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Finally got a chance to complete all 5 seasons of The Wire recently, finishing off the holy trinity of Breaking Bad, The Sopranos and The Wire.

I remember all the praise these series got at the time but was just too busy to get through The Wire at the time. Now that I have, I gotta say, I'm missing why people thought these three series were pretty close to equal in terms of quality. To me, it's not even close.

The Sopranos is by a very wide margin the best of the bunch. And by a wide margin, Tony Soprano is much more interesting that Walter White or James McNulty as the main characters. And the gap between White and McNulty is equally wide. Beyond the leads, The Sopranos introduced so many compelling characters. Mainstays like Paulie, Christopher, Uncle June, and Sil were great, and the bit characters who joined for a season or a few episodes were all so memorable - Pussy, Ralphie, Furio, Phil Leotardo, Tony Blundetto, Ritchie, Gloria. Other than Walter and Jesse, and maybe Hank, I didn't really care about any of the other regular characters other than Tuco and Saul. For The Wire, I didn't really feel anything for the main characters. They were just there.

In terms of overall strength of seasons, I don't really think The Sopranos had a weak one. It started strong, stayed at a high level and never wavered. The Wire started almost as strong but really fizzled towards the end. It's best seasons included Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell. After they left the show really fell. I felt obliged to finish Season 5 but it was really dumb (the fake serial killer thing was so weak). As for Breaking Bad, season 1 is so bad. Couldn't really get into it. I started and stopped watching it three times before I was finally able to get through it. It really got rolling for me somewhere in Season 2 when Saul anf Gus were introduced.

Overall, I'd rank them:

1. The Sopranos
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2. Breaking Bad
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3. The Wire