If you've read any interviews with The Wire's principal creator, David Simon, you know that he isn't lacking in ego. To hear his commentary track on the first episode, it only gets amplified as Simon walks the viewer slowly through the episode like a king surveying his manor.

Damnit, if he doesn't deserve to feel a little pompous, though. Revisiting this first season of The Wire is a none-too-subtle reminder of just how much the landscape of televised entertainment has been further shifted, and for the better, by this ambitious program.

As Simon lays out in the commentary track, it is a show that, like a novel, requires you to stick with it from the opening scene of Lieutenant Jimmy McNulty inquiring about the death of the unfortunately named Snotboogie all the way to the musical montage that rounded out the final episode that aired just last month.

Walking through these episodes again. I found myself putting the plot in the background, especially since I knew what the end result of these 13 episodes was. Instead, I drank in the raw poetry of the language and how the show's writers (which includes Simon and a crew of crime novelists, former policeman and ex-journalists) were able to subtly set up the parallels between the police force and the drug dealers, expressing the similarities without beating you over the head with them.

As well, it begs the question of why this program has still not been showered with boatloads of awards, other than the plaudits doled out by the dozens from the members of the press. The very least the television industry could have done was to give out an award to the show's casting director for finding exactly the right person for each role, as the cast imbues both their characters and the dialog with so much truth and life.

Regardless, this program is one for the ages, and is definitely an example of what more television producers should aspire to. If you've never seen this program, waste no more time and start right here. You will not be sorry.

The picture is surprisingly rough, which adds a little extra level of grit to the stories, but is a far cry from the much clearer pictures given to later seasons.

Audio commentary on Episode 1: The Target by writer/creator David Simon

Audio commentary on Episode 2: The Detail by director Clark Johnson

Audio commentary on Episode 12: Cleaning Up by Simon and writer George P. Pelecanos