workaday and metaphorical, even magical.) Starting in season two, which slowed down the show's pace and amped up the black comedy and surrealism, Chase and his writers took The Sopranos to more tonally surprising places, to the point where it seemed to be channeling Stanley Kubrick, Todd Solondz ( Happiness ), Evelyn Waugh (especially The Loved One ), and other satirists. David Simon's The Wire started out as a straight-up police procedural about cops surveilling drug dealers in Baltimore's decaying inner city. In subsequent seasons, it added subplots about other city institutions. Some of these additions seemed imported from the documentaries of Frederick Wiseman ( High School, Basic Training, Public Housing ). Others evoked the mainstream liberal "problem" dramas that have been part of TV since the early sixties: series such as The Defenders and East Side, West Side , and more recently ER, Boston Public, and The West Wing . News reports and recent history were equally big (and intertwined) influences. I can't tell you how many times I opened up a newspaper during The Wire 's five-season run and happened upon a story of cop corruption or criminal stupidity or official malfeasance in government that reminded me of something I saw on the show. In addition to his core group of writers, Simon brought in some high-profile novelists from the world of crime fiction, including Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, and Richard Price. Of that group, The Wire most resembles Price's fiction in the way that it balances dark,