THE WIRE 20th Anniversary Featurette Looks Back at The Incredible Crime Drama Series

David Simon’s HBO crime drama series The Wire is one of my all-time favorite shows. It’s funny, a few weeks ago I started rewatching it and when I did, I had no idea that it was the 20th anniversary of the series! I can’t believe that it’s been 20 years!

In celebration of the occasion, HBO and Warner Bros. have released a new featurette called “Why the Wire” and it takes a look back at the series, how it came about, and the purpose of the stories that they were telling.

This series looks at the narcotics scene in Baltimore through the eyes of law enforcers as well as the drug dealers and users. Other facets of the city that are explored in the series are the government and bureaucracy, schools and the news media.

The featurette came with the following note: “The Wire took one of the most basic forms of television drama — the cop show — and turned that lens into an atmospheric, broad-ranging examination of how institutional bias and systemic power structures affect the individuals within them."

David Simon is a former police officer, who also wrote many of the episodes. If you’ve never watched the series, it needs to go at the top of your list. For those of you who are fans… enjoy the featurette.