Critics Love Wire's Media Turn

Or at least a movie, pleads Eric Holder

(NEWSER) - The nation's top lawyer has it out for David Simon. AG Eric Holder yesterday ordered the creator of The Wire to start working on another season of the HBO crime drama—and jokingly reminded him that "I have a lot of power." Holder issued his plea to Simon and Ed Burns while appearing alongside three Wire stars at a Justice Department conference focusing on protecting children from drug abuse and exploitation, Reuters reports. More»

Along with 30 others; HBO actress has other arrests in her past

(NEWSER) - Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, best known for her role as a drug dealer's hitman on HBO’s The Wire, was arrested along with more than 30 others this morning during raids on a large heroin and marijuana operation in Baltimore. Police, DEA agents, and other officials carried out the pre-dawn bust as part of a five-month drug investigation, the Baltimore Sun reports. Pearson’s troubled past includes a conviction of second-degree murder at just 14; she was arrested again in 2008. More»

'Wire" creator David Simon scores with new series set in Big Easy

(NEWSER) - Critics seem thrilled with Wire creator David Simon's new HBO series Treme, about post-Katrina New Orleans:

• Dave Walker, New Orleans Times-Picayune : "This is the screen depiction that New Orleans deserves, has always desired, but has been denied."
• Locals want to know two things: "Is it real? and Is it good?" writes Kevin Allman for the Best of New Orleans Blog . "It’s as real as any television show ever about New Orleans" and "it’s already good…and it stands the chance of being great."

Joss Whedon, Judd Apatow, HBO prominently featured

(NEWSER) - From the standard (No. 16, Friday Night Lights) to the quirky (No. 29, Wonder Showzen), the long-running (No. 8, Lost) to the canceled-too-soon (No. 4, Freaks and Geeks), The Onion runs down the 30 best shows of the '00s:

• No. 1, The Wire: This drama “unfolded like a great American novel.”
• No. 2, The Sopranos: A brilliant cast served up “soap opera, mob intrigue, and surrealist digressions.”
• No. 3, Arrested Development: The cult sensation “not only makes viewers laugh, it makes them feel smart.”

Latest incarnation has its 'flaws'

(NEWSER) - The riches-to-rags story of an eccentric mother and daughter—relatives of Jackie O, no less—who gained fame for their destitute existence in a 1975 documentary gets another retelling in HBO's Grey Gardens. Critics aren't overly excited:

• The movie "fills in bittersweet blanks” left by the original documentary, writes Joy Press in Salon, forcing fans “into a trade-off: Our curiosity is sated, but we lose some of the most haunting shades of gray."