Now Pitchfork talks about The Wire; through a record review.

In the past few months, it's been virtually impossible to open any mass-market magazine without seeing some scribe's rapturous doodles about "The Wire", HBO's Baltimore street opera, now revving up its fifth and final season. So allow Pitchfork to join the deafening hype-tsunami: "The Wire" is the best thing to happen to television since the remote control; it weaves a dizzying multiplicity of storylines together, never letting its edge-of-seat suspensefulness eclipse its all-consuming empathy, hardly ever presenting an altogether unsympathetic character on either side of the drug war or within the machinery of politics or education. It's a great show, and its greatness rarely, if ever, has anything to do with music. [Warning: Sone DVD viewers may find slight plot spoilers below.].........[ ]