I have very little sympathy for “You couldn’t write X today” arguments. Here, X is The Wire. There is a spiritual successor to The Wire: 2022’s miniseries We O

I have very little sympathy for “You couldn’t write X today” arguments. Here, X is The Wire. There is a spiritual successor to The Wire: 2022’s miniseries We Own This City. Same complicated representation of Baltimore. Same complicated representation of American policing. Good critical reception, but less widely-known than a legendary show that ran for six years and sixty episodes. The substantive difference between the two is that 2020’s-era HBO doesn’t make long-running serials like The Wire and The Sopranos anymore (Hacks is a notable exception). That’s not a political change forced on them by unnamed leftists. That’s a change in business model.