E: 17/03 Win Wire Season 4 DVD

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The heat is on as one of the greatest television shows ever returns to DVD on March 10 as The Wire: The Complete Fourth Season is released by HBO Video (£39.99 RRP).

The Wire is the most unvarnished, uncompromising and realistic police drama ever to air on television. It transcends its subject matter and the confines of TV drama and inspires evangelical fervour amongst its fans. The series follows a single sprawling drug and murder investigation in Baltimore and is told from the point of view of both the police and their targets. It captures a universe of subterfuge and surveillance, where easy distinctions between good and evil and crime and punishment are challenged at every turn.

With the fall of Avon Barksdale and the ascent of young Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector) as West Baltimore's drug king, the detail continues to "follow the money" up the political ladder in the midst of a mayoral election that pits the black incumbent, Clarence Royce (Glynn Turman), against an ambitious white councilman, Tommy Carcetti (Aidan Gillen). The theme of urban education is explored through four new characters: Michael Lee, Namond Brice, Randy Wagstaff, and "Dukie" Weems as they traverse adolescence in the stunted, drug-saturated streets of West Baltimore. The world that awaits these boys and the American commitment to equal opportunity are depicted brilliantly in the edgy, all-too-realistic season 4 of The Wire.


This season of The Wire is based in large part on the experiences of writer and producer Edward Burns, who taught social studies for seven years in the Baltimore school system after serving 20 years as a city police detective.

"If anything," says Burns, "our depiction of an inner-city school system, its problems and its unwillingness to fully address those problems, is a very generous one."

The first season of The Wire (2002) concentrated on the often-futile efforts of police to infiltrate a West Baltimore drug ring headed by Avon Barksdale and his lieutenant, Stringer Bell. In Seasons Two and Three, as the Barksdale investigation escalated, new storylines involving a longshoremen's union and the city's political leadership were introduced.

Now, the stories of Michael, Namond, DuQuan and Randy take place against the rise of a new narcotics empire in West Baltimore - replacing the fallen Barksdale organisation - and the resulting struggle by Baltimore detectives to mount an investigation against this new power.

To celebrate the release of The Wire: The Complete Season Four, we've got five boxsets to give away


answer - Baltimore

good luck