My wife and I are currently deep into the fourth season of The Wire, one of the most highly recommended series on QT3. In fact, a number of noted critics from among many others TIME, Entertainment Weekly and The Guardian, have called it the greatest television show ever made. The Guardian in particular loved it so much it ran a blog devoted to it with an update after every episode and for a while made the first episode of the first season available for download on their own website. Yet this was a series that struggled to find an audience when it was on the air and that has conspicuously failed to win any Emmys.
It’s not hard to see why. While the series is presented as a crime drama and the first season certainly does its best to trick you into thinking that it is one, the show is really a wide-ranging window into the world of Baltimore and the people who must live in it. As such, it’s uncompromisingly realistic, ambitious and deep. True to the demographics of the city, the cast is principally black. All characters use authentic dialogue, so it takes a while for the uninitiated viewer to get to grips with what they’re talking about. The street-level gangsters talk in slang. The police and their legal support staff use technical jargon.