"Wire" creator David Simon is in the midst of working on a drama pilot for HBO, New Orleans-set "Treme," but that doesn't mean he's not a keen-eyed reader of his alma mater, The Baltimore Sun. Once a police reporter, always a police reporter, according to this account that Simon penned for Sunday's Washington Post. (Click here for the entire story.)

On Feb. 17, when a 29-year-old officer responded to a domestic dispute in East Baltimore, ended up fighting for her gun and ultimately shot an unarmed 61-year-old man named Joseph Alfonso Forrest, the Sun reported the incident, during which Forrest died, as a brief item. It did not name the officer, Traci McKissick, or a police sergeant who later arrived at the scene to aid her and who also shot the man.

It didn't identify the pair the next day, either, because the Sun ran no full story on the shooting, as if officers battling for their weapons and unarmed 61-year-old citizens dying by police gunfire are no longer the grist of city journalism. At which point, one old police reporter lost his mind and began making calls.

Judd Apatow makes me laugh. He makes a lot of people laugh. He kept the packed house at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills laughing Thursday night as he moderated the "Beyond Words" panel of WGA Award nommed screenwriters. It was a good group -- Simon Beaufoy ("Slumdog Millionaire"); Lance Black ("Milk"); Tom McCarthy ("The Visitor"); Jonathan Nolan ("The Dark Knight"); and Eric Roth ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") -- that reflected a range of pics.

Apatow joked at the start about not preparing for the event, but he'd clearly done a little bit of homework. He zeroed in on Roth to start, noting that the esteemed screenwriter had been a friend of Jim Morrison when they both attended UCLA in the mid-1960s.

"Can we talk about that all night," Apatow said.

Roth breezed over this interesting chapter in the L.A./rock'n'roll/Hollywood history with a dry mention of weird scenes ("I did get high with him a lot") and the observation that the Lizard King, in all his tight- leather-pants-whip-it-out-in-Miami-rock-god glory, really wanted to be a respected poet, or maybe even a screenwriter. "He wanted to be here," Roth said. (I think he meant Morrison would've loved being in a setting that conferred on him the status of being a really good writer.)

Apatow then warned McCarthy that the only thing he was more interested in than Jim Morrison stories was behind the scenes tales of "The Wire." (McCarthy co-starred as a really craven character -- a corrupt newspaper reporter -- in the HBO drama's final season last year. He shredded in the role. I loved HATING him.)

"So, what role as an actor pissed you off so much that you decided to write," Apatow asked, zeroing in on the heart of the question, no matter how delicately phrased, that is always asked of actors who decide to write or direct, or do both in the case of the multi-talented McCarthy.

(Pictured above, from left: Eric Roth, Lance Black, Judd Apatow, Jonathan Nolan, Tom McCarthy and Simon Beaufoy.)

Oh Snoop, we hoped you'd given up the thug life.

Felicia Pearson, who played the cold-hearted Snoop on HBO's "The Wire," was arrested Wednesday in Baltimore on a minor drug charge (allegedly, two cigar-size joints and some shake) on Wednesday. According to the Associated Press, B-more P.D. went to her home to serve a warrant to detain her for refusing to cooperate as a witness in a murder trial.

According to the AP, authorities say Pearson was a witness on the night the defendant stabbed three men, one of whom died, back in 2005. No, this isn't p. 35 of a "Wire" script.

One of the reasons she was so arresting in her role as Snoop, the linchpin of the (freezing) cold-hearted muscle team shielding dope kingpin Marlo Stanfield, was that she was that person, a total byproduct of Baltimore's corners. Born a crack baby and raised in the city's tenements, she ran the gamut of selling dope, doing prison time and watching friends and family members die in the never-ending carnage of the thug life, as "The Wire" so expertly detailed.

As detailed in this New York Times feature on Pearson from 2006, she was introduced to "Wire" producers through her friend Michael K. Williams, who played the show's enigmatic, Robin Hood-esque street bandit Omar. Her death scene in the second-to-last seg of "Wire's" final season was heartbreaking, and Pearson brought a warrior's noble stoicism to the moment. "How my hair look, Michael," she asked her killer right before her brains were splattered all over the cab of her SUV.

