The Wire first aired two full decades ago, so some younger viewers today might need a primer on some of the technology featured in it, like pagers. I also watched once through all of the David Simon-produced cognates, including Homicide: Life on the Streets (Baltimore), The Corner (Baltimore), Treme (New Orleans), The Deuce (New York City), Show Me a Hero (Yonkers), and We Own This City (Baltimore). In so doing, it exposes the shortcomings of big government and thus lights the way forward, out of the current abyss of crime and poverty.Īfter that initial viewing, I watched The Wire completely through four more times, for the college course I developed around it and taught three times in the 2010s. The series details the problems with Baltimore, and indeed with all of America’s dysfunctional larger cities. I quickly acclimated to its documentary-like style, and devoured all five seasons as quickly as I could. I had never even heard of HBO’s The Wire until it was already off the air, available only on DVDs.
