'The Wire' as Victorian Serial

Most people know The Wire as the HBO police drama set in Baltimore—an intricate five-season exploration of the brokenness of the inner-city's war on drugs, education system, politics, and policing, and one of the most lauded television shows of all time. Fewer people know that it was originally a Victorian serial by the almost forgotten writer H.B. Ogden. Such, at least, was the claim of Sean Michael Robinson and Joy DeLyria, who created a virtuoso analysis of Ogden's work and an airtight argument as to why The Wire, with its serial format, moral message, and sympathy for the downtrodden, was quintessentially Victorian, and could never be reproduced in our own time. They accompanied their text with drawings (by Robinson) from the original Wire, including a striking depiction of Omar Little walking down a London street as urchins scatter around him.