A reviewer once wrote that fans of “The Wire” without an HBO subscription are like junkies without dope. And come the latest season’s release on DVD, they’ll be standing in line, jittery, impatient for their fix. To many of its devotees, the show is simply the best ever made, even if it’s never done very well in the ratings, or won an Emmy. Tuesday sees the release of the season five box-set – fans’ latest – and last – fix, as it marks the show’s conclusion.
Where most dramas focus on an individual hero or two, “The Wire” is about the institutional machinery of an entire city: Baltimore, where creator David Simon worked as a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun before he started writing for TV. (He created “Homicide: Life on the Streets.”)
The first season of “The Wire,” in 2002, depicted a police investigation of a drug gang, and established the show’s ambitious reach, exhaustive research and eye for telling details. Its settings ranged from corners of the projects to judges’ chambers, and featured dozens of main characters, each shedding light on certain aspects of the systems they inhabited.
Like “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” de-glamorized crimefighting by emphasizing the banal administrative duties involved.
Keeping with this multi-angled approach, later seasons branched out to encompass the city’s docks, education system and election process, and this final 10-part run brings it all back home, to the Baltimore Sun.
Outstanding television “The Wire” might be, but its DVD box sets have been somewhat disappointing. Extra features are largely limited to sporadic episode commentaries – although these are from a wide variety of contributors, which is apt for a show designed to illuminate multiple aspects of a situation. Two half-hour promotional documentaries are also included, though they have a glossy, somewhat smug feel at odds with the nicely judged tone of the show.
It’s disappointing not to find out more about the nature of the collaboration with the Sun, and a shame that HBO didn’t include the three scenes it made to promote the season, which showed moments from major characters’ earlier lives.
Still, “The Wire” is unmissable TV. Regular viewers know not to expect a tidy, happy ending, or an optimistic view of the state of the nation, but the show remains as compulsive as ever. If fans must now face cold turkey, at least they can go out on a high.