Both shows focus on a brilliant investigator, who despite being the most talented detective within their law enforcement agency, are marginalized outsiders due to a combination of character flaws and an inability to navigate the politics of their workplace. To a large degree the shows are also police procedurals — showing audiences how cases are built and bad guys caught. Where The Wire sails to the list of greatest TV shows and Homeland starts to flounder is in the scope of each show.
The genius of The Wire is that it took something that seems relatively small in scale — the drug trade in West Baltimore— and turned it into a huge narrative by showing the many lives that are affected by a junkie buying a vile of crack from a corner boy. We saw how the addicts, drug dealers, police, politicians, courts, unions, schools and newspaper reporters were all interconnected.
On Homeland it's the opposite.
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