Like good TV? Don’t watch The Wire? What’s wrong with you? As the critically adored series enters its fifth and final season in January, there’s no better time to catch up on creator David Simon’s brilliant, sprawling creation, especially as HBO has just released the fourth season, which aired last year, on DVD, complete with a one-hour behind-the-scenes doc and four episode commentaries.

In a recent profile in the New Yorker, Simon says that he approached HBO with the idea of making a cop show that would show just how fake every network police drama and procedural really is. He would know, having spent years as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun (and having partnered as a writer with former detective Ed Burns, also one of the show’s creative forces).

But even though the show’s first season focused on Baltimore’s drug trade and the cops who work that infinitely complicated beat, season two pulled back to reveal that Simon’s design was grander than that: he aimed at no less than a portrait of the American city in the 21st century— unions, politicians, businessmen, drugs, condos, the courts...the whole enchilada.

In season four, the show takes on the school system, introducing a whole bunch of new characters, and if anything, the show just gets better. You almost feel like you’re getting an education on the way cities work by watching it—the fact that it’s written by former journalists is apparent. If you haven’t seen the show at all, by all means start with season one, but if you’re caught up with the stuff that’s already been released on DVD, now’s the time to check out last year’s season, which was one of the best things I saw on any screen in 2006.

You know what movie ruled this year? The Bourne Ultimatum. Rarely does the third film in a trilogy end up as the best, but that’s the case with this baby, which features Matt Damon once more as the memory-challenged spy, and puts him through some seriously hair-curling set pieces. It’s now out on DVD.