One of my favorite things about watching a TV series that has released all of its seasons is that I truly feel like I get to watch on my schedule. I don’t have to remember when new episodes are dropping and plan a viewing event around it; I can just flip the show on whenever I choose and go.

It was in that spirit that I dove into “The Wire” this week, and the show absolutely refused to surrender my attention as soon as I started watching. At more than 20 years old, new viewers might think “The Wire” is too dated to dive into, but after being unable to stop watching the show this week, that’s an idea I would strongly refute.

“The Wire” follows detectives of the Baltimore police department as they pursue high-level drug lords through the city’s storied neighborhoods. The series mainly focuses on Detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) and a special team of peers who use wiretaps and other emerging technology to try to get a step up on their criminal targets.

What compelled me to name “The Wire” as my favorite stream of the week was the tight narrative that flows incredibly well from episode to episode. The show takes the concept of an investigative police drama to a level no network show has come close to achieving, with a gritty realism (or seeming realism) that has never been replicated since.

The cast of “The Wire” is substantial, and everyone plays their part to perfection. But “The Wire” wouldn’t be the show it is without the performances of Dominic West as McNulty and Idris Elba as and Russell “Stringer” Bell. West oozes charm as McNulty, who will do anything he feels is justified in trying to do good police work — including lying to superiors who can make his life hell for doing so. Elba’s Bell is second in command to one of Baltimore’s biggest drug pushers, and plays the role with a quiet, cunning ruthlessness that simmers under the character’s surface during even the most innocuous conversations.

The series also does a credible job of holding up a mirror to the state of police-community interactions, especially in a city with one of the country’s largest Black populations. “The Wire” does not shy away from these discussions, and plumbs some truly fascinating ground in later seasons, even if its solutions to complex problems of race and policing are sometimes put to rest with a little artful TV writing instead of something more substantive.

Another area in which “The Wire” succeeds is the way its characters’ arcs are developed through seasons. New characters come and go every year, of course, but the main core cast of “The Wire” stays pretty much consistent from season to season. It’s refreshing to watch them evolve as the show goes along, instead of being killed off as seems to happen so inexorably in modern TV shows.

If you haven’t watched “The Wire” yet, do yourself a favor and set the time aside. If you have watched it, maybe it’s time for a rewatch? Either way, you’ll find the series on HBO Max, with plans starting at $11 per month or $110 per year.

The Wire

June 2, 2002

Told from the points of view of both the Baltimore homicide and narcotics detectives and their targets, the series captures a universe in which the national war on drugs has become a permanent, self-sustaining bureaucracy, and distinctions between good and evil are routinely obliterated.

This brilliant series is routinely cited as the best TV show ever made. (Entertainment Weekly, The BBC, The Telegraph, The Guardian, and Salon.com have all ranked it #1.) It is the closest thing we have to a novel on television. Sprawling narratives, unforgettable characters, and jaw-dropping plot twists combine into something remarkable, unique, and definitively American. From the police to the drug dealers to the junkies to blue-collar workers to politicians to journalists to elementary students, all the pieces matter.