HBO.2:30pm to 5:30pm

I have returned for HBO, the crown jewel of cable. The execs are proud; some reporters read it as "arrogant." If only HBO copped to the obvious advantages they have over the competition. The networks produce an average of 23 hours of each drama they broadcast, seven nights a week, all held to program practice guidelines regarding language and content. HBO has the bucks to lure top talent, "no limits," and the undeniable luxury of calling 8 to 13 episodes a "season" of Sex and the City or Sopranos. The critics would be a lot less put out if HBO would just admit they are still a boutique broadcaster with a decided advantage over the broadcast networks.

That being so, HBO does keep getting it right, as the first panel of the day proves. The Wire, a dense, slow-building hour drama from David Simon, who produced Homicide: Life on the Streets and The Corner. Simon was a police reporter in Baltimore for many years, and the truth of that experience burns through his television work.

In the room, reaction to The Wire is mixed. Some of the critics love it, some haven't seen it (there is simply too much product to watch), and other think that it's too slow and too complicated.

But I like slow and complicated. I am hooked, and am happy to have the chance to talk to Dominic West, who plays the hardheaded maverick detective McNulty. West is an interesting actor, someone we haven't seen before, because he's British. His slippery American accent, which he admits, started out as "a sort of Robert DeNiro-New York Italian dreadful mess" needs a little work, but the rest of his performance is spot on.

I was hoping that Larry Gilliard, Jr. , the actor who plays drug dealer D'Angelo "D" Barksdale, would be on hand, and I follow him outside the ballroom after the panel to see what he's about. (That's what you do if you don't want to ask your questions in a packed ballroom in the main session. Sometimes you prefer a little one-on-one).

The character Gilliard plays is frightening and tough, fragile and heartbreaking, horrific and human - the truest depiction of a thug I have seen in quite some time. I am not surprised when he tells me he is a trained classical musician, who studied the clarinet at Julliard. There is a music to D, what Gilliard calls a "rhythm."

He grew up five streets from where The Wire is shot. He knows about falling asleep to the sound of gunshots and helicopters hovering in the night. He got out.