Wire prequels

Anyone who’s been reading this a while knows of my extreme devotion to The Wire. I finally went ahead and made a Wire category, since with the fifth and final season fast approaching, I suspect I’ll be posting about it even more often. (I still suck at categorizing posts, though. Matt, maybe I should hire you as a consulting taxonomist…)

Anyway: found via the comments thread on Matthew Yglesias‘s site, here are three very short ‘prequels.’  Warning: they won’t make much sense if you haven’t seen the show before. If you haven’t, of course, I urge you with evangelical zeal to get seasons 1-4 on DVD.

Bunk and McNulty (2000, Baltimore, Maryland)

Young Prop Joe (1962, Baltimore, Maryland)

Young Omar (1985, Baltimore, Maryland)

Bunk and McNulty is fun, the uniforms at Prop Joe’s school are a nice touch, but the Omar one is my favorite. It feels like a real character-forming moment, not just fanservice.