Good Advice

The Wire is violent, but so was The Sopranos. Don't let that scare you off. "Breaking Bad" is violent too, on a cable level and lacking only the explicit nudity and language of "pay cable" or "premium cable" like HBO or Showtime. Much of Shakespeare's plays were quite a bit more violent as a matter of course, but less explicitly because they were written for the stage. Certain themes are central to good drama and violence (murder most foul, especially) is one of them.