Pete wrote:
How is it possible it's been running 5 years and I've never even heard of it before? I must live on some other planet. Like Canada.
Most likely because it's a difficult show to follow if you aren't watching every week.
Unlike other shows, the episodes aren't self-contained stories. They build on previous episodes, and even previous seasons. So it's hard to just watch an episode here or there and think, wow, this is a great show.
It's also a show with very little action. Unlike Hill St. Blues, L&O, NYPD Blue, and even Homicide, there isn't a lot of killing/car chases/cops taking down bad guys/trials where people get punished/get off. It's a show about the drudgery of police work - the stakeout, building a case, politics and social issues that complicate police work.
It can be hard for someone who doesn't know the story to watch an episode and not be bored by watching people talk: cops to cops, drug dealers to drug dealers, cops to drug dealers.
I'm also under the opinior that it isn't more popular because it's too realistic (in a negative way.) The underlying current through the the seasons is that we're F-ed. We've built a system that is slowly unravelling, and though there are some good people here and there - on either side - they are constantly being thwarted by those who seek their own personal advancement.
In essence, what the show is telling us is that certain American cities (and it can probably be generalized to world cities) have failed, and we as a society have failed. That's a pretty depressing thought, and it's not something that other shows have. At the end of the day in Law & Order, they still win most of the cases. Hill St. Blues was similar - they still caught bad guys. In the Wire, even the wins are hollowed out in the end, and the hard workers get punished for their initiative. It's a pretty damning critique of society, and turns a lot of people off.
Plus, it's on HBO.