For Pearson's sake, let's hope this arrest is a minor hiccup.

"Mad Men" hit the trifecta on Saturday at the TCA Awards, snaring the prizes for best drama, best new show and program of the year, as Variety's Stuart Levine reports. This is probably a good warmup for the Emmycast on Sept. 20.

Stars John Slattery and Jon Hamm (pictured left) already look very comfortable doing the acceptance remarks thing.

It's also good to see "The Wire" (cast members and series creator David Simon goofed around for a WireImage photog prior to the awards, see below) getting some respect. HBO drama was recognized with the Television Critics Assn.'s Heritage Award for programs that are gonna stick around for a while in our collective memory.

TCA kudos were hosted at the Bev Hilton by the Smothers Brothers (pictured right). I'm kinda sorry I missed it, I'll be Tom and Dick were great -- it's an election year after all.

Hard to believe that an award designed to honor excellence in television could elude "The Wire" during its incredible five-season run.

The critical raves reached a new peak earlier this year when "Wire" wrapped up with its 10-seg fifth season, which featured razor-sharp writing, a hell of a potboiler story involving the media, the cops, the courts, the dealers, local and state pols, smarmy defense attorneys, etc., all while tying up the series' loose narrative ends. (I choked up at the deaths of Omar and Proposition Joe.)

It was not really much of a surprise that the show was snubbed in its last year of eligibility for the top Emmy prize of drama series. It did earn a writing nom for creators David Simon (pictured left) and Ed Burns for the finale seg, "30." I may be worked up about the snub in the series category (especially since we know it made the top 10 final list), but one "Wire" fan who is not is Simon.

Simon took the time to call Thursday afternoon to deliver a carefully considered comment on his show and the lack of Emmy action over the years. He likened it to one of the major plot threads of "Wire's" last season about the Baltimore Sun management turning a blind eye to journalistic malfeasance in the relentless pursuit of a Pulitzer.

"The last season of 'The Wire' included a critique of the prize culture in newspapering as being one of the many forces confronting and threatening contemporary journalism. I would have to be the biggest hypocrite on the planet to now suggest that whether or not a drama gets nominated for an award matters. The only thing that matters is the work."

Speaking of work, Simon is gearing up for his next HBO project after Iraq war mini "Generation Kill," bowed this week. His drama project "Treme," set in post-Katrina New Orleans, got the greenlight to pilot last week. Simon wouldn't give up too many details about the project that he co-wrote with Eric Overmyer, but "Wire" lovers, take note: Wendell Pierce (pictured right), aka Det. Bunk Moreland, is attached.

The project should hit home for Pierce, a New Orleans' native whose parents lost their home in the Katrina devastation. Simon demurred on the details of Pierce's character, but he did offer this tantalizing tidbit: "We made him buy a trombone."

Simon is working with casting director Alexa Fogel, an alum of "Wire" and "Generation Kill," on filling out the rest of the players. He's shooting for a start date in February or so.

"We'll probably be filming right at the edge of hurricane season," Simon says.

Hot off the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences nomination vote-tallying machine, here are the top 10 finalists for Emmy noms in the comedy and drama series heats. The final noms will be announced on Thursday, July 17.

(My 2 cents on the list follows after the jump)

COMEDY

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
The Office
Pushing Daisies
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men
Ugly Betty
Weeds

DRAMA

Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
Friday Night Lights
Grey’s Anatomy
House
Lost
Mad Men
The Tudors
The Wire

David Simon was in town last week to pick up an honor from the non-profit Liberty Hill Foundation.

Thursday night event at the Century Plaza Hotel honored the creator of HBO's "The Wire" and his fellow exec producer Ed Burns with its Upton Sinclair award. Liberty Hill calls itself a "social change foundation" that awards grant money and other support to community orgs in L.A. County.

Although Baltimore is a long way from L.A. County, "Wire" was singled out by the org for its laser-like focus on how key social institutions are failing to address the needs of America's urban centers. Alfre Woodard emceed the night; award to Simon (pictured left with Liberty Hill CEO Kafi Blumenfield) and Burns was presented by Carolyn Strauss, the former HBO Entertainment boss and "Wire's" biggest champion.

