“The Wire,” created by David Simon, a former reporter for The Baltimore Sun who was a producer and writer for “Homicide,” has been a critical darling too. Each season the series has picked apart some looming national problem — the failed war on drugs, the deterioration of working-class life, dysfunctional political leadership, overwhelmed urban schools — as it affects a sprawling group of characters that has included cops, drug dealers, politicians, teachers, longshoremen and other (often tawdry) Baltimoreans.