--- title: The Wire description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. canonical: https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103884/the-wire/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-12T16:00:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-02T23:02:00.332Z og:title: The Wire og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. og:url: https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103884/the-wire/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2318793c318df53a/69869f38cd804db4a1ccc514/t100_tv_wire1.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The Wire og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Wire twitter:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2318793c318df53a/69869f38cd804db4a1ccc514/t100_tv_wire1.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 12, 2014 # _The Wire_ ## Video: The Wire [Watch (HLS stream): The Wire](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/a1OuWNFW.m3u8) (0:34)  _Published 2007-09-04. Through a sprawling, Balzac-ian network of cops, their targets, and the politicians and bureaucrats around them, The Wire tells the story of a declining Baltimore and the people struggling amid, or profiting off of, its downfall._ by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff  Everett Through a sprawling, Balzac-ian network of cops, their targets, and the politicians and bureaucrats around them, _The Wire_ tells the story of a declining industrial city—Baltimore, but it could be many others—and the people struggling amid, or profiting off of, its downfall. In _The Wire_‘s view, the world is not divided cop-vs.-robber or black-vs.-white so much as machine-vs.-individual; officer, teacher, drug soldier or pol, people are screwed by institutions that discard them when they’re used up and reward inertia over innovation. (The best chance, _The Wire_ suggests, is for free agents like its unlikely hero, the street bandit Omar, who robs drug dealers and answers to no one.) Yet the series—which, by the way, is also a fantastically realistic cop show—is also funny and the opposite of nihilist, giving everyone from detectives to junkies dignity. Occasionally, it even offers a glimpse of something like hope, which is all the sweeter for being harder earned. 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