"The Wire" ended nearly two years ago, but conversation about the show set in Baltimore is still going strong - particularly on American college campuses.
When a noted Harvard sociology professor recently announced he was planning a course based on the HBO series about Baltimore's urban dysfunction, the university became the latest in a string of prestigious schools to study the drama.
Creator David Simon, reached this week in New Orleans, where he's filming his new series, called the academic consideration of his work "gratifying."
"We did not design the show purely as an entertainment, but as a political treatise and social critique," he wrote in an e-mail to The Baltimore Sun. "To the extent that academia has found the work and is intent on extending the discussion, we are, of course, pleased."