The Wire

This show is so good I can't believe it exists. I'm barely awake at work today because I couldn't stop watching episodes last night. They accomplish what any sane person in the industry would say can't be achieved on television. It is smart, humanizing, enormous and small at the same time. Joyous and sans flash. Wikipedia entry on it is really good and long.

Except:

Simon has stated that he originally set out to create a police drama loosely based on the experiences of his writing partner and former homicide detective, Ed Burns. Burns, when working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology, had often faced frustration with the bureaucracy of the police department, which Simon equated with his own ordeals as a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Writing against the background of current events, including institutionalized corporate crime at Enron and institutional dysfunction in the Catholic Church, the show became "more of a treatise about institutions and individuals than a straight cop show."

I'm only in season 1, but I can't stop thinking about it. The scope of what HBO is doing with it's shows goes way beyond what can be accomplished in Cinema. I'm not the first to say it, but they are writing 19th century novels...

UPDATE: And then there's the New Yorker article on the show. I haven't read yet, but I just printed it for the plane ride.