A number of "Wire" thesps were on hand for the event, including Andre Royo (pictured right), looking more clean-cut than we ever saw him on the show. What a sweet smile.

Series finales are a cruel assignment for anyone who has slaved over a show for years until its bell tolls. It's especially daunting for a rarity like "The Wire," a show that has burrowed deep into the psyches of its ardent, often evangelistic fans. 

The characters have been so finely drawn and fully fleshed out over the previous 59 episodes. How can one final hour (or even an hour and a half) do them justice for all eternity?

For David Simon, the mandate for episode 60, "30," was the same as every other "Wire" episode. Tell the story as truthfully as possible for the characters and their situations, and don't pull punches, even when you want to. That's why Dukie wound up shooting up in one of the final scenes. That's why Alma and Gus got demoted at the Sun for complaining, and Templeton got his Pulitzer. That's why Carcetti made it to the governor's mansion on little more than a trumped up serial killer case. That's why lawyer Levy managed to turn his own bust into a win for Stanfield that only enhanced his reputation as the reigning legal eagle for Baltimore's drug kingpins.

And that's why the seg -- written by David Simon and Ed Burns and helmed by Clark Johnson (who was such an electrifying addition to the cast this year as bloodied-but-not-bowed city editor Gus Haynes) -- opens with Mayor Carcetti flailing around in his office trying to wrap his head around the magnitude of what has gone wrong in the police department while Carcetti's media whiz, ex-Baltimore Sun staffer Norman Wilson, can't stop laughing. He may be in PR now, but Wilson's hasn't lost his reporter's calculus.

"They manufactured an issue to get paid. We manufactured an issue to get you to be the next governor. Everybody's getting what they need behind some make-believe," Wilson sez of the faux homeless serial killer case. "I wish I was still at the newspaper so I could write on this mess. It's too fucking good."

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

And so it ends, and the finality of it saddens me deeply.

Not only did the fifth season of "The Wire" conclude Sunday night, but now the series is over too. Mort. Done. Finito. After 60 brilliantly written and acted episodes, I find myself with an incredibly empty feeling, not knowing if anything so good will come our way on television ever again.

I've now watched the 95-minute episode "30" (meaning end of story in journalistic circles) twice, trying to absorb everything creator David Simon and episode co-writer Ed Burns and director Clark Johnson wanted to say about Simon's Baltimore -- its cops, politicians, drug pushers, lawyers and everyone else who makes the city an ever-changing and, quite depressing, living organism.

The finale lived up to all expectations, certainly one of the best closing episodes of any show ever. Loose ends were wrapped -- at least most of them anyway -- and McNulty and Lester took the fall for their ill-fated serial killer chicanery. Not with jail time, but an end to their lives as cops. And they should consider themselves lucky that's all they got.

So many great scenes here and countless memorable lines that keep running around in my head. Lets get to them, while wondering if the city is going to have enough money to pay for the TV that Carcetti broke in his office:

(Note: Photos attached here don't necessarily have anything to do with the final episode, or even this season, but are just some pieces of art that pay tribute to the actors on "The Wire.")

David Simon always seems to have a lot on his mind. For the past six years, he's given voice to his thoughts, commentaries and general reportage on life in urban American through his imposing HBO drama series "The Wire."

That sweeping saga of hustle and bustle on Baltimore's drug corners, in its police department and school system, in the corridors of City Hall and its court system comes to an end Sunday with episode No. 60, "30."

As you might expect, Simon had plenty to say about the process of wrapping up a show that is near and dear to him, the issues it has tackled over its five seasons and what he hoped "Wire's" legacy would -- and would not -- be in the long run.

Simon was generous with his time in a telephone interview late last month, in between looping sessions on "Generation Kill," his upcoming HBO miniseries about Marines in Iraq. (Beyond "Kill," Simon's also working with "Wire" and "Homicide" alum Eric Overmyer on an HBO pilot script set among musicians in post-Katrina New Orleans, and he's got a deal with his "Wire" collaborator William Zorzi to write a non-fiction book about the rise of the drug culture in 1950s and '60s Baltimore.)

