perhaps Breaking Bad is to be likened to popular music that would appear in the playlists of commercial radio stations, whereas The Wire would be more indicative perhaps of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, played live in a sequential week-long performance at Bayreuth.
For University Students of the future, tasked with analysing historic literary sources that illuminate urban decay & the reasons for the fall of the American Empire, which series do you think would be more helpful?
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