Good, But Far From The Best Rarely has there been such a highly rated show which I have taken so long to view, and so during a week off of work with an injury I took in every season consecutively.
It was pretty good and I was entertained. It also struck me as having a gritty realism absent from a lot of shows but it is certainly, in my opinion, overrated.
This show is heralded by some as the best of all time, yet it is not remotely in the same league as The Sopranos. Other American crime shows like The Shield and Breaking Bad are I believe more entertaining and gripping than The Wire; as well as British shows like Sherlock, Cracker and Luther.
This show had a more authentic feel than most, and had the unique angle of telling the story from both sides of the law equally. That said, the biggest indictment I can level at it is that if I had to stop watching half way through a series and never go back to it then (possibly excluding the fourth season) it would not have bothered me much. I could not say that of any of the other shows I have listed.