I also liked Homicide a lot, and I go back and forth on which I like better. I binge-watched The Wire, but I haven’t gone back to Homicide since I saw it on TV in the 90s. I’ve been wanting to watch it through again. I may skip the episode with Robin Williams, though, because it was too hard to watch the first time. I don’t want to go through that again. 
If this is something that grabbed you out of the first episode, then I think you will really enjoy this show.
One of its strengths is painting the characters gray. There are some characters that are drugs dealers (AKA bad guys) that are morally better people than the cops (AKA good guys) even though what they do in life is illegal, which I found very interesting and refreshing.
It’s also on Amazon Prime.
Thanks, Shoeless, for the suggestion. That’s actually how I attempted to watch it the first time. Has Netflix improved the quality of their discs? That’s what put me off them previously. You’d get to a good part and the disc would freeze, and you’d have to wait to get an (equally shitty) exchange to see the rest of the program. I’m sure willing to try again, though!
Doesn’t Amazon Prime use up bandwidth? If yes, then you missed that in my OP. I have very limited bandwidth on a satellite connection and no other options except DVD.
Yeah, I guess I missed that, sorry. Complete series on DVD on sale at Best Buy for $60.
Thank you! Might be worth it. I was a big fan of Homicide: Life on the Street, so I imagine I’m going to appreciate the rest of The Wire now that I’ve gotten into it. 
Definitely. I’m sure you will. Homicide: Life on the Street is my all time favorite series. The Wire is number two.
Well it’s a procedural. The action is sporadic. If you are only looking for action and not great writing you might be bored. The writing and acting are top notch. But yeah it shows in great detail the procedures of police work. It also does the same for drug dealing.
Homicide went from being one of the best ever to being just ok with moments of brilliance. In the beginning they tried to be unconventional. Some cases were solved in ten minutes, some were never solved. With mediocre ratings came the change to solving the case in 48 minutes. The show suffered.
As a career (mostly) narc, I can tell you that this show nailed it. From procedures to politics The Wire is the closest thing to reality that I’ve seen on TV. Oh, and Omar was great.
I watched the first season, and although I didn’t continue with later seasons, I did think it was extremely high quality TV. Some of the dialect is a bit thick, and it helped at times to have closed captioning activated. Not all of us are acquainted with Baltimore Drug Culture slang.
Sort of off-topic, but do you remember the Toyota ad campaign a year or so ago with the bank robbers escaping in a Prius and being chased by police? The actors we’re the same ones who played the Sobotkas. 
No way! I did see that ad, in a movie theatre IIRC, but I didn’t recognize them.
I certainly noticed. The one son played Mad Sweeney the leprechaun in American Gods.
One interesting thing was each season was very different.
I agree with this. It takes several episodes to just learn who is who so I would say watch at least three or four episodes before making any judgement. Also, the show is around 20 years old and was based on a book even older. The technology was somewhat dated even when it first aired (a lot about pagers wen pagers were already on their way out). Some people can’t get passed that kind of thing.
Something else: while the show is ostensibly about cops and robbers, it’s really about the death of the American City through the rotting of its institutions (specifically The Police, Labor, City hall, Education and the Media). To me, that more than anything is what makes it special.
And this is the ad
Thanks! That was a funny ad.
One of the little bits I liked in The Wire’s second season is (and I’m probably mangling it in my memory):
Nick, living in his parent’s house, has his girlfriend sleep over. In the morning, when Nick tells her she has to leave before they see her, she’s pissed. They’re adults, after all. Why can’t his parents know she’s there? Nick says something like, “They’re good people.”
I hope you’ll keep watching, Idle Thoughts. Things start picking up around episode 3, and keep going from there.
David Simon wasn’t po-lice, real or otherwise. He was a reporter who covered the cops.
That’s great. Ziggy isn’t a skinny kid any more. It also sounded like the cop on the radio who said “how hard is it to catch a Prius” was Kima Greggs, but maybe I’m imagining things.
Stick with it, Idle, it’s worth it. Season one is terrific, although you don’t know it yet. Season four is perhaps the best, outside of the first. Great show, top to bottom, and if you stick with it it pays off. Some of the characters, like Bubbles, have a fascinating arc. Some get what they deserve, some don’t.