It’s my belief that the crime story in American fiction — and in American literature, even -– has become an essential genre ever since Hammett and Chandler. It is as elemental to our understanding to ourselves, at this point, as the Western was at an earlier point in the 20th century.
And so we’re using these sort of stories of an American city to explore not just the war on drugs or how a wiretap case works, but what it means to live in an American city and to be beholden, as we all are in some way, to the institutions that form a city.
That’s creator/writer David Simon, on the DVD for The Wire season 1.
It is an absolutely amazing show. It’s great to see David Simon and his partners in television crime continue to elevate their game. Until about four or five years ago, I strongly considered Homicide: Life on the Streets to have been the best show in television history. I still think The Corner is the best mini-series done to date, and now The Wire has even surpassed HLotS, and done so in a Law and Order – multiple character shifting and actor concentration – way. Knowing you’re not a tv watcher – happy for you there are dvd’s available.