TV: "The Departed" replaces "The Wire"

David Simon, creator of "The Wire," is working on a pilot that will bring Martin Scorsese's The Departed to HBO. It'll have the same characters and will be set in the same time frame, which means that it's not a prequel or a sequel. It'll be less about the moles in the police department and the mob, and more about the peripheral characters, like Captain Ellerby (Alec Baldwin), Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen), and Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). I personally hope that they keep Mark Wahlberg's smart ass character Detective Dignam--he was the most quoted character in the film's fandom.

The series will air in Fall 2009.