The debate over which TV show can definitively be named as the greatest of all-time is ongoing, never-ending, and impossible to answer all at once. If anything, the Golden Age we’ve been living in for well over a decade has made it harder than ever before to define what makes a classic, but there’s a reason why The Wire has remained at the head of the pack for so long.
David Simon’s staggering crime saga set the benchmark that multiple generations of storytellers would follow on the small screen, with a deftly-woven narrative encompassing countless characters being spun over the course of five phenomenal seasons and 60 jaw-dropping episodes.
One person more than happy to share episodic recommendations with their Twitter followers is Stephen King, who regularly proffers his thoughts on which streaming or network content he’s been using to saucer his eyeballs for better or worse. Even though there are wealth of options available at the push of a button, the horror icon has opted to return to a classic instead.
The era of “water cooler television” may be over in the time of binge-watching, but The Wire‘s reputation only seems to be increasing and solidifying over time. Countless pretenders to the throne have emerged since the final installment aired back in March of 2008, but the fact it still gets brought up whenever chatter turns to attempts in naming which show reigns supreme above all others to have ever existed only serves to hammer home its monolithic status.