Life in the nitty gritty city

I should so not be comparing these two shows. But the calendar has spoken.

“Lincoln Heights,” a new drama set in urban Los Angeles, debuts at 6 p.m. Monday on ABC Family. Two nights later HBO’s “The Wire,” set in urban Baltimore, somehow makes its way to basic cable when it begins airing episodes from its first season on BET.

The first three episodes air at 8 p.m. CT Wednesday through Friday before “The Wire” moves into weekly repeats on Thursdays beginning Jan. 18.

Both shows depict the grim dance among thugs, cops and poor people in two of America’s urban trouble zones. Both shows have primarily African-American casts. From there the two shows’ paths quickly diverge.

“Lincoln Heights” was written for a family channel. It is a show about a cop, Eddie Sutton (Russell Hornsby), who persuades his wife and three teenage children to move to the rough neighborhood where he grew up. (We are told the LAPD makes it financially attractive for its finest to relocate into the edge zones.)

The situations are grown-up — there is a shooting in the first hour — but the structure is familiar. His kids feel out of sorts at their new school, and Sutton is made to feel less than welcome by his new neighbors.

“You may be George Washington Martin Luther Bush, but here, you’re in my yard,” a young tough named Darnell informs him.

But somehow, you know they will adapt and triumph over adversity, because why else would ABC Family be bankrolling this show?

“The Wire,” on the other hand, wasn’t written for a family channel, hasn’t guaranteed a happy ending for any number of established characters in its four seasons on HBO and really isn’t a one-hour drama so much as a 65-hour dramatized social experiment spread over half a decade.

“Wire” creator David Simon had a sweeping, sprawling vision, and HBO, to its great credit, will let him tell it all, focusing on a different aspect of urban despair each season, and at the end, you get the feeling no one’s going to live happily ever after.

Also, they swear a lot on “The Wire.” Not that we expected anything less from the channel that brings us a violent “Biography” knockoff called “American Gangster” and sent a documentary crew to traipse reverently alongside rap star Lil’ Kim to chronicle the weeks leading up to her imprisