AMC's Mad Men is the best show on telivision that no one is watching (now that The Wire has ended), it's the most adult, most stylish, best written show on television at the moment. And we say "adult" in the sense that it's subtle and complex, not in the "there's a lot of sex" sense (although there's plenty of sex).. Here is some outstanding in-depth analysis of the first episodes of season 3 (spoilers aplenty).
posted by Mick on Sep 2, 2009 - 153 comments

Fancy a coffee with Dominic West? Rather tasty British actors in slightly ridiculous soft focus sell instant coffee, using sexy literature. [more inside]
posted by tiny crocodile on Aug 14, 2009 - 58 comments

The Wire Illustrations -- Characters from The Wire, illustrated.
posted by OmieWise on Jul 24, 2009 - 43 comments

The Wire Files Open-access online journal darkmatter, "producing contemporary postcolonial critique," devoted its fourth issue to the television drama The Wire. An editorial explains that the "special issue aims to examine the place of race in the complex formation of the series." Thirteen articles cover The Wire's political economy, subversion of heteronormative assumptions, racial codes, Herc as a Zelig-like nexus, Baudrillardian urban space and much more in a veritable smorgasbord of academic bean-plating.
posted by Abiezer on Jun 29, 2009 - 37 comments

Steve Coll [pdf], Marissa Mayer [pdf], and Arianna Huffington [pdf] testified today at the Senate Commerce Commitee's hearing on The Future of Journalism, but clearly the main attraction was David Simon [pdf].
posted by Jeff_Larson on May 6, 2009 - 22 comments

Bill Moyers Journal, April 17, 2009 From crime beat reporter for the BALTIMORE SUN to award-winning screenwriter of HBO's critically-acclaimed The Wire, David Simon talks with Bill Moyers about inner-city crime and politics, storytelling and the future of journalism today. Sorry for the one link post.
posted by dougzilla on Apr 21, 2009 - 23 comments

The Wire - David Simon's original pitch and series bible. "At the end of thirteen episodes, the viewer - who has been lured all this way by a well-constructed police show - is not the simple gratification of hearing handcuffs click. Instead the conclusion is something Euripides or O'Neill might recognize: an America at every level at war with itself." [Previously.] (via)
posted by Electric Dragon on Apr 17, 2009 - 42 comments

Blatantly jumping on the opportunity to create yet another thread on The Wire, I'd like to remind you that starting tonight, BBC 2 will air the entire series start to finish, an episode every weekday. First episode starts in a moment, at 11:20 PM UK time. Watch! [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Mar 30, 2009 - 64 comments

In a recent report for the Abell Foundation, University of Maryland Criminologist Peter Reuter asks whether, in light of the evidence from Switzerland, The Netherlands and elsewhere, Baltimore might not be the best place to try the first US heroin maintenance programme?
posted by PeterMcDermott on Feb 28, 2009 - 17 comments

Lafayette Gilchrist is one of my favorite piano players. Featured on a Down Beat cover a few months ago (with Vijay Iyer and Jason Moran), he has released a half-dozen or so albums with his group, New Volcanoes, and he's the regular piano player in saxophonist David Murray's quartet. His playing and composition styles are informed by funk, go-go and hip-hop. And he's from Baltimore. Of course, you might also know him from his appearance on the soundtrack to The Wire.
posted by box on Feb 24, 2009 - 8 comments

"So I found out yesterday that the soundstage for "The Wire" still existed. I wasted no time in visiting it and was there almost less than 24 hours [sic]. It's one of my favorite TV shows ever and I had to see this before everyone ruined it. The building is also scheduled for demolition and they are going to build a super market on it." NOTE: LINK CONTAINS SPOILERS [more inside]
posted by dersins on Jan 7, 2009 - 79 comments

Pilot School. A nice collection of teevee show pilot scripts. Observe the embryonic state of many of the classics of the past few decades, including Buffy, The Wire, Hill Street Blues, Battlestar Galactica, The Sopranos and The West Wing. [more inside]
posted by Bookhouse on Nov 21, 2008 - 29 comments

