The Wire

I say this regularly about The Wire, but it's fucking crazy how much top-tier talent there was in one show. Michael B Jordan, Aiden Gillen, Michael Kenneth Williams, Lance Reddick, Amy Ryan, Idris Elba, Dominic West, Wendell Pierce... insane cast from start to finish — banger after banger.

The Wire isn't the same kind of organized crime but it's better then almost all of the shows you've listed. It's not just about drugs - political crime gets intertwined and it can feel very similar to a mob kind of show. I wouldn't sleep on it.

It’s one of my favorite shows of all time but I rewatched recently and was surprised at how slow and kind of boring the first episodes are.

Yeah, The Wire fallsin one category, but gets a BIG recommendation ftom me too!!!

For reference here is a list of shows I enjoyed more or less in order: A game of thrones, breaking bad, sopranos, the wire, oz, severance, utopia uk, better call saul, the office, mr robot, lost, dark, fargo S1, true detective S1, the boys S1 and S2, black mirror early seasons, handmaid's tale, peaky blinders, narcos, after life S1, shameless uk/ys early seasons, the good place, tiger king, wild wild country, clarkson's farm, top gear uk, raised by wolves, fleabag, ted lasso early seasons, beef, ash vs evil dead, one piece, mr inbetween, monster anime, blue eye samurai, manic.

The Wire is exceptional but it won’t pay off for you unless you make it to the end of S1.

There’s tons of examples of consistently releasing seasons and being great. The Wire and The Sopranos only took one long break each.

some of my favourite shows have been: The Sopranos, The Wire, Severance, Industry, The Bear and The Pitt.

No other show rewards the viewer for hanging in there and paying attention better than The Wire. It’s an absolute work of art.