On to season 4 now. Damn, 3 was great.

4's even better.

My organized crime prof said this show was amazing/should be required viewing. As good a reason as any to start I guess.

Finished 4. Hot damn, that was great. 2 is still my favourite though.

I'm only about five episodes in (although randomly I've seen the whole fourth season) but this clip is still so so good

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/414fa4 ... h-williams

Finally finished The Wire on Sunday. Damn, that was great. One of the best experiences I've ever had watching a tv show, though I have to say I'm a little disappointed that the show wasn't around long enough to address the economic recession. That could have made for a very interesting season indeed.

My guess is that Simon and Burns' stance on the recession is that it changes very little for the city of Baltimore, which has been economically depressed for at least a generation if not two. The hypothetical sixth season would have apparently addressed Latino immigrants to the city but I guess it wasn't fully formed enough to be worth doing. I think Treme is a fine successor show and you should definitely watch it (although it doesn't touch The Wire story-wise).

I've also heard him say the ratings just really didn't justify HBO continuing it anymore.

I'm fairly late to the party, but I just finished watching season one, after unintentionally watching all of season four at my uncle's house in 2009 (I gave myself a break to forget as much as possible). What a fantastic piece of art! Can't wait to finish the rest!

Same here, i'm currently on the season one finale. I'm enjoying the shit out of this show so far.

Finished my yearly rewatch of the show about a month ago. I've now reevaluated where I think the seasons stand.

4 of course is still the best season and the best season in television. My order before would have gone 4, 1, 5, 3, 2.

However, now it goes 4, 3, 1, 2 (with 2 really close to surpassing 1), 5.

Three has changed the most significantly because I've come to the conclusion that *spoiler alert* the decay and end of the relationship of Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale might be the most compelling single character arc in the show and the way in which they end that is just fantastic. Also some great new characters introduced and the bureaucratic nightmare behind police policy were quite fascinating. Season 1 reamins about where I've thought it was before (I guess it loses slight points because I do realize how hard the show is to get in stride for its first couple of episodes). My estimation of 2 has risen quite a great deal. I think the look behind the curtain with organized crime is very interesting but the stuff on the docks is some of the best stuff in the whole show and Frank Sobatka is such an amazing character. Five falls back to the weakest. I still like it a ton but the central plot element just bothers me more as time goes on. I still love the journalism seens and the conclusion of Bubbles story arc is incredibly toucing. In fact the last 5 episodes are ridiculously strong (I think the very last episode might have been the best in the show other than maybe the second to last in Season 4 and the second to last in Season 3) but the first 5 definitely have some weaknesses. Still has the best courtroom scene in any TV show ever too (although the court scene in Season 2 with Omar is close to that honor). All in all the show still stands as a towering achievement.

Corrections, I agree with that post entirely pretty much (my ranking is the same as your new one), especially with the spoiler - that storyline is just so unbelievably powerful. I've found that the weaknesses of season 5 can be gotten over by treating the McNulty storyline as a bit of a black comedy. Certainly some of his interaction with Bunk and his staged phonecalls are simply hilarious.

Yeah that storyline provides 3 of my top 10 scenes throughout the whole series. And in regards to the strength of the latter part of season 5: absolutely. Late Editions is probably my favorite episode in the show.

And my season rankings are exactly the same as yours, except I really cannot justify giving an edge between seasons 1 and 2. I'll be going through rewatch 5 in a few months. Can't wait.

In season 1, a random cop says to Jimmy "I'd give half my pension to someone who could save this city".
In season 5, Carcetti cuts all the police pensions in half.
Mind = blown

My guess for those scenes "Dream with Me", the showdown, and the warehouse scene?