The Wire: How Many Episodes Are There In Total?

While HBO has had its fair share of heavy hitters over the last couple of decades, few have been as well-received as "The Wire." David Simon's Baltimore-set series may have begun as something akin to a police procedural or crime drama, but over the course of its five seasons, it transformed into a top-to-bottom examination of an American city and became one of the greatest TV dramas of all time as a result.

However, with its intimidating reputation and its high critical and cultural regard, a show like "The Wire" can definitely be one of those series that sits on the back burner for a while with some viewers. For that reason, we're going to let you know exactly how much time you'll have to commit when you inevitably sit down with this series.

The five seasons of "The Wire" come in at a pretty reasonable 60 episodes. Like with most HBO shows, this is due to the shorter seasons that the network tends to run with. In the case of this particular series, that leads to each season having either 10, 12, or 13 episodes, which is how we arrive at this otherwise somewhat odd episode count.

Widely known to be the stuff of college and university courses, few shows come with a higher bar of entry than "The Wire" does. Still, the series is well worth watching even over 20 years after it aired its first episode. This is because many of the problems that the show explores throughout its 60-episode run are issues that we're still struggling to solve today.

For instance, if even well-meaning politicians eventually become corrupted by the system, is our democracy doomed? If our schools and parents can't save some kids from falling into a life or crime, who can? Is our system of policing doing more harm than good? Should drugs be legalized? These are some of the heavy questions at the heart of "The Wire."

In a television landscape where it seems like new must-watch-TV shows are popping up every week, even 60 episodes can seem like a big ask, especially with more distractions than ever. All the same, chances are that if you sit down with "The Wire," even if the show sometimes goes too far, you'll almost certainly come away from it with a better understanding of both America and systems of power throughout the world.