Charlie Brooker - Tapping The Wire (1, 2, 3).
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Oct 8, 2008 - 69 comments

WireFilter: David Simon speaks at USC Law on journalism and The Wire. (Youtube - 1:22:50; a few mic/sound problems in the first few minutes)
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Sep 12, 2008 - 16 comments

'There are two Americas - separate, unequal, and no longer even acknowledging each other except on the barest cultural terms. In the one nation, new millionaires are minted every day. In the other, human beings no longer necessary to our economy, to our society, are being devalued and destroyed' David Simon on The Escalating Breakdown Of Urban Society Across The US
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Sep 6, 2008 - 52 comments

Making the Wire. [more inside]
posted by chunking express on Aug 26, 2008 - 67 comments

After 'The Wire,' Moving On to Battles Beyond the Streets - 'The Wire' co-creator Ed Burns talks about his life and his and David Simon's new project, 'Generation Kill', premiering next Sunday on HBO.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese on Jul 6, 2008 - 34 comments

The Wire's War on the Drug War By Ed Burns, Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David Simon
posted by AceRock on Mar 6, 2008 - 69 comments

Q. Everyone tells me how great The Wire is, but I've missed the first four seasons. Should I bother with Season 5? A. Yes. Ultimately, you'll want to buy the DVD's, but until then we've got The Wire: four seasons in four minutes. (Single link U-tube)
posted by PeterMcDermott on Jan 10, 2008 - 61 comments

The Wire is dissent; it argues that our systems are no longer viable for the greater good of the most, that America is no longer operating as a utilitarian and democratic experiment. An already-quite-good discussion about The Wire, originating in Mark Bowden's Atlantic article ('The Angriest Man in Television') and continuing through Mark Bowden's post on the show's nihilistic bleakness gets even more interesting on Matt Yglesias's blog, where the creator of the show stops by to give his opinion on what it's all supposed to mean.
posted by gerryblog on Jan 3, 2008 - 76 comments

Prior to his critically acclaimed program The Wire, creator Edward Burns wrote the HBO miniseries The Corner, which also focused on the drug trade in Baltimore. Charles S. Dutton, an African-American Baltimore native and former convict probably best known to most as TV's "Roc," was chosen to direct the miniseries. Who Gets To Tell a Black Story?, part of a Pulitzer-prize winning NYT series on race in America, examines Dutton's take on how to make a TV program which portrays a mostly African-American cast of characters, the struggles and differing perspectives of Dutton and Burns, and how race is portrayed in Hollywood. [more inside]
posted by whir on Dec 17, 2007 - 24 comments

Laugh tracks making things funny: Friday the 13th | The L Word | Mitt Romney | Star Trek | The Wire | FOX News
posted by dhammond on Dec 16, 2007 - 27 comments

The Wire Prequels: Young Prop Joe, 1962 ; Young Omar, 1985; Bunk and McNulty first meet, 2000.
posted by kirkaracha on Dec 5, 2007 - 53 comments

"A detective does his job in the only possible way. He follows the requirements of the law to the letter -- or close enough so as not to jeopardize his case. Just as carefully, he ignores that law's spirit and intent. He becomes a salesman, a huckster as thieving and silver-tongued as any man who ever moved used cars or aluminum siding -- more so, in fact, when you consider that he's selling long prison terms to customers who have no genuine need for the product." [more inside]
posted by dhammond on Nov 29, 2007 - 95 comments

Margaret Talbot's wonderful profile of David Simon, the creator of "The Wire." Simon said, he and his colleagues had “ripped off the Greeks: Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides. Not funny boy—not Aristophanes. We’ve basically taken the idea of Greek tragedy and applied it to the modern city-state.” He went on, “What we were trying to do was take the notion of Greek tragedy, of fated and doomed people, and instead of these Olympian gods, indifferent, venal, selfish, hurling lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no reason—instead of those guys whipping it on Oedipus or Achilles, it’s the postmodern institutions . . . those are the indifferent gods.”
posted by geoff. on Oct 15, 2007 - 34 comments

Apparently, in real life, Omar makes it.
posted by Airhen on Aug 8, 2007 - 24 comments