Season premiere date: Jan. 6.
Time slot: Sundays at 9 pm/ET, on HBO
What's what: A complex and panoramic portrait of American society's waste of human potential and betrayal of its own stated ideals, as demonstrated by the lives of Baltimore drug dealers, the police who attempt to break up their operations, and the regular citizens affected by their activities.
Who's who: Probably the largest cast of any U.S. open-ended television series, with a constantly shifting group of current and former gangsters, the street peddlers who work for them, their neighbors, cops, lawyers, politicians, teachers, social workers, prisoners and dockworkers.
What's next: Each season has focused on some segment of Baltimore society affected directly by the drug trade and/or by the attempts to stop it; this fifth and final season will examine how newspaper journalism and related media play their roles. We also see the ongoing turf battles within the illegal drug business and within police and other government agencies, particularly the schools and the rivalry between and within the Baltimore city and Maryland state governments.
Why watch: The breathtaking ambition of the series, and its wit, grit and sophistication. While the show can occasionally offer excessive speechifiying and, rarely, an awkward infodump or strained irony, it's a natural extension of what the creative staff was attempting to do with previous projects Homicide: Life on the Streets and The Corner: an indictment of what is wrong with the way things usually go, never failing to make its case with brilliantly drawn characters in believable and often morally and ethically ambiguous situations that have no quick or easy fix.
Time slot: Sundays at 9 pm/ET, on HBO
What's what: A complex and panoramic portrait of American society's waste of human potential and betrayal of its own stated ideals, as demonstrated by the lives of Baltimore drug dealers, the police who attempt to break up their operations, and the regular citizens affected by their activities.
Who's who: Probably the largest cast of any U.S. open-ended television series, with a constantly shifting group of current and former gangsters, the street peddlers who work for them, their neighbors, cops, lawyers, politicians, teachers, social workers, prisoners and dockworkers.
What's next: Each season has focused on some segment of Baltimore society affected directly by the drug trade and/or by the attempts to stop it; this fifth and final season will examine how newspaper journalism and related media play their roles. We also see the ongoing turf battles within the illegal drug business and within police and other government agencies, particularly the schools and the rivalry between and within the Baltimore city and Maryland state governments.
Why watch: The breathtaking ambition of the series, and its wit, grit and sophistication. While the show can occasionally offer excessive speechifiying and, rarely, an awkward infodump or strained irony, it's a natural extension of what the creative staff was attempting to do with previous projects Homicide: Life on the Streets and The Corner: an indictment of what is wrong with the way things usually go, never failing to make its case with brilliantly drawn characters in believable and often morally and ethically ambiguous situations that have no quick or easy fix.
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