The Wire

An immensely satisfying - and immensely complicated - police drama. [31 May 2003]

The difficulty of teasing apart these tangled relationships and getting up to speed on backstory will prove too daunting for some viewers, especially those who prefer quick and tidy resolutions. But if you're willing to tolerate some initial confusion, "The Wire" rewards patience. The dialogue is sharply funny and richly colloquial, and the actors are a constant astonishment.

There's something inspiring about series creator David Simon's trusting his audience enough to tell a complex story about the elusive motives of cops, drug dealers and longshoremen without shortchanging his characters' humanity in the process. [31 May 2003]

What Simon is doing with "The Wire" - besides crafting arguably the most realistic cop show ever - is taking the narrative style of books and translating it to television. ... By itself, it raises TV's collective IQ at least a few points. [29 May 2003]

One of the best series anywhere. [8 Jun 2003]

A genius series the equal of ABC's "NYPD Blue" at its best, and one that delivers more boom for the buck than either NBC's admired crime tome "Boomtown" or the irritating coppers of FX's "The Shield."

One of the best shows on television. ... The show, which prides itself on unvarnished realism, is almost willfully jagged and hard to follow. But it is just as hard to turn off.

Be forewarned that opener is dense, quick- moving and largely absent the sort of explanatory dialogue that dramatic series typically use to ensure that we have our bearings. Even viewers who savored each installment of the original series may feel disoriented. Newcomers may feel as though they're watching a foreign-language film without subtitles. My advice is to videotape it, re-watch and have faith. The coherence quotient goes up by the hour, and patience will be rewarded. [30 May 2003]

It's flat-out brilliant. [1 Jun 2003]

The best show on television. That's right. It's better, even, than that other HBO series, the one about the nice New Jersey family, because for all of David Chase's brilliance with character in "The Sopranos," he can sometimes wander down thematic dead ends in search of a great dramatic discovery. Simon, with his careful plotting, police-investigation structure and sure sense of what he is trying to say, gives "The Wire" a sense of propulsion, of every moment building to something.

There is little precedence within television history for the rich portrayal of working class life as depicted by The Wire. [1 Jun 2003]

The most ambitious storytelling series on television. ... "The Wire" is the best show on HBO, which means it's the best show on television, period. If you want in on it, even if you missed the first go-around, you'll find a way to make sense of it all.

The Wire, while brilliant,is not exactly user-friendly. Attention is required, but the series more than repays the time and effort invested.

As good as some other cop shows are -- "The Shield," for example -- no other comes this close to a true-to-life portrayal of life on the mean streets. [29 May 2003]

[The Wire's] attention to detail, plus a vast canvas of characters, makes for a dense boulder of a story that moves creakily for the first couple of hours. But once it gets rolling, it's irresistible because of the humanity creator-writer David Simon finds in his characters.