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The Wire: Complete Season 2 Box Set (HBO)Picking up after the dramatic events of its maiden season, the second series of The Wire achieves something really rather special: it even manages to outclass the first.
For those fresh to the show, surely the best, most intelligent piece of scripted drama to emerge from America in the last decade, the actual premise is fairly simple. Across the thirteen episodes of its season, it charts one case, and the numerous influences upon it. So it devotes roughly equal time to those committing the crimes as it does to those chasing them. This time, the Baltimore Police Department have twin worries. There's the continuing, festering narrative of events from the season before, along with a new problem when a container of dead bodies turns up at the nearby docks. After initial battles over whose statistics the bodies will be attributed to, a fresh case begins for the embattled officers of the Major Crimes Unit. Yet season two is about much more than the case itself. Bubbling under the surface are characters with real problems, that take their toll on the day-to-day, while at the docks themselves there are union struggles underway, which also have a part to play. Thanks to, frankly, superb scripting, these various narrative threads are woven together quite brilliantly, and the result is perhaps the finest series of The Wire to date. And that's no small feat. If you're one of the many who have let The Wire fly under their radar thus far, then you're urged to rectify that. Clearly season one is the logical starting point, but begin your adventure in the knowledge that this second series is simple exceptional. For the rest of the US television industry, this is the standard to aim for. --Simon Brew |
Average User Rating: 100% (32 Reviews) | |
| 5 / 5 | simply astonishing!
S. Hiel "jimbobaggins1" (London) - 26 July 2005 The second series of the wire does what no other programme can do, and that is somehow manage to be better than the first series of the wire. I had to get it off amazon.com months ago and have to say it is the most powerfull engaging television that I have watched. It carries on with the same characters as last time, the opposing forces of Mcnulty and Barksdale, cops and dealers, and adds a whole new layer of characters as we have a look at the baltimore docks and the stevedores, working class americans making horrible decisions to fight for the survival of their trade. It rises above cliches of cops and bad guys effortlessly and looks at human bengs struggling with what America and its intstitutions can offer them and how to survive the grim situation of poverty and desperation. It can be heartbreaking and at times blackly comic and left me in awe at such a fantastic achievment.... Read Full Review » |
| 5 / 5 | TV at its grittiest/greatest
"good_arm_cindy" - 15 October 2005 What can you say that hasn't been said in the US about the Wire? Shown only on FX on Sky in an 11 o clock slot on a Wednesday evening you would be excused for thinking that this was a show that the producers wanted to slip in without it registering on the radar. How wrong of the producers (if this is case however you will understand why it has to be shown late when you watch it) this has to be television at its finest. Effortlessly weaving characters into plots that seem so unrelated at the start you would be forgiven for thinking nothing could link them together at the start of the series. Dock workers? Murdered Prostitutes? Greeks? Russians? Drug Dealers? You really do have to watch it to realize what I mean. You will think back to an episode in which you thought had a scene of little importance to the plot only for it to become crucial to the series as a whole an episode later. I must mention the stunning performances turned in by all the actors, especially the new ones for this series who have really established them selves. With characters from series 1 brought back together with an amazing plot you can see why this show is the hit it is in America. The on-screen pairing of Dominic West (Detective McNulty) and Wendell Pierce (Detective "Bunk" Moreland) is perfect and these help to add the moments of dark humour to the series. This is a show that must be watched to be believed. I myself am particularly looking forward to the DVD version of this show, so I can watch it with the subtitles on and catch little bits of information I might have missed first time around. A must-buy for anyone...... Read Full Review » |
| 5 / 5 | The Best Series on TV
steve b (Dudley England) - 7 December 2005 The second series of The Wire is every bit as good as the first. This means that it is the best series on TV. The second series follows on from the first with Stringer Bell struggling to keep his drug business afloat now that his boss Avon and his muscle, Wee Bay are in Prison. Daniels reassembles his team to investigate crime on the Baltimore Docks. This brings them into contact with a mysterious figure called 'The Greek' and fourteen dead Eastern European prostitutes who suffocate in a ship's storage container. As with the first series there are no cardboard figures. This is especially true of the Baltimore Dock Workers Union leader, Frank Sabodka. Sabodka may be involved with the Greek in smuggling and theft from the docks but he does not use the money he makes for himself. His aim is to use the money to buy political influence and keep the docks open and his members in work. All the main charactors from the first series are back including Kima, Lester, D'Angelo, Prez, McNulty and Bunk as well as the not to be forgotten Omar. THe second series also goes into more detail about the infighting in the Baltimore Police Department. It is also a story about the decline of tradional American heavy industries such as the docks and the efect on working class Americans. To miss The Wire is to miss the best show on TV. ... Read Full Review » |
| 5 / 5 | Doesn't quite match season one, but still excellent stuff
Franklin T Marmoset - 27 March 2007 We return to the cold and gritty streets of Baltimore for this second season of the complex, fascinating cop drama The Wire. This time out, the story centres around the illegal activities of Baltimore's dock workers, who've got themselves mixed up in drugs, theft and the illegal immigrant trade. Alongside this, we catch up with Stringer Bell and what's left of the Barksdale drug operation, while amoral psychopath Omar is back in town to make some more trouble. As with year one, the acting all around is pretty much faultless. Dominic West is good again as the still drunk and still self-destructive detective McNulty, Idris Elba excels as the calculating, intelligent Stringer Bell, and Michael K. Williams is horribly compulsive and oddly charming as gun-toting nutbag Omar. Two notable additions to the cast are Chris Bauer and Pablo Schrieber as Frank and Nickolas Sobotka, two dockers who find themselves getting deeper into the world of crime than they ever intended. The mission of the show remains the same as with season one: to tell a crime story that's as complex and morally ambiguous as real crime tends to be, shifting its viewpoint back and forth from the flawed coppers to the criminal element. The one small problem with season two is that the story lacks the focus of year one. Instead of sticking with the one investigation, this year's The Wire spends quite a bit of time on the continuing Barksdale story. It's good stuff, but at times it feels somewhat aimless and detached from the new story. Even with this small criticism, season two of The Wire remains the best TV cop drama around. If you liked season one (which you really have to see to fully appreciate this year's episodes), this is recommended viewing.... Read Full Review » |
| 5 / 5 | the most realistic and tense tv series in years
- 31 January 2006 the wire is the most realistic and tense thriller of a tv series in years, it offers great acting with many action set pieces and a dialogue that is very difficult to match. each character has a different presence and can relate to the modern day audience in many ways. the wire manages to portray the modern day life just how it is and tries to make a point to show viewers what is happening in todays societies and the consequences that can emerge. the wire has great acting, dialogue, action and the cleverness that could chew jack bauer and 24 up and spit them straight back out. a character in this series named omar is fantastic and offers a great and exciting performance every time he is on screen. this is a very underrated and rarely noticable tv series that once you have seen will blow your mind and immediately make you want to see the next episode immediately after the previous one. overall a great experience and rollercoaster ride that keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very last episode.... Read Full Review » |
RRP
£55.73
Release Date
10 October 2005
Price Range
£14.98 - £39.43