The nephew of drug lord Avon Barksdale, D’Angelo Barksdale, gets off a murder charge thanks to the key witness being intimidated into changing her story. A homicide cop, James McNulty, observes this from the back of the Baltimore courtroom and is soon in the chambers of the presiding judge who wants to know what the hell happened. The smart response, as the detective will over time discover, would have been to keep his disappointment to himself and move on to another case. Instead he let Judge Phelan, a more politically minded individual, know that the aforementioned drug lord has gotten away with murder several times in the past, and not in a court of law.

This interesting snippet of info will turn out to be not such good news for McNulty’s boss, Sergeant Jay Landsman, and McNulty, as a phone call from the judge about this mysterious Avon Barksdale goes up the chain of command of the police department. Down comes a lot of fury via Major
William Rawls as well as an order for a task force to be created to look into the activities of Avon Barksdale. It soon becomes clear that the appearance of battling the fire is more important than its actual extinguishment, with the more smoke being generated the better; the more directed towards the judge and in front of the police brass even better still.

So begins the first series of HBO’s “The Wire”, created by writer David Simon and ex-cop Ed Burns.

Telling the story of the subsequent wiretap investigation of Barksdale from the perspective of the police, the criminals in the decayed Projects of West Baltimore, and the drug users in the
middle, this is a top notch audiovisual novel told over 13 chapters, on the more expansive canvas provided by cable television. While ostensibly about the War on Drugs - and the creators’ views on it do shine through, once or twice too brightly in the dialogue - its scope is, like all good drama, wide. Its characters are difficult to pigeonhole. And while it is grim, it does illuminate.

“The Wire” is about to enter its fourth season on HBO this year in the United States. The first and second seasons are currently available on DVD.

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