I agree, but they had to name it somewhere, and I bet a fake city name would have lessened the show.

It definitely would have weakened it.

Did I mention I love this ****ing show?

I bought the Complete Series some time in Dec/Jan and I just finished it earlier this month.

I bought it sight unseen, and it is my 2nd or 3rd favorite TV Show of all time.

I told my friend he had to watch it and he was so skeptical.

Hes now watched the first 5 episodes and is hooked. I'm making him watch every episode with me so I can watch it again. Its crazy how awesome the first season is especially after watching all the other seasons.

I watched the series for the first time last December in only six days. I was literally doing nothing but watching The Wire for 12 hours a day or so.

The first 3 seasons were epic. The 4th season is just too depressing to revisit for me, and the 5th didn't really grab my attention all that much.

You fail at TV watching.

I seriously have never heard a single cogent argument against The Wire being the best television show ever.

I've got a buddy who refuses to even check it out.

"I just don't care for cop shows."

:banghead:

His loss, I guess.

That the thing about the show -- its ten trillion steps beyond every other police procedural.

I think Deadwood was better, and the first seasons of NYPD Blue and Homicide, but that's about it.

There were moments on Friends and Seinfeld that were more entertaining, but I can't say they were better, too much apple/orange dissimilarity.

I've only gotten to see the first two seasons of Hill Street Blues, but given the time frame it was made in, it's truly AMAZING how good it is.

The only other one that gives a similar level of satisfaction is ER, for it's groundbreaking early seasons, then it's mature, unprecedented ability to credibly show characters growing from neophytes to masters of their field over the years [think John Carter, then subsequently Archie Morris, and don't forget Neela].

But yeah, The Wire is up there.

And I still haven't.

You have, you just don't have the discernment to know it. ;)

This is a bald-faced lie.

Grab your grubby 'The Wire' tube sock and go to town.

Look, you can search back in the archives and I've given some of the most empassioned and detailed hailings of the show anyone has, but credit where credit is due. Fer****ssake, Homicide is basically, The Wire: The Prequel, written with as much passion by the same guy who crafted The Wire.

There's hardly a man on earth who David Simon takes a back seat to, but IMO David Milch is one such man [albeit by the slenderest of margins]. He dinged himself with John From Cincinnati, but Blue and Deadwood stand testiment to his abilities.

Keep it up and you're gonna call out the West Wing acolytes and then we're really gonna have a ruckus. FTR, I liked TWW a lot and watched it all the way through, but I never found it as transcendent as those who truly love it did, mainly because I'd seen Sports Night and could see the strings, which by the time he got around to Studio 60, there was more 'strings' on the screen than plot or character.

*Does so*

*comes back*

I don't get why Homicide being a prequel to The Wire (I agree that it basically is; The Corner even more so) would in any way diminish what The Wire achieved.

I think Deadwood is ****ing great, but better than The Wire? I can't see how. No show besides The Wire is as relevant to the problems of America; no show packs the kind of documentary-like punch of stark realism that The Wire packs while offering such strong fictionalized/dramatic content to make the bleakness slightly palatable; no show offers such a thorough, sustained examination and argument about its topic as The Wire offers; plenty of shows have great, nuanced, sublimely human characters (in fact man shows have flat-out better characters) but no show has smart, realized characters in addition to the intellectual and artistic merits that The Wire achieves.

In many ways its unfair to compare The Wire to other TV shows; viewers have to approach it in such a different way than they do other television. Its a whole lot more like reading a novel than watching a TV drama.