The best TV series ever was The Wire. (Series 1 was the best, 2 was OK but got better, 3 was better than 2 but not as good as the first series. ) It’s really funny as well as utterly engaging.
\nIt’s a gansters vs cops series. The cops aren’t necessarily good and the gangsters aren’t necessarily bad though. The “wire” refers to various forms of electronic surveillance.
\nIt’s accessible in the UK on an obscure Sky backup channel and is currently in series 2 here but you need to see series 1 first to get a taste for it..<\/p>\n

There is not much to say beyond that, but I will provide some (gushing) reasons to justify my choice:<\/p>\n

Standard tv reasons: The dialogue is almost always good and sometimes completely brilliant. Some of the characters are brilliant (eg Omar) Some of the acting is excellent. The soundtracks are good – series 1 has a basically hip hop soundtrack. There is lots of action and suspense. The visual aspect is often stunning. The central character starts off sympathetic (McNulty) but then gets increasingly flawed and irritating. The most sympathetic character is a gangster (di Angelo) who starts to stand up for himself and employ some moral sense but who gets killed because of it in series 2<\/p>\n

More intellectual reasons: It looks at serious issues – class and race in US society, the priorities of law enforcement and the pressures on police; alternatives to the murderous state of inner-city neighbourhoods; common factors in the internal politics of gangs and police; the effect of economic change on traditional working class neighbourhoods and their institutions; the way people can be manipulated by community\/family\/group values, and so on.
\nIt does this without ever pushing the issues down your throat and without ever being less than completely entertaining in the way of a standard cop series.
\nI think it’s the best tv series I’ve ever seen, although my standards are probably a bit dubious anyway.<\/p>\n