Beware
I ordered The Wire, complete series, in the USA and took it out of the USA with me on an extended business trip of many monthss duration. The intellectual content of this TV series is incomparable - the very best. The mechanical content, normal DVD, is however defective. In each of the five series are episodes, or part of episodes, which will not play. They skip, stop, hesitate, stutter and are otherwise unviewable. A physical examination of the new and hitherto unplayed disc shows a surface entirely unmarred - no scratches or physical defects whatsoever. I've tried playing these same episodes on not only my US purchased laptop but other DVD players and the same thing happens. I can only conclude that the actual original manufacturer's burning or printing process is defective and the product and my experience of it leaves much to be desired. I've been viewing the series over a period of months and its too late to return the product for an refund or exchange so I'm stuck with this. And very unhappy and dissatisfied. Anyone purchasing The Wire should immediately play ALL of the disks, go to each episode and run through all of the segments to make sure that their copy is not a lemon like mine before the return period is over.

bad deal from amazon
This is the best TV show I've ever seen. Terrible DVD product, and Amazon return policy leaves me no recourse -- I paid full price for a set of disks which won't play past the third season, but can't be returned because I, for some reason, didn't sit around and watch the entire thing start to finish in 30 days.

Some reviewers blamed this on HBO and bad packaging. Well, HBO didn't take my money and refuse a refund.

I've been an enormous fan of Amazon, have purchased books here for years and even wound up with a Kindle. It will be a long, long time before I trust them again with an order.

The best way to get the best show
I bought this in "like new" condition and aside from a superficial tear in the outer packaging everything was perfect. The HBO website is charging over 0 for this box set. I bought it here for under 0.

The Wire
I bought 'The Wire' as a birthday gift for my 26 yr old son (who requested it as a gift). He really enjoys the series and is especially enjoying the DVD'S...a perfect gift.

WOW WOW WOW
I haven't read any other reviews on this, but I'm sure there's nothing I can add. The show starts out slow, and the pace is never really intense, minus for a few episodes/moments. But it's easily my favorite show of all times. Every character is amazing, there's only 1 character in the show I don't like. And it's in a rooting against him kind of don't like. The acting's wonderful, I know a bunch of the other reviews probably are filled with spoilers. None here, I'll just say this Bubbles is awesome as is Omar. There are so many moments here, I didn't watch it until after it was long off the air. But when I did, I watched all 5 seasons over maybe 3 weeks. There were days I woke up and literally watched 8 episodes in a row. Only taking a break to use the bathroom and get something to eat and drink. Season 2 started off weird, but I'm glad I stuck with it, because it made sense and by the end was actually very good. It's obviously a drama, but it has some genuinely funny moments. Herc & Carver as partners had me laughing more than a few times. The same with Clay Davis, but at at heart of the show there's nothing at all funny here. This is what television should be, the only shame here is the show was a bit early so there's no HD or even widescreen. I would absolutely be in heaven to have an HD version of this. While the pacing may seem slow to some, it lends to near flawless character development. I'm currently in the process of re-watching it in it's entirely, which I'll probably do about once a year. Yes, it's that damn good.

If you haven't seen this, you owe it to yourself to pick it up. Buy the entire series boxset, I don't see how anyone could not possibly love this show.