Breaking Bad was a fun ride, but it was ultimately written by committee, and pandered it's way out of telling a proper story. By the end it was a great big ball of fan service. The Shield was BY FAR the better story. It created a believable character breaking bad over time, and was masterful in showing just how someone actually trying to do the right thing could gradually do more and more wrong things, to support the altruistic motive that doesn't really exist any more. People talk about character development in Walter White, it was virtually non-existent. He wasn't a person, he was a caricature. Worse still was Jessie. He went from stoned idiot to cunning strategist the second they decided to keep him on the show, it was a prime example of inconsistent writing. Breaking Bad kept writing itself into and out of corners, and it didn't do it very well. They literally created scenes with no idea how they were going to write beyond them, and it left some pretty gaping holes.
The Wire was a complex tapestry of characters that told a layered story about the core issues of the drug trade in Baltimore. With one minor exception it never served the fans, every detail served the story. For this reason, there are people that don't like it. There were no grandiose, ridiculous scenes made for the sole reason of making the fans happy. The Wire had twenty times as much going on and you had to really pay attention. I remember a cartoon talking about the wire, it said "that shit's dense".
I loved Breaking Bad and have no issue with people who preferred it to The Wire, but better? That's ridiculous. The quality of writing and level of story in The Wire crushes Breaking Bad, which should not be in the conversation.
Edit - changed "mastermind" to "strategist".
