Wire's Architect Begins His Final Chapter

David Simon put whole life, love of Baltimore into HBO's hit drama

By Jonas Oransky, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 15, 2007 8:22 PM CDT

(Newser) – The final season of HBO critical darling The Wire lands in January, and will revolve around the newsroom—the last unscripted setting from creator David Simon’s own experience. The show has tackled drug runners, cops, dockworkers, and inner-city schoolchildren “with sociological precision,” reports New Yorker’s Margaret Talbot, and will close with the onetime Sun reporter’s old haunts.

Like most Wire action, the newsroom tales draw from real life. The show “is dissent,” insists Simon, as it refuses to reassure urban life. But the tragic program is also a love letter to Baltimore, its “casual cruelty” shot with “unexpected comedy.” Simon's abandon was noted by a former Sun rival: “He is as monomaniacal as Captain Ahab.”

[Images (2)]

[Videos (1)]

David Simon, creator of the HBO series "The Wire" smiles after the filming of a scene for an episode in this June 14, 2002 file photo, in Baltimore. Simon tells The New Yorker the next series he hopes... (Associated Press)

This undated photo, supplied by HBO, shows Michael K. Williams, who plays Omar Little, Baltimore's most-feared stickup artist, on the HBO cable television series, "The Wire." Donnie Andrews, the inspiration... (Associated Press)

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Wire's Architect Begins His Final Chapter