Five reasons to rewatch The Wire

Following the passing of star Michael K Williams, interest is sure to spike in a television show routinely hailed as the greatest of all time

Michael K. Williams as the enigmatic Omar in The Wire

IT WAS A MICROCOSM

In one sense, the Wire is a document of a time and place - the US metropolis of Baltimore, at the outset of the 2000s - but much like the best television and literature, the show manages to transcend its settings by appealing to the universal.