• Network: HBO
  • Series Premiere Date: Jun 2, 2002
  • Season #: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5
The Wire Image
  • Summary: The crime drama returns in its final season with the hot seat applied at creator David Simon's previous occupation (journalist).
  • Genre(s): Action/Adventure, Drama
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 24 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 24
  3. Negative: 0 out of 24
  1. Reviewed by: Brian Holcomb
    100
    The Wire is as true as television gets.
  2. In the end, there will likely be a lot of unhappiness, dead bodies, same-as-it-ever-was institutional failure, lack of responsibility and the triumph of self-interest over the greater good. Not exactly a Hallmark card, but one hell of an artistic achievement.
  3. 100
    This new 10-episode season boasts the same high quality of production that this series has always exhibited.

See all 24 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 55 out of 58
  2. Negative: 2 out of 58
  1. Since most said that it was the weakest season, I lowered my standards. And while I was within that mindset, I saw the concluding season. Just marvelous. These characters will be sorely missed. Expand
    • 1 of 1 users said yes
  2. MrW.
    5
    The show has lost all of its flow with the addition of the "baltimore sun" story line. This is the final season and instead of allowing us to dig in to the characters we've come to love/hate they add in some dry, uninteresting, newsroom crap. It seems to me that HBO is setting up a spin-off show and ruining the wire to use it as a launching pad. Expand
    • 0 of 4 users said yes
  3. 2
    I thought the WIRE was the best TV I'd ever seen - so it was really a shame to end on a low. The final WIRE season was a great disappointment. A number of well-known characters suddenly became two-dimensional and behaved in ways that were totally at odds with how their behaviour had built over previous seasons. New characters were introduced that did not show any depth (unlike in previous seasons, the newsroom crowd did not become real people, compared to say the dock crowd). The plot became unrealistic to the point of farce, and rushed. I wonder how much of this was down to creative exhaustion, and how much of it was down to the reduced series length (in terms of numbers of episodes). Yes, my expectations were very high. But I realise that if I had come to series 5 of the Wire before any of the others, I would have thought it was just another slightly hyper-real gritty cop show. Expand
    • 0 of 4 users said yes

See all 58 User Reviews

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