Kansas City StarAaron Barnhart

To me, what allows “The Wire” to surpass “The Sopranos” in the pantheon of greatest American TV shows is its ambition and its anger.

TV GuideMatt Roush

This is TV as great modern literature, a shattering and heartbreaking urban epic about a city (Baltimore) rotting from within.

NewsdayVerne Gay

A critic for this paper once declared "The Wire" "the greatest dramatic series ever produced for television" and as the fourth season gets under way Sunday night, there's no reason to quibble with that assessment.

San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman

The breadth and ambition of "The Wire" are unrivaled and that taken cumulatively over the course of a season -- any season -- it's an astonishing display of writing, acting and storytelling that must be considered alongside the best literature and filmmaking in the modern era.

Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan

If you have only one hour a week for television, give it to "The Wire."

Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray

The best show on television.

Seattle Post-IntelligencerMelanie McFarland

If there ever was a series that makes HBO a necessity, "The Wire" is it.

USA TodayRobert Bianco

Brilliant, scathing, sprawling, The Wire has turned our indifference to urban decay into a TV achievement of the highest order.

VarietyBrian Lowry

When television history is written, little else will rival "The Wire," a series of such extraordinary depth and ambition that it is, perhaps inevitably, savored only by an appreciative few.

Entertainment WeeklyGillian Flynn

The best series on TV, period. [15 Sep 2006, p.63]

New York PostAdam Buckman

One of the finest TV shows ever made.

The New York TimesVirginia Heffernan

This season of “The Wire” will knock the breath out of you.

San Jose Mercury NewsCharlie McCollum

If you stick with it, you will be rewarded with some of the most compelling, provocative drama ever produced for television.

Washington PostTom Shales

So is "The Wire" as good as ever? Perhaps even better.

Slant MagazineKeith Uhlich

David Simon and his writers... aren't out to change the world; the slippery slope of civilization is already in place on The Wire and Simon is just out to document how each and every person survives. Or doesn't, as this season quite devastatingly proves.

LA WeeklyRobert Abele

A vibrant, masterful work of art, HBO’s novelistic urban saga The Wire is the best show on television.

SalonHeather Havrilesky

Yes, it's tough to trace the relationships between various ranks within the police department and the city and state governments, but that doesn't mean this is an incredibly serious drama it takes a degree in literature to understand. "The Wire" is funny and odd and sad and, above all, engrossing.

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteTony Norman

"The Wire" is as complex a picaresque as one is likely to find this side of Dickens.

TimeJames Poniewozik

They have done what many well-intentioned socially minded writers have tried and failed at: written a story that is about social systems, in all their complexity, yet made it human, funny and most important of all, rivetingly entertaining.

New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley

It just might be the kids, the ones who grow up too soon in the hard world of "The Wire," who steal opening night.

Chicago Sun-TimesDoug Elfman

Despite high praise, there are two serious problems: (a) The first new episode is crazy confusing, and (b) over the course of the first batch of episodes, the story lines don't develop quickly enough.