What is the one thing better than an exquisite meal?” asks Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier Crane, rhetorically, in an old episode of Frasier. “An exquisite meal with one tiny flaw we can pick at all night.” Seldom have truer words ever been said. Whether we’re talking hors d’oeuvres or television series, there’s nothing a good snob enjoys doing more than quarrelling over one small facet of an otherwise perfect experience.
When it comes to TV, of course, there are few – if any – meals as exquisite as The Wire. The police drama, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this week, is often described as the greatest TV series of all time (sometimes ceding that honour to The Sopranos). It was a searing, labyrinthine portrait of Baltimore, a port city bled dry by the “war on drugs”. It was a cop show that was more interested in root causes and budget cuts than murder weapons or tense interrogations. Its brilliance was undeniable.
