David Simon's novel cop show.

Is the acclaimed HBO seriesThe Wirecomparable to (a certain kind of) literature? In this paper we investigate this claim by both situating the series within the tradition of American television and by way of intermedial comparisons. We suggest that comparingThe Wirewith literature may prove productive. Specifically, we suggest that selected aspects of M.M. Bakhtin's theory of the novel (heteroglossia and chronotopics) are helpful tools in an analysis of this cop show. Our aim is to demonstrate how and why David Simon and Ed Burns' work may be legitimately considered a ‘novel cop show’, which means that, throughThe Wire, television is able to achieve some of the functions that are often referred to as typical of novelistic discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]