The Wire Season 1

We're quite big fans of bug budget American TV, ever since the Sopranos, I've enjoyed watching shows such as 24, Lost, Heroes, The Shield on DVD. The quality of the production is like a film (which lasts for 20hours) and watching them on DVD means I can waste lots of time watching episodes back to back with no adverts and not having to wait a week to see the outcome of the cliffhanger.

But, despite it getting pretty good reviews from pretty much everywhere, we hadn't really seen any of the Wire. We picked up the season 1 box set in Sainsbury's last weekend and a week later we've just watched the last of 13 1 hour episodes.

The show follows Homicide and Narcotics detectives within the city of Baltimore Police. When wise-ass detective McNulty starts investigating a drug dealer responsible for a crime wave including several murders, he talks to a Judge who puts pressure on McNulty's superiors to do something about the case. This doesn't do any favours for McNulty, but a team is assembled to investigate the drug dealer involved.

The Wire is very well produced with a great plot, some excellent characters and is well written with some classic lines thrown about by the main characters. It's like a cop movie which lasts for 13 hours. Highly recommended.

4.5/5