I recently signed up for the Amazon.co.uk rental service after seeing that it allows you to rent box sets as well as regular new releases. You get six DVD’s a month and for my first 6 I choose to rent the complete first series of crime drama The Wire.


Inspired by Executive Producer David Simon’s two books, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighbourhood, The Wire follows both the police and a major drug operation within the city of Baltimore.


On the cop’s side the focus is on hard drinking, soon to be divorced, Jimmy McNulty (right) played by Dominic West. Despite his love for self-destruction McNulty is what is referred to as “good police” and does the job in order to right the wrongs. If only it were that simple. The Wire’s major plus point is its realism, and in reality police forces are interested in their figures and statistics staying on top and their individual political agendas.


Frustrated by this bureaucracy McNulty surpasses the sacred chain-of-command and visits a friendly Judge in order to start a major case against drug kingpins Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell(left). In doing this McNulty manages to make powerful enemies within the department, including his vindictive boss Bill Rawls.


From the dealers side the story follows recently demoted drug lieutenant D’Angelo Barksdale (right), nephew of boss Avon. When you first meet D’Angelo he is beating a murder charge after his uncle intimates a witness in the case. When the same witness if found dead days later D’Angelo is overcome with remorse. The interesting thing about this character is that is a smart young man who is in the wrong business, but the business is all he knows. Uncle Avon (left) offered him a good paying job as a dealer and a killer and where he comes from that is a prominent position of power.


VERDICT
The Wire is in my mind the finest television show of it’s kind ever written. Playing out like a televised novel no charicter out of the twenty plus cast members is ignored. Gritty, realistic and eye opening the show rejects the concept of good vs. evil a shows a world where circumstance and desire drive the people that inhabit it.