According to Simon, the best way to understand "The Wire" is to think Greek -- not the nefarious Greek characters who dominate the illicit trade in Baltimore's ports, but the storytelling tradition of the ancient Greek tragedies, where the heroes and anti-heroes always face a dramatic downfall, usually as a result of their own hubris.

Leaning on that structure gave them a road map to plot the fates of the show's primary characters, particularly the savvy police detectives Jimmy McNulty, Lester Freamon, Bunk Moreland and Kima Greggs; dealers, dopers and street soldiers Omar Little, Bubbles, Proposition Joe, Marlo Stanfield and Avon Barksdale.

"We knew what was going to happen over the course of the five-year run," Simon sez (though it was not always clear it would be a five-year run, he's quick to add. It took some work to secure seasons four and five).

"We were always adjusting where characters were going to end up, what parts of Baltimore we were going to depict when, what we wanted to say with the overall  theme of the show. It was a Greek tragedy done in a modernist urban way, with the city as the main character," Simon says.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

David Simon found himself Monday afternoon bunkered down in the bowels of the law school building on the USC campus, discussing the demise of journalism as it relates to the fifth -- and sadly, final -- season of "The Wire."

It's a topic Simon can pontificate about for hours, and he did so for about two of them here. At the beginning of the chat, he polled the room to see how many journalism majors were in attendance. Two people out of about 100 raised their hands. If the future of journalism can be gauged by the attendance at USC, the ranks of the next generation of ink-stained wretches will be awfully thin.

To summarize Simon's thoughts on the fall of newspapers and how "The Wire" weaves that depressing topic into politics, crime, corruption and, basically, the decay of civilization, he addressed it this way: "Everyday human beings matter less. The game is rigged. The house odds are against you."

STUART LEVINE ADDS HIS COMMENTS BELOW

I can't recall hearing a single note of Neil Young in an episode of "The Wire" over the past five seasons, but after watching the penultimate installment of this epic urban drama, Young's haunting ballad "Comes a Time" came to mind.

Time is a big theme of this episode, and time obviously is running out on everyone in "The Wire" diaspora. About a third of the way into "Late Editions" -- penned by George Pelecanos and David Simon and helmed by Joe Chapelle --  New Centurians of the Baltimore's corners are on their knees with cuffs on and cell phones surrendered, kingpin Marlo Stanfield included.

The cops and Mayor Carcetti are having a field day with the big bust that draws news coverage, but our anti-hero Jimmy McNulty isn't partying -- even after going so far out on a tightrope to bring about the Stanfield bust. He knows the hellfire is coming, it's just a matter of time. Doesn't help that his boss calls him a "genital wart" for his lack of progress on the homeless serial killer case.

McNulty's main partner in crime, Lester Freamon, is too high on the rush of victory to let reality sink in just yet. He's bagged his prey, and now they're gonna pay. The wordless exchange of hard (granite-hard) looks between Freamon and Stanfield at the arrest site throws off enough sparks to start a brushfire, a credit to the acting skills of Clarke Peters (Freamon) and Jamie Hector (Stanfield).

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE Cynthia's comments below

Omar dead.

If only Omar had listened to the surgeon general, who told us years ago that smoking kills. Buying a pack of Newports at a Korean convenience store, Omar was gunned down not by Snoop or Chris but by Kenard, the pre-teen kid who would hassle Dukie whenever he walked by.

But that it was Kenard, who actually used to look up to Omar, is almost besides the point. Killing is so random on the blight-infested streets of "The Wire" that there's often nary a reason drugslingers -- most of which are only in their teens and 20s -- often find a bullet in the back of the head. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, unknowingly pissing off a drug lord and or having your allegiances questioned is all it takes.

Not that Omar was a seller. Maybe at one time, but he'd seen the evils of all that dope on the streets and tried, in his own way, to clean his hood just a little.

