Why are we watching The Wire?

The BBC is showing the critically acclaimed show The Wire in its entirety over 60 days (five nights a week) the series ran of 5 seasons with 60 episodes made. It shows a street level view of Baltimore, examining two sides of a very similar coin, the cops and the gangs, both sets of people have a bleak outlook on the state of things in the city perhaps even the world.

This is my first time watching The Wire so if my description of the show is grossly inaccurate please forgive me, and it is also a genre of television I am slowly getting into. Before tonight my idea of 'a cop show' was Bones and Dexter although they're more grouped with the forensic shows I guess.

Anyway, tonight saw the first screening of episode 1 series 1 of The Wire and it was quite good, there are times where it felt that the camera was more of a fly on the wall watching the events unfold on the streets of Baltimore where the kids sell drugs within the tight neighbourhood, giving a sense that those who have to sell drugs are confined or condemned to just spend the rest of their lives there.

On the otherside of the fence with the cops theres a real intrigue over the identitiy of Avon Barksdale, who is the 'man' who is overseeing the drugs polluting the streets of Baltimore.

The show boasts quite a large cast so at times it's often difficult to know who's who but hopefully after this intial opening episode the cast will be smallish every episode so that the characters shine a bit more as often the large amount of characters to follow seemed to detract from the show, but you haveto remember this is a show that seems to pride itself on the street level realism so of course there will be more players and I should imagine the cast will grow.

Overall it is a solid first episode, and it will take a few episodes to get into as the story unfolds.