• From David Simon, creator and co-writer of HBO’s triple Emmy-winning mini-series The Corner, this unvarnished, highly realistic HBO series follows a single sprawling drug and murder investigation in Baltimore. Told from the point of view of both the police and their targets, the series captures a universe of subterfuge and surveillance, where easy distinctions between good and evil, and crime and

Unlike most television crime dramas, which neatly introduce and then solve a case all in the space of one hour, HBO’s THE WIRE follows one single drug and homicide investigation throughout the length of an entire season. Centered on the drug culture of inner-city Baltimore, the series’ storyline unfolds from the points of view of both the criminals lording the streets and the police officers determined to bring them down. This first season introduces detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) and his supervisor, Cedric Daniels (Lance Reddick), as they begin to pursue evidence against drug kingpin Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris). Meanwhile, Barksdale and his henchmen Stringer (Idris Elba) and Wee-Bey (Hassan Johnson) concern themselves with a rival drug dealer (Michael K. Williams) who’s been cutting into their profits. Created by writer David Simon (THE CORNER, HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET), THE WIRE’s multifaceted approach offers a nuanced overview of every aspect of the drug trade and the complex morality of its participants.After one episode of The Wire you’ll be hooked. After three, you’ll be astonished by the precision of its storytelling. After viewing all 13 episodes of the HBO series’ remarkable first season, you’ll be cheering a bona-fide American masterpiece. Series creator David Simon was a veteran crime reporter from The Baltimore Sun who cowrote the book that inspired TV’s Homicide, and cowriter Ed Burns was a Baltimore cop, lending impeccable street-cred to an inner-city Baltimore saga (and companion piece to The Corner) that Simon aptly describes as “a visual novel” and “a treatise on institutions and individuals” as opposed to a conventional good-vs.-evil police procedural. Owing a creative debt to the novels of Richard Price (especially Clockers), the series opens as maverick Detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West, in a star-making role) is tapping into a vast network of drugs and death around southwest Baltimore’s deteriorating housing projects. With a mandate to get results ASAP, a haphazard team is assembled to join McNulty’s increasingly complex investigation, built upon countless hours of electronic surveillance.

The show’s split-perspective plotting is so richly layered, so breathtakingly authentic and based on finely drawn characters brought to life by a perfect ensemble cast, that it defies concise description. Simon, Burns, and their cowriters control every intricate aspect of the unfolding epic; directors are top-drawer (including Clark Johnson, helmer of The Shield‘s finest episodes), but they are servants to the story, resulting in a TV series like no other: unpredictable, complicated, and demanding the viewer’s rapt attention, The Wire is “an angry show” (in Simon’s words) that refuses to comfort with easy answers to deep-rooted societal problems. Moral gray zones proliferate in a universe where ruthless killers have a logical code, and where the cops are just as ambiguous as their targets. That ambiguity extends to the ending as well; season 1 leaves several issues unresolved, leaving you begging for the even more impressive developments that await in season 2. –Jeff Shannon

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