Best TV show of the Decade

The easiest question for me to answer regarding this decade is what was the best television program. Every once in a while a program can come along that can make you see television in a completely different light. This decade that program was carried by HBO. HBO definitely carried programs that could be considered "must see tv". Shows like "Sex and the City", " The Sopranos" and "Entourage" generated the most buzz but while flying under the radar, "The Wire" not only would become HBO's best show but a truly original American classic.
The fact that "The Wire" didn't attract a large viewing audience was unfortunate and the fact that it was bypassed for cable Ace and Emmy awards was unforgivable. Creator David Simon using his hometown of Baltimore showed viewers, in the most brutally honest way, the problems and decay of the American inner city and the devastating consequences that will result if these problems are ignored or handled with superficial easy answers that only serve to make those in power look like they are in control.
"The Wire" ran for five seasons and every season built on the prior season to show viewers different aspects of Baltimore.
The first season introduced viewers to the drug trade that infected the city by showing the hierarchy of drug dealers, the dope fiends using the drugs, the stick up men who rob the dealers and the cops trying ,sometimes in vain ,to put the dealers in jail.
The second season, while continuing to show the police's conflict with the drug dealers, brought in the port area of Baltimore and showed an international drug smuggling operation that resulted in murder and union workers who turned to crime to try to save their dying union.
The third season introduced viewers to local politicians trying to deal with the drug trade while advancing their careers and other drug dealers looking to defend and expand their territory.
The fourth season, which was the most heartbreaking, showed viewers four middle school boys who were tempted at every turn to enter the world of drug dealing while being failed by every government institution that was suppose to support them.
The fifth season showed a light on the decline of Baltimore's print media and how it resulted in murders from the drug trade going unreported and a reporter trying to advance his career unethically by writing fictitious stories.
In every season "The Wire" showed the complexity of the problems facing the inner city and refused to provide easy answers. Every situation and every character had different dimensions. Cops were thrwarted to make progress on their cases against drug dealers every bit as much by their own actions and the police bureaucracy as the drug dealers themselves while the drug dealers faced more trouble from rival dealers and the drug heirarchy than the cops. The characters were even more complex. There were cops that were good and cops that were bad. Some were hardworking and others were lazy, and even the good cops that were hardworking were moral failures in their private lives. There were drug dealers that were ruthless with no regard for life and dealers who were conflicted and disillusioned with the world of the drug trade. It's impossible to get into the multiple dimensions of every character on the show but while some mistakenly perceived "The Wire" to be a "black" show, in reality the color of almost everyone in the show was gray.
In the same way that Charles Dicken's novels showed the problems and despair of 19th century England, David Simon thru "The Wire" showed us the all to real problems currently facing inner city America. Ultimately Simon has shown that television remains an important medium in our society that can enlighten viewers on problems facing the inner city and hopefully bring about positive change.