Josh

Just wanted to point out how much this little aside made me laugh.

Man, I'm 3 episodes into The Wire, Season 4.

Living fuck, what a cast.

If you ever want to discuss Gremlins 2, I'm your man.

Ohmanohmanohman that means you're coming up to my favourite season! Also, something I just remembered about The Wire season 3 Further Wire, Season 3, comments: Can't wait for Season 4.

Just finished The Wire, Season 3. I don't know if I can sleep after that.

Something about it really did it for me. And, yes, the ending is tremendous.

I get flak for when I say so, but Magnolia is one of my favorites. So many things to like. It's also the film that began my eternal Julianne Moore crush.

It will be confusing at times, at least for the first few episodes, but once you get used to putting most of the faces and names together you'll be hooked.

His name is Ellis.

Just finished The Wire, Season 2. I'm gonna miss this when it's all done.

Really? I'm slippin'.

You mean The Pizza Thrower. The van had no pizzas, as it was not dubbed The Pizza Thrower. And, damnhellyeswow, I always wanted the Technodrome. I also wanted Giant Wrestler Body Krang, but only had Mr. Burns in the Future Krang.

To be fair, that van was way more fun to play with that the rock soldiers were, and that's pretty much the basis of the series.

Wait, who's Reptile Poochie in this analogy? Venus? Oh wait, there was a villain who sort of supplanted Krang and Shredder, wasn't there? I'm blanking here. I'm talking about the pizza-eating mutant teenagers who are super-cool ninjas who crack jokes and party down. Come on, it's totally true and nobody wants to admit it. Did you ever watch the episode where Tick and Arthur go into the sewer to help Sewer Urchin? We all learn that Sewer Urchin is secretly the coolest motherfucker on the planet. No way could I support anyone but the heroes on The Tick. See, the Poochie thing threw me off since I thought you were implying a late addition. And while Sewer Urchin is definitely, definitely one cool motherfucker, I can't deny a giant Ricardo Montalban imitating flower or The Evil Midnight Bomber You Know The Rest. I'm not saying they were better, I'm saying they were every bit as cool and fun as any hero the series had.

Wait, who's Reptile Poochie in this analogy? Venus? Oh wait, there was a villain who sort of supplanted Krang and Shredder, wasn't there? I'm blanking here. But yeah, Krang was impossibly fun. Another (probably unfair) example of this would be basically all of The Tick's rogues gallery.

I know I'm not even halfway through The Wire, as a series, but I cannot possibly imagine tiring of Omar.

Yeah, like I said, it's the closest answer I have to the question, but it doesn't really fit. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to at least be annoyed by him.

I want to say most of the casts of basically every HBO drama, but that's hardly fair. Those shows are - more often than not - meant to blur the line between protagonist and antagonist, if I may oversimplify a bit. I've been going through The Wire lately, and a character that comes to mind here (even though he's not really in either category you're talking about) is Ziggy. I'm 9 episodes deep into Season 2, and I quickly grew to hate Ziggy. Now that I'm nearing the end of Season 2, my opinion is changing. But, like I said, you can chalk that up more to David Simon and the show's writers intentionally playing with the audiences feelings toward certain types of characters. Moreover, that character is meant to have that sort of arc.

That could be fun, but I'd prefer a full season series that focuses on more ancillary or lesser-known characters.

Yeah, as they mentioned, the 10 Essential Episodes are meant to use the Gateway Episodes they listed as a jumping off point. I'd say all of them together are a pretty good cross-section of the series.

Hell, why not. 1. Sesame Street 2. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood 3. Yo Gabba Gabba 4. The Tick 5. Reading Rainbow 6. Muppet Babies 7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 8. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe 9. Chip n' Dale's Rescue Rangers 10. TaleSpin

The A.V. Club has an article up that names 10 Essential MST3K Episodes. They've already done a "gateway episodes" feature (which is linked to in this one), so the intent's a little different here. A few of these are surprising picks, in my view, but I totally get why they're there.

There's a new one up with Ricky Gervais! I liked the Larry David one more, but this is fun.