As others said, The Wire takes a few episodes to really get going, but the payoffs are huge and well worth it. Slowly but surely, you get to know realistic, flawed characters intimately, and you see them struggle (or thrive) in the social mechanisms that trap them - that trap us. Characters go from "bad thugs and good cops" to "just a bunch of people trying to survive every day in a fucked-up system". And when you think you've finally settled into familiar surroundings-BANG! they take you to another little corner of Baltimore, overlooking another piece of the system, and force you to consider even more points of view, even more merciless dynamics, even more awful connections between the drug economy and the official one...

And of course, The Wire perfected the original "make you care about people, kill them, then keep going" trick well before GoT.

The first episode (the “pilot”) of most dramas isn’t a great measure because they have to do so much work to a setup the world and the characters. So they can be very workman-like as they’re intended first and foremost to sell executives on the show. I honestly don’t like watching most pilots so I’ve trained myself to at least give shows two episodes to compensate.

Comedy is different. If the first episode isn’t funny it rarely improves imho. One doesn’t build a funny character slowly; the human frailties that make them funny are obvious, typically to everyone but them.

Give it the first season, if you want to try. It doesn't cram all the characterisation or plot into the first few episodes, like most shows now do.

I had to give The Wire 3-4 episodes before I was hooked, and then binged watched the whole thing. I love it, one of my favorite shows for sure.

Every time I rewatch it, I think I like the dock season more and more.

It felt like a non sequitur the first time, but it makes more sense when you see the show as "telling stories about people who typically don't have stories told about them," rather than a drama about the drug economy.

The rampant poverty in the school season is heartbreaking.

As the son of a Title 1 kindergarten teacher, can confirm that's not far off. And this wasn't even inner city, just rural satellite town.

There's a reason teachers have a specific tax credit for unreimbursed classroom expenses -- and it's because they do things like pool money to buy clothes for the kid whose family can't and won't give him a clean pair.

This season was one of the best pieces of television (or film) that has ever been produced. It’s so good, and so true, it’s hard to watch.

Resonates with my experience growing up in schools with some kids in real poverty. So many that don’t even know that they are trapped in place that they could get out of, if they had one filament of connection to the outside world.