The premiere of the fifth and final season of “The Wire” is finally upon us, and while it doesn’t look to be as good as last year, the show continues to trump just about everything you see on TV. The biggest problem with the first episode was that not a lot really happened. It served more as a building block for the next nine episodes than anything else, and while very few new ideas were presented, we now have a good idea where Ed Burns and David Simon are going with their plans to interject the media into their stories.

And since we’re on the subject, I might as well begin there. Simply put, I wasn’t very impressed with the Baltimore Sun scenes that dominated much of the second-half action last night, but I also wasn’t a very big proponent of the political subplot at the beginning of Year Four, either. There’s definitely a few things to like about the new setting – namely actor/director Clark Johnson as City Editor Gus Haynes – but I can’t imagine anything of real interest being drawn from the concept that the newspaper is in danger of being downsized. Whether that threat was just motivation for the writers to dig deeper into the city’s corruption or if it’ll play a bigger role later down the line remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s definitely important to the story.

As for the rest of Baltimore, things are pretty much the same since we last left them. Bunk is still playing tricks on street thugs (how that kid ever fell for the photo copier “lie detector” is beyond me), McNulty and Co. are back on Marlo, Bubbles is still clean (and apparently working for The Sun selling papers), and Carcetti’s busy juggling the city budget between the schools and police department. This hasn’t made the new mayor a very popular man, either, as cops continue to work overtime without pay, and the Major Crimes detail is disbanded almost as quickly as it was formed.

There have been some changes, albeit minor ones. Carver is now a Sergeant (and in charge of the West district), Herc’s working as an investigator for a criminal DA, and Dukie’s taken off corner duties in order to play nanny to Michael’s younger brother. Oh yeah, and McNulty’s drinking again. As if you didn’t see that coming. Here’s hoping he doesn’t screw over Beadie in the process, because she was one of my favorite characters from season two. I’m also patiently awaiting the return of Omar, Cutty, Randy, Namond and the countless others I’m forgetting about, but with only 9 episodes remaining, I can’t imagine their absence going on for much longer.