Is the acclaimed HBO series The Wire comparable to (a certain kind of) literature? In this paper we investigate this claim by both situating the series within the tradition of American television and by way of intermedial comparisons. We suggest that comparing The Wire with literature may prove productive. Specifically, we suggest that selected aspects of M.M. Bakhtin's theory of the novel (heteroglossia and chronotopics) are helpful tools in an analysis of this cop show. Our aim is to demonstrate how and why David Simon and Ed Burns' work may be legitimately considered a ‘novel cop show’, which means that, through The Wire, television is able to achieve some of the functions that are often referred to as typical of novelistic discourse.