Omar's demise wasn't all that unexpected. He'd been living dangerously for awhile now, especially since coming back from Puerto Rico after learning Butchie and Prop Joe were offed. And limping around on a bad leg -- I still love Marlo's line, "That's some Spider-Man shit," after realizing that Omar jumped out of the fourth- or fifth-story window -- made him an easier target.

Kudos to Michael K. Williams, who had a throwaway minimal role in the third episode of season one and turned Omar into a fan favorite. As it turned out, his death wasn't even worth a mention in the Sun, but how do you compress his tumultuous life into a couple of graphs anyway?

Other observations while wondering if Bubbles prefers to go by Reggie:

This episode of "The Wire" has just about everything, including a Shakima Greggs bedtime story, as only she could deliver:

Goodnight moon
Goodnight stars
Goodnight po-pos
Goodnight thieves
Goodnight hoppers
Goodnight hustlers
Goodnight scammers
Goodnight to everybody
Goodnight to one and all

This bit of poetry from Greggs as she sits on her windowsill late at night, trying to ease her little boy back to sleep, wraps up the eventful episode seven, "Took," penned by Richard Price and and David Simon and directed by Dominic West. It's a nice touch to end with a leisurely paced two-minute scene with Greggs (looking very un-Greggs-like) after a seg that moves the overall plot along at warp speed, for the most part.

Another morsel offered for the rabid fans is a glimpse of Richard Belzer in his Det. Munch persona from "Homicide: Life on the Streets" (the NBC drama inspired by "Wire" creator David Simon's non-fiction book about life in Baltimore). It's a fleeting moment -- Munch is parked on a stool arguing with a bartender about his tab when Clark Johnson's city editor Gus Haynes goes to an old cop-bar hangout from his days on the beat to do some reporting on some of the B.S. that his fiendishly ambitious Jimmy Olson, reporter Scott Templeton, has been feeding him about a story that has drawn complaints from readers for its veracity, or lack thereof.

It's called "The Dickensian Aspect," but to me much of this seg of "The Wire" seems to explore the mystery of how life, and death, are influenced by random elements, chance encounters and moments of opportunity seized and exploited.

Mayor Tommy Carcetti (played by Aidan Gillen, pictured above) stumbles across homelessness as the Big Issue that could carry him to the governor's mansion. Det. Jimmy McNulty happens across a hard-luck homeless beggar who is unknowingly recruited to take part in the plot to squeeze more coin for police work through the concocted homeless serial killer. Scott Templeton for once actually does some real reporting, and finds the satisfaction comes with pounding the pavement.

As much as all these characters are inveterate operators and schemers, in "Dickensian Aspect," written by David Simon and Ed Burns and helmed by Seith Mann, the character portraits become that much more rich because we see them working largely on impulse, and more important, we see what impulses and instincts rise to the surface when confronted with situations they can use to their advantage.

The characters that buck this theme in the seg are dope kingpins Marlo (pictured left) and Omar (pictured right). Marlo here is playing Michael Corleone in the first hour of "Godfather II." He's carefully plotting his takeover of the five (or more) corners, putting his capos in place and laying down the law to others in the collective. (There's a great scene where Marlo, never one for sentimentality, dispenses with the murder of Proposition Joe and another dealer, appoints their successors, announces there will be no more meetings, ups the bounty on Omar's head and announces that the price of "the brick" is going up.)

Marlo's every move is plotted and protected by his muscle -- and part of the tension of course is that we know at some point there will be a slip up, some fraying in the cocoon he's spun around himself. He's either gonna get got by madman Omar or a few determined Baltimore cops who haven't forgotten that Marlo's behind the largest string of mass killings in B-more history.

Omar, on the other hand, is fueled by psycho-vengeance, a type of dope more powerful than anything offered on the corners.

Watching this seg of "The Wire" is kinda like making Jell-O pudding (regular, not instant) when you're at the the halfway point, when your wrist is starting to get tired of stirring but you can see the payoff coming as the milk thickens into chocolate mud.

