The Wire is an American television drama series set and produced in and around Baltimore, Maryland. Created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon, the series was broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States. The Wire premiered on June 2, 2002 and ended on March 9, 2008, comprising 60 episodes over five seasons.

Despite only receiving modest ratings and never winning major television awards, The Wire has been described by many critics as the greatest television series ever made and one of the most accomplished works of fiction of the 2000s. The show is recognized for its realistic portrayal of urban life, its literary ambitions, and its uncommonly deep exploration of sociopolitical themes.

Restarts December 15th at 8pm

Perhaps the best series of the last decade.

One of my favourite HBO series. The Wire fans might also want to check out HBO's The Corner. It preceded The Wire and explores similar issues.

Wow, ScaryBob. I never knew this series even existed. I'll check it out.

The Wire is my personal best TV series of all time. Always sad to watch the last episode of such a great show when you know it's over.

I encourage anyone to watch this, especially fans of the cheesy, unrealistic police/crime "dramas" we are bombarded with on network TV (cough CSI Miami cough).

Just started watching the DVD box set. Wasn't impressed with the pilot (do people really swear that much in Baltimore? I work in that industry and I've never come across people who talk like that in real life...) but has since gotten better. Looking forward to seeing where it goes. I can already tell it will be quite in depth.

Thank you for the heads up. I never watched it before but I have heard good things about this series.

Cheers,

Love this show!

(do people really swear that much in Baltimore? I work in that industry and I've never come across people who talk like that in real life...) Drug dealers?

Great show. I agree it takes time to get into the series early on. And while Season is good on its own, it deviates in plotline from where the rest of the series goes....so it could also scare people off.

I tried the Corner and I saw maybe 4 of 6 episodes, but it was quite boring. The people looked too much like actors imo.

Just ordered the TMN package because of this. Thanks for the heads-up.

Will it be available on demand as well?

I believe it WILL be available on Demand, but I'm not 100% sure.

Did anybody notice if this is being broadcast in HD? The reason I ask is I almost bought the boxed DVD on sale at Futureshop and then noticed it was full screen only. I can't find any mention of widescreen or Blueray anywhere. I'd be tempted to subscribe to TMN package but it would be a huge let down if this is SD (4x3) format only.

If Wikipedia can be trusted, it says the picture format is 480i SDTV w/ 5.1 Dolby Digital sound.

Did anybody notice if this is being broadcast in HD? The reason I ask is I almost bought the boxed DVD on sale at Futureshop and then noticed it was full screen only. I can't find any mention of widescreen or Blueray anywhere. I'd be tempted to subscribe to TMN package but it would be a huge let down if this is SD (4x3) format only.
I doubt it. Event though it was shot on film and framed for 16:9 it was broadcast 4:3 so it'll probably be re-run as that.

Thanks for the heads up.

I didn't watch The Wire earlier....I will PVR it this time.

@cooper83: If you think there's a lot of swearing now, just wait 'til they get to the episode where Bunk and McNulty piece together an old murder scene using nothing but f-bombs and derivatives thereof - one of the more impressive bits of writing I've seen/heard.
(Seriously)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQbsnSVM1zM
(Not embedded because of the NSFW language)

Thanks for the heads up on the show.

Hi everyone there wasnt a new ep tonight even though Zap2It said thered be and now they don't show any new eps (they go out two weeks). We can't get to the HBO Canada website in the US can someone who can see it please tell me if The Wire is on the sked for January? This is very weird they were telling everyone "See the best show ever" and then they only ran 2 eps???

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to pass top secret information over the border, but since I love to copy and paste information, here goes nothing:

http://www.hbocanada.com/thewire/schedule.php

Episode ......................................... Next Showing
Wire, The: 102 - The Detail Jan. 7 - 5:00AM ET / MT
Wire, The: 103 - The Buys Jan. 12 - 8:00PM ET / MT
Wire, The: 104 - Old Cases Jan. 19 - 8:00PM ET / MT
Wire, The: 101 - The Target Jan. 22 - 3:50PM ET / MT
Wire, The: 105 - The Pager Jan. 26 - 8:00PM ET / MT
Wire, The: 106 - The Wire Feb. 2 - 8:00PM ET / MT
Wire, The: 107 - One Arrest Feb. 9 - 8:00PM ET / MT
Wire, The: 108 - Lessons Feb. 16 - 8:00PM ET / MT
Wire, The: 109 - Game Day Feb. 23 - 8:00PM ET / MT