The Wire: The Complete Third Season

Great news! Series 3 on DVD - at last!
HBO have at long last, decided to release this on DVD and thank goodness. The Wire is undoubtedly the best TV around these days since "Homicide: Life on the Street". No surprise then, I guess that the same man (David Simon) had/has a big hand in both series.

Unlike most crime/cop shows that have a beginning, middle and end in the one episode, the story here is spread over the entire series. We're seeing stuff that kicked off in Season 1 still developing in Season 3. Some viewers find this challenging - this certainly isn't a show you can watch while cooking dinner or chatting to your buddies on the phone. It's sad that ratings have dropped though because if you give the show the undivided attention it deserves and focus on the story, complex as it is, the rewards are truly immense.

After the drama on the docks that was the main focus of Season 2, Season 3 takes it back to the streets where we most like it. The Baltimore drug wars rage on, with Avon Barksdale,...

Way down in the hole? Hardly
After a virtuosic first season and an ambitious (but not quite as thrilling) second season, The Wire's third season proved to be the best one yet. Even though it hasn't been embraced by the public at large (like, say, The Sopranos), the show has received gobs of critical acclaim and delivers the goods, too, every week. I think that not only is The Wire a better show than The Sopranos (which is, admittedly, a truism), but it is a show which better reflects our post-9/11 mindset than its erstwhile New Jersey neighbor. The Sopranos is a product of another time, the zeitgeist of the late 1990s, with its constant putdowns of moneyed, whining, shrink-visiting, latte-sipping, politically-correct hipsters (the Eagles song "Get Over It" being perhaps the definitive cultural manifesto of the time). That show produced three excellent seasons of TV, but then 9/11 changed the world and Tony, Paulie, et al, never managed to get back ahead of the curve. The Wire was formed in direct response to 9/11...

Best Show on HBO!!
I watched Seasons 1 & 2 again last week and came to the realization that it was the best show on HBO. I used to have Sopranos in my top spot, but the Wire has passed it. It has the patience and intelligence I wish the Sopranos could consistently maintain. However, the Wire has only had three seasons and the Sopranos six, so it is might be harder for Chase and crew.

Season Three picks up where Season 2 left off with Daniel's new team investigating the dope in Baltimore. Like the two previous seasons having a theme (1-streets & police, and 2-dock workers and smuggling) this season involves the politics.

Season 2 is still my favorite, but all three seasons are amazing. The third continues the standards of the previous two seasons with excellent writing, acting, and pacing. Robert Wisdom who potrays Major Colvin and Aidan Gillen who plays Councilman Thomas 'Tommy' J. Carcetti are excellent new additions who hold their own to an exellent ensemble.

Thank...

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