Episode 5, "React Quotes," penned by David Simon and David Mills and directed by Angieszka Holland, gallops along in advancing, twisting and expanding the plot. In this sea of unsavory characters, no one is more unctious in this seg than Marlo Stanfield's defense attorney Maurice Levy, who's positively giddy at the prospect of being awash in litigation fees when he realizes that his star client is using a cell phone. "Joe gave him to us just in time," says Levy, played by Michael Kostroff (pictured right. Above, Michael Kenneth Williams as drug dealer Omar. He's baaaack.)

Marlo Stanfield opens the seg speaking cryptically to drug connection Spiros (played by Paul Ben-Victor, who was so great in "John from Cincinnati"), and he delivers a great line about the untimely end of Proposition Joe in last week's seg. "Tomorrow ain't promised to no one," sez the man who had him killed. Ice water in his veins, fer sure.

The swagger that Marlo and his muscle Chris demonstrate -- it's a gait unlike any other, wordlessly telegraphing their  menace, recklessness and their sense of utter invicibility. Seems a dangerous, but necessary, quality to have in their line of work.

Shining a light on humanity's baser instincts seems to be the theme of this seg. You can see it in city editor Gus Haynes' eyes when reporter Guiterrez tells him that the homeless murders case has suddenly become "sexual" in nature. His ears perk up. He decides to run it past "the 4 o'clock" layout meeting. Mere homeless homicides -- deep inside the book stuff. But add a sexual perversion angle and bingo! Page one. We're all guilty of it. If it bleeds it leads, etc. You never see the headline "999 Planes Landed Safely Today," do you? (I stole that analogy from Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, BTW.)

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

R.I.P. Proposition Joe — the street just lost a class act.

Sure, Prop Joe was a drug pusher and lived off the misfortune of others, yet, if things had turned differently when he was young, Joe could've easily been an English professor at Johns Hopkins or expert on the economy. The man knew of what he spoke and his "associates" rarely appreciated how much he had to offer.

Unfortuntely, he got caught in Marlo's sights and his end was inevitable. Unlike in season's past, he couldn't talk himself out of this predicament and just closed his eyes and took it in the back of the head.

Joe was old school, when killing was only done out of necessity, not for greed or pleasure, and maybe that's why the Greeks had such an afinity for him — and why Marlo's association with the Greeks seems doomed from the start.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

The timing seems fortuitous that last night's brilliant episode of "The Wire" was televised the same day James O'Shea was ousted as editor of the L.A. Times.

For me, the best parts of the episode took place inside the fictional Baltimore Sun newsroom, as editor James Whiting gives his speech about "finding ways to do more with less" as he announces the paper is cutting foreign bureaus all over the globe. And then lets his staff know that more "voluntary buyouts" will be necessary.

Interesting, isn't it, that he felt the more important news -- the lede as we would say here in the news game -- was that the worldwide offices would be closed rather than people losing their jobs in Baltimore.

Oh, he's a dog, that Scott Templeton. A pompous dog. On the heels of last week's fabrication of the wheelchair-bound 13-year-old kid who was heartbroken (cue the violins) after failing to get into the Orioles' opening day game, Templeton's back in the fiction biz this week in the third seg of "The Wire," "Not for Attribution."

Mr. Entitlement is pissed off once again that he's relegated to reaction quotes on a big story about a shakeup in the police commissioners office, so he comes up with an incendiary blind quote that he claims is from city council prez Nerese Campbell. One thing that doesn't quite ring true is that Baltimore Sun city editor Gus Haynes, who insists that Templeton tell him the source of the quote, would instinctively question why a political pro like Campell would let loose to a relatively inexperienced reporter that she doesn't know that well -- not even the paper's City Hall beat reporter. But we can let that one go, for now. (Knowing what a dyed-in-the-wool journo "Wire" creator/exec producer David Simon is at heart, we're counting on him to devise some particularly cruel form of punishment for Mr. Entitlement by season's end.)

"Twigg's not the only guy with game around here," Templeton, played to sniveling perfection by Tom McCarthy (pictured above), tells Clark Johnson's Gus.

POSTED BY JON WEISMAN (Brian Lowry's comments follow)

This is my first season watching "The Wire."  I know that no apology can atone for that sin, so I won’t even try.  I have forever been trying to carve out time to watch the series from the beginning, but 50-odd hours are hard to find. Finally, I decided, it was time to get on board — better late than never.

