[mikeash]

Why does "character driven" have to imply "starts slow"?

Maybe we have different ideas of what that phrase mean, but for example, I'd say that Firefly was "character driven" and yet was able to hook me (and lots of other people) within about ten minutes.

Anyway, the discussion here isn't so much about why people like or dislike The Wire, but more of a meta-discussion about how you can determine whether a show is worth watching, and how much of something you have to see before you're allowed to say you didn't like it. dublinben seems to imply that you can't declare dislike unless you've literally watched the entire thing from beginning to end. The question is then raised as to why you'd spend that much time watching a series if you didn't like what you saw of it to start with, and responses which talk about how great The Wire is once you put a lot of time into it are then entirely missing the point.

[dalore]

Which Firefly episode did you watch first though?

They are out of order.

[mikeash]

Serenity. I was so skeptical of the concept of a western-with-spaceships that I didn't try it until years after it aired, and so was able to watch it all in the proper order.

Experiences like that have made me truly interested in how you can really evaluate this stuff. People praise The Wire. I didn't like what I saw of it. Is it worth my time to keep watching it to see if my opinion changes? I don't have time to do that with everything, so there has to be an initial filter. How do you decide?

I tend to err heavily on the side of caution here. I'm happy not having any TV to watch, but I hate wasting hours on something bad. I'd rather miss out on something good if it comes down to it.