The Wire - 5 out of 5

So if you havent already heard of the TV series The Wire then I come bearing great gifts, and gifts you are going to want to thank me for.

If you are the kind of person who raises a suspicious eye brow when you hear the phrase "greatest show on television" then you are like me, particularly if that charge, draws you in and forces you to watch said programme just to prove it wrong and ridicule such an outragous claim. Unfortunately for both you and I if you watch just one series I'd bet a weeks wages you won't have the will to argue with such a statement.

So whats the best way to give you an idea of what the Wire is? Well to all intents and purposes its a cop show. Not just any cop show however as its as interested in the criminals as it is in the cops. And it is unflinching - not that Ive ever experienced any of these things directly - I havent ever been to Baltimore - but it tastes 100% real and authentic.

I guess the best and most succinct way of positioning what the Wire is about is to say it's Barrack Obama's favourite TV show:

http://www.motherjones.com/riff_blog/archives/2008/01/6933_barack_obama_sa.html

http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/11/obama_loves_the_wire_i_now_love_obama

And what I'm trying to say by that is its real, its authentic, its complex, its ugly, its sometimes slow, sometimes addictive, sometimes viscous, sometimes funny, its intelligent, its thought provoking and its a million miles away from being definitive about anything apart from making clear that things are broken in America, people are easily corrupted. But still over riding all of this hope somehow seems to battle through. Just like the plagued characters of the wire. All have their cross to bare.