So I don’t come here as any kind of authority figure on the series, and I offer my opinions only as a perspective on the fifth season from someone who didn’t watch the first four.  I know "Wire" fans are always looking to increase the series’ profile, so I thought you might be interested in how it’s playing to a newbie.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE (Cynthia's comments follow)

Jimmy McNulty, how low will you go?

McNulty's utter contempt for the inadequate resources given to the Baltimore Police Dept. — and the lack of respect given to the mission of the BPD as well — came to a head in the final scene of Sunday's night's episode, when he arrives at an abandoned storefront with Bunk and tampers with a dead body.

"The Wire" is justly praised to the skies for its writing and near docu-style direction.

But what jumps out at my from this opening episode is the sheer number of fine actors in this cast. It's a big cast, and it can be overwhelming at first. But to the credit of the actors and writers, these characters are so well-defined that it doesn't take long at all for the viewer to get a sense of their distinct personalities.

One who has only a few minutes of screen time in the episode (written by series creator David Simon and Ed Burns and helmed by Joe Chappelle) but makes his mark is Reg E. Cathay (pictured right), who plays political strategist Norman Wilson to Aidan Gillen's youthful Mayor Tommy Carcetti (pictured above).

To my mind, Wilson has the best line of the episode when he chides his boss for being so politically minded as to refuse a $50 million bailout for the city's fiscal troubles from the state's Republican governor simply because the nakedly ambitious Carcetti, a Dem, wants to be the next governor and it would make his campaign more difficult. Instead, Carcetti scrambles to juggle the bills, starving the police department (despite campaign promises of raises, new equipment, etc.) to scrape together pennies to funnel to the schools. As it stands, Carcetti now is "just a weak-ass mayor of a broke-ass city," Wilson tells him.

There are two types of people in this crazy, mixed up world. Those who get "The Wire" and those who don't.

(Actually there's a third type, those who can identify Little Walter's "My Babe" by within a nanosecond of hearing the first note, and those people also usually fall into the category of "Wire" fanatics.)

To make the most of the HBO drama's fifth and final season, which bows Sunday at 9 p.m., Variety's resident "Wire" nuts -- including myself, Brian Lowry, Stuart Levine and any others who care to join in -- will be ruminating and riffing here on each of the upcoming 10 segs. Although we've have had the luxury of screening the first seven episodes (thanks HBO), we're going to be mindful of spoilers, so we'll take go one seg at a time, the Monday after their premiere telecast.

As always, we'd love to hear from readers in this space too about the series that has never been a major ratings success for HBO but does have its fiercely loyal cadre of viewers. "Wire" has always revolved around the life of drug dealers, cops and others in tough neighborhoods in Baltimore, but at its best, it's been more than a gritty slice of life -- it's a unrelenting look at the hypocrisy of the social order, the corruption, bankruptcy and decay of the civic institutions that were once America's pride. To my mind, the upcoming season is more plot-driven than the others, and it's a wild, wild ride, so buckle up.

A huge plus in season five is the addition of "Homicide: Life on the Street's" Clark Johnson (seated in pic below) to the cast, playing a seasoned editor at the Baltimore Sun. The newspaper storyline, as Lowry noted in his Variety review, is visceral and more true to life than any other ever attempted on the smallscreen.

As a warm-up for Sunday's preem, here's a link to a fabulous profile of "Wire" creator/exec producer David Simon by Margaret Talbot that ran in the New Yorker in October. According to HBO, Simon has steadfastly refused to do any press for "Wire" while the writers' strike is going on, so the New Yorker piece is likely to be his last word on the new season for a while.

However, posted below are Q&As with Simon and "Wire" exec producer Nina Kostroff Noble that HBO included as part of its press materials. Also posted are the HBO-provided Q&As with longtime cast members Clarke Peters, Wendell Pierce, Andre Royo and Dominic West. West asserts that season five remarkably "ties up every single story strand of the series."

Also, check out these "Wire" prequel webisodes that are posted on Amazon.com.