Over the last week, I watched the first season The Wire on DVD. Awesome television! I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s a TV show by David Simon who wrote one of the best books I’ve read: Homicide: Life on the Killing Streets; which chronicled the year he spent shadowing the Baltimore Police Homicide Squad (the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street was directly based on this) and The Corner (turned into an HBO miniseries of the same name) which similarly followed the fortunes of drug dealers and various disadvantaged types in the poor areas of Baltimore.

Anyway, The Wire takes both formats and tells a story of a police task force trying to take down one of the major drug players in Baltimore, whilst following the fortunes of several of the lower level drug dealers, some of whom, despite being scumbag drug dealers are strangely sympathetic characters. It quite effectively shows how otherwise good, often quite likeable kids, are indoctrinated – effectively brainwashed –into the drug dealing culture. It also depicts the police in a somewhat dubious light: lots of infighting, most of the police force seem to be either inept or drunks (the male lead is frequently shown drink-driving or putting his kids in unreasonable danger!) and they behave pretty much like just another gang!

It was apparently wildly successful in the States, but was buried deep in the schedules over here, possibly because the subject matter is somewhat alien to British culture (although sadly getting less so) and the broadcasters didn’t think there would be much interest; I didn’t hear about it until it was in about it’s 3rd season and didn't manage to watch it until now - my parents bought me two seasons on DVD for Christmas!

If you haven’t seen it, you should.