The best, 'Wire' to wire

Forget the Hollywood writers' strike, at least for the moment. The major broadcast and cable networks have been stockpiling product, and January sees a flourish of new and returning series.

And the best of the bunch -- in fact, the best show on TV -- is "The Wire," which begins its fifth and final season in the timeslot long occupied by "The Sopranos" at 8 p.m. Sunday on HBO.

Created by David Simon, a Baltimore journalist who wrote the book that inspired the series "Homicide: Life on the Street," and co-produced by Ed Burns, a former Baltimore cop who worked with Simon on the book that led to the excellent HBO miniseries "The Corner," "The Wire" is a thorny, complex, but richly rewarding show about cops and drug dealers, good guys and bad guys. But over its five seasons it has showed that the line between good guys and bad is at times very thin, while expanding its range to address union corruption, political infighting, public education and now, at last, journalism.

"The Wire" doesn't make for easy, comfortable, viewing. It has a wide cast of characters, and this season, like past years, it makes no allowances for those just tuning in. There's little character development or exposition to speak of -- it assumes a familiarity with the story so far -- and a viewer can just forget any hopes of a "Law & Order"- or "CSI"-style solution to the crime at the end of the hour. Sometimes, it's not even clear what exactly the main crime is.

Yet it is, absolutely, one of the best series ever done for television, with the ambition and reach of a great novel. Give this show two or three episodes to insinuate itself, and I believe you'll be there at the end 10 weeks from now -- and most likely going back to check out the series DVDs.

"The Wire" began as a police procedural about undercover cops working to quash drug dealing in Baltimore, and that is still the core of the show. But dwindling public resources in the troubled city find the Major Crimes Unit all but shut down by Aidan Gillen's Mayor Carcetti in Sunday's season premiere. Dominic West's self-destructive detective McNulty and Sonja Sohn's detective Greggs -- the main characters at the start of the series -- are reassigned back into homicide.

"Promises were made to me as well. I was told a new day was coming. Clearly, this isn't it," says Lance Reddick's lieutenant Daniels. "When the money starts to flow, I'll get you all back on this somehow."

Never mind that the unit was working on a case involving 22 unsolved drug murders. As Daniels says, "One corrupt politician trumps 22 dead bodies."

This means free rein for Jamie Hector's ruthless drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield, rising to challenge Robert F. Chew's Proposition Joe for dominance, aided and abetted by his top henchmen -- Gbenga Akinnagbe's Chris Partlow and Felicia Pearson's Snoop, along with Neal Huff's newly recruited Michael. Before long, however, they'll manage to rile Michael K. Williams' even more dangerous Omar, who'll be back with a vengeance.

Elsewhere, Seth Gilliam's Ellis Carver finds himself promoted to sergeant and riding herd on disgruntled patrol officers, while Domenick Lombardozzi's disgraced cop Herc winds up working for a lawyer who will be doing business for Marlo.

Now here's where things really get interesting this season. Just as the politicians are trying to make do with dwindling resources, so too is the Baltimore Sun newspaper. Just as Burns previously used his experience as a cop and a schoolteacher to enrich the show, Simon does the same with his experience as a journalist. The Sun is owned by the Tribune Co., which has enforced a bottom-line budget on the paper, and without naming the Trib directly, the dialogue is rife with references to how "Chicago is killing us."

That line, in fact, is spoken by Clark Johnson, the fondly remembered detective Meldrick Lewis from "Homicide," who plays savvy city editor Gus Haynes. He has to get the most out of a skeleton staff, while trying to control overambitious reporters like Tom McCarthy's Templeton. Johnson has also excelled as a director, and having directed "The Wire" pilot he'll also be behind the camera for the series finale in 10 weeks.

That doesn't figure to be the cultural event the "Sopranos" finale was last year. "The Wire" has never been as sexy or as scintillating as that mob series. But it's every bit as good, if not, yes, ultimately better. "The Wire" has a scope few other shows attain, and a skill at making meaning -- as in this season, when McNulty and Templeton dovetail with parallel stories about taking shortcuts to get their desired results. I know this: It won't go out in utter silence, but more likely with a bang that will resonate in TV history.

In the air

Robert Redford tracks Robert Blake in "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here."

Remotely interesting: Look, I know Dick Clark is a TV legend, and after all it's his "New Year's Rockin' Eve," but really someone at ABC should dissuade him from taking an on-air role in the production. On a personal level, it's great that he's recovered as well as he has from his stroke, but on a professional level he's just not capable any more.

The major broadcast networks have been stunting back and forth with their midseason debuts. But as of right now ABC will launch "Cashmere Mafia" at 9 p.m. Sunday on WLS Channel 7 before it moves to its regular time at 9 p.m. Wednesday, and NBC's "Medium" returns at 9 p.m. Monday on WMAQ Channel 5. … Comedy Central trumpets its acquisition of "Futurama" with "Futurama's Out of This World Sunday," a marathon running from noon to 6 p.m.

End of the dial: WVON 1690-AM Program Director Coz Carson quit on the air last week. He's going to New York City to become morning co-host on WWRL-AM.

WBEZ 91.5-FM adds the new "Weekend America" at 2 p.m. Saturday. "American Routes" moves to 7 p.m. "Speaking of Faith" moves to 3 p.m. Sunday, replaced by a rerun of "Re:sound" at 6 a.m. Wisconsin Public Radio's "Whad'Ya Know" is out.

Waste Watcher's choice

"Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here" is not your average revisionist '60s Western. Robert Redford tracks Robert Blake on a murder charge, but as the comeback movie written and directed by Abraham Polonsky, one of the most famous filmmakers blacklisted in the communist witch hunts of the '50s, it definitely identifies with the persecuted. It's at 9:15 today on Turner Classic Movies.