HBO has been known for influential series such as The Sopranos, Band of Brothers and more recently Boardwalk Empire. While we were still watching SpongeBob and had to be in bed at nine HBO was airing a triple threat of series with The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and The Wire. The Wire fell behind though. The huge success of The Sopranos overshadowed what some critics called the greatest show ever on television.

At first The Wire seems to be a simple crime drama, good guys vs. drug dealers and kingpins, but as the seasons progress you realize The Wire is more a look into the different facets of the inner workings of the city of Baltimore, where the show is set.

In chronological order the show examines the illegal drug trade, the porting system, the city government, the school system, and the newspaper system.

Creator David Simon who was a homicide reporter for the Baltimore Sun used some of his experiences as a basis for some of The Wire, such as the fifth season in which the Baltimore Sun and the entire newspaper system is examined.

The show has several characters so the storyline jumps from character to character and story to story. The story usually jumps from whatever ongoing police investigation is going on, to the criminals under investigation, and then to whatever specific facet is being examined that season.

The cast was made of up of virtual unknowns that helped add to the realism of the show. Dominic West is centralized in most of the seasons as Detective Jimmy McNulty who can’t seem to separate his case from his personal life and can’t seem to separate alcohol from everything.

Lance Reddick who plays a Lieutenant who is trying to advance up the ranks but fails to realize it isn’t just about good police work and locking up a case but who you know and who you’ve pissed off.

Due to it’s diversity, realism, and trueness to the real life trials and tribulations of police officers and the corruption of the city that surrounds them, The Wire has been included as a part of the curriculum in Urban Inequality at Harvard University. The Wire has also been studied at Johns Hopkins and Brown University in the courses of Sociology.

I received the entire box set series of The Wire for Christmas and on January 18^th at 4:00 AM and after 60 hours of episodes I was done. It was the first time ever after a TV series that I wanted more. It wasn’t even a cliffhanger or an ending in which they left any loose ends, I just wanted to watch what happened in these characters lives more and more.

Before I saw The Wire I would have said Scrubs was my favorite TV show but after what can only be described as a three week onslaught of The Wire it now reigns supreme as my personal favorite TV show of all time.