Awesome series. I also stopped watching after a few episodes a few years back but I gave it another shot last year and oh boy is it amazing. One of my favorite series after the Sopranos.

Luck starts superbly as well.

Good indication of why the wire is so good.


And of course....The cheese stands alone....

may i just add:

Yeah - brilliant but dated. America post-Lehman is unrecognisable to what went before. They obsessed about probable cause when obtaining wiretap warrants on The Wire. Now they spy on all with warrantless impunity and the President has the self-declared right to detain indefinitely or murder any American citizen, without bothering the judiciary.

@brandonmrsh It looks like a potential future for some European cities.
I like the fact that the picture of your city evolves between Homicide: Life on the Street, The Corner and The Wire

@kinoglass
Downloading Generation Kill now.
If we're talking AMC then Breaking Bad as well. I've been watching since the E01S01 and have never enjoyed a show more outside of the Season 1 of Twin Peaks. Removed from the two year buzz its been running on, it has languid pacing and cathartic 5 episode long climaxes that justify the buzz/praise. It is incredible how TV taken seriously can so accurately depict the current state of affairs.

Speaking of which, Homeland [Showtime] is also a brill new show that a lot of people didn't get and criticized. It's characters, taken as representations of modern US culture, which is what the show is about, are super relevant, carefully considered, and the leads are fantastic.

I liked the first season of The Wire, then it just dragged on for me. Do appreciate it's scope, but t couldn't hold me for long. Now Breaking Bad - wow, that's my favorite show of all time and it deserves it's own thread :-)

For thoses who actually liked one of the best aspect of this show : the somewhat realistic (well, it's still a TV Show, even if it's the best, agree w/ @Ian_T ;-) ) documenting on the every day life of drug dealers, I can't praise you enough to read the tremendous fieldwork of Philipe Bourgois : "In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio*" (New York: Cambridge University Press).
It's the result of 5 years of participant observation (he actually lived near a crack house with his family and became close w/ young dealers of his neighborhood during 80's 90's). It's simply an ethnography masterpiece, a must read for every "urban" documentarist and a gold mine for any storyteller who dig into the subject.

* édition française : Philippe Bourgois, En quête de respect : le crack à New York, Paris, Le Seuil, 2001

Breaking Bad is awesome as well. More dramatic and an incredible character journey (from doormat to scarface).

The Wire helped me decode all the drug dealing going on in my neighbourhood a few years back. That was inner city London. The police told me that no judge would issue warrants on the 3 stash houses involved simultaneously because it was only cannabis. The kids (under 16) knew this and laughed at the police.

Amen CRFILMS...