How long does it take to watch The Wire?

The Wire is sixty episodes, one for each of the five seasons times twelve or thirteen, and at under sixty hours it is one of the shorter entries on any list of great dramas. Each season is a self-contained investigation with a different institutional target — drug trade, docks, city hall, schools, press — which is why people describe it as five novels rather than five seasons. The finale runs 93 minutes, half again as long as a normal episode, and is the single biggest outlier in the run. It is also the show most often abandoned in the first three episodes, which is a runtime problem of a different kind.

The numbers

Total

2 days 11 hours

In hours

59 hours

Non-stop

2.5 days without sleeping

Covers

60 episodes across 5 seasons

At a realistic pace

an episode a night

That works out as

about 60 days

What this assumes

60 episodes at about 59 minutes. Most run 55-60 minutes; the series finale runs 93.

Other tv series