AMMAN: There are many good reasons why David Simon’s epic crime drama regularly shows up near the top of “Greatest TV Shows” lists. It’s superbly shot, for one. And it’s wonderfully acted. Few of its stars were well known before the series aired, and many of its recurring characters are real-life Baltimore residents without acting experience — which only adds to the show’s realism as a compelling and unflinching portrayal of urban life in America. Over 60-plus episodes, there are few victories for the good guys (on those few occasions where it’s clear who the good guys are, which isn’t often). The main reason for its success, though, is the quality of the writing. Simon is a former police reporter, and regular writing partner Ed Burns a former homicide detective (and public-school teacher, which would be important in later seasons). That goes some way to explaining why the series feels so truthful — both Simon and Burns were intimately familiar with their material, and it shows. (Simon also brought in two of America’s great crime writers — George Pelecanos and Dennis Lehane.) “The Wire” is set in Baltimore and each of its five seasons (which all contain recurring characters and overarching storylines) addresses law enforcement’s relationship with one of its institutions: The drug trade, seaports, city hall, education, and the news media. Simon has said that the show is “about how institutions have an effect on individuals.” “The Wire” is a form of journalism — delving into the corruption of authorities (official or otherwise) and exposing the decay and despair of vast areas of America’s cities in a fiction that often seems more truthful to many people’s experience than the news channels. And it credits its audience with intelligence. It’s also wildly entertaining. There is plenty of dark humor, enthralling mysteries to unravel, and edge-of-your-seat tension. But the show’s driving force is anger: at what regular people are driven to to get by, at the way bureaucracy has damaged so many institutions, and especially at the betrayal of so many of America’s youth. Simon conveys all this without ever turning the show into a soapbox. As actor John Doman (who played deputy commissioner William Rawls) told The Guardian in 2018, “(The writers’) view was from the inside out, not from the outside in. They knew the stories and the characters first-hand. I think ‘The Wire’ really tore the cover off an American city and showed that, for so many people, the American dream was dead.”