Mockney - is that agree as in agree with Keef's assesment, or after a few episodes you agreed with Keef but then felt things explode exponentialy I would certainly agree with Keef for much of series 1 - but by the last 4 or 5 episodes things had changed (for me anyway) On the back of Keef's comments tho I did a google on "Sopranos versus Wire" and found some interesting reading Oh and the realism thing: that comes from the police, politicians, dealers, etc, all of them saying the same thing - this is finally reall and it's finally close to what our life is like. Also several of the characters are played by real life people. The real-life Avon character who existed in the 70s shows up in several episodes as a reverend who looks after a community programme for example