The Wire - The best TV show ever.

This is the show that makes the Sopranos look like Cagney and Lacey. This is the king of all dvd boxsets, five series of the most amazing, thrilling, complicated, compelling, difficult, rewarding, heart wrenching tv you could ever see. You can buy David Simons book 'homicide on the street' and see where this series comes from (although take out 4 months to read it!) and this series is very like a book, Simon has said that he doesn't care if viewers don't know what's going on when if they come late - his view being that you couldn't pick a book up randomly and understand it why should you with a tv series. Two words of warning, the first few episodes are a bit slow so don't give up and secondly you may have to watch this with sub titles on. There is a lot of Baltimore street slang here which even the actors from the States didn't understand so don't be surprised if you don't either. Of the series it's difficult to say which is best as the standard never really drops, I'd say that the fourth season is my favourite as by this stage we've moved on from the Street drug wars., corruption at city hall, the desperation of the failing ship yards to the education system that can't help the children it's meant to nurture. It's brilliance owes a lot to the child actors, the terror from Marlo and serial killers Snoop and Chris and the amazing dignity shown from ex Police Chief Bunny Colvin. The utter despair and hopelessness of street life in inner cities where the only way to achieve the American dream is in the drugs trade isn't up lifting but is possibly the best TV ever made.. Everyone should have to watch this to realise what TV could be like.