“The Wire”

Sunday night at 10 on HBO

QUESTION for David Simon: If Baltimore is such a terrible place, why don’t you move?

I don’t know this Simon guy, but he doesn’t seem to like Baltimore very much, although he makes a very good living writing about it.

In his books and TV shows, the town sometimes called “Charm City” is a dreary, nasty place characterized by grinding poverty and unrelenting violence.

It was that way in Simon’s first Baltimore opus, “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets,” the book that became the NBC series “Homicide.”

He then wrote another book, “The Corner,” and created another gritty series – this time for HBO. “The Corner” also took place on a mean street in Baltimore, but the focus was on the people who live in a single crime-ridden neighborhood.

Now comes “The Wire,” Simon’s latest creation – a tale of cops and drug dealers at war in the impoverished, boarded-up neighborhoods of – you guessed it – hapless Baltimore, which ought to enact some sort of law barring Simon from doing anymore damage.

Baltimore is one of those old East Coast cities that has made great strides over the last 20 years toward revitalizing its downtown, with its famed Inner Harbor tourist attractions and renowned baseball stadium, Camden Yards, where the Orioles play.

If I were from there, I’d really be offended. As it is, I’m not from Baltimore, so I’m put off only by his new show, which demonstrates, if nothing else, that even the vaunted HBO can cough up a dud once in a while.

The title, “The Wire,” refers to a method of surveillance that will be used to derail a drug ring which has taken over a Baltimore housing project.

I watched the first two episodes and no one had yet agreed to wear the proverbial wire, but I have a pretty good idea who it’s going to be.

But it gives you an idea of how slow-moving this show is that it’s still unclear where it’s going after two hours.

Basically, “The Wire” is like many another predictable cop show, except with less action and more cursing. And the naughty words – a hallmark of HBO – aren’t even that shocking anymore now that almost every other network is doing them.

HBO has set a pretty high bar for its original programs, intending them to be several cuts above the stuff we’re all accustomed to seeing on the broadcast networks.

But “The Wire” looks and feels like an ordinary show from some other network that snuck on to the air while the HBO execs’ backs were turned.

You want to see tough-as-nail cops warring with bad guys on the bloody, crumbling streets of a post-modern gritty city? Check out “The Shield” on FX. That’s the show HBO was likely hoping for when it picked up “The Wire.”