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The Sopranos indites it's own characters. It gives you a safe distance from which to participate in the titillation of the characters' evil actions without feeling complicit in them. The Wire indites us all, and miraculously manages to make us enjoy (rather than resent) the process of finding ourselves guilty as charged. One is good entertainment, even good art, but the other can change our perspective on our own lives and the lives of those around us, and that is great art. The Sopranos exists in its own hermetic universe. The Wire does most of its artistic work when we have stopped watching it and start to see it's themes writ large in the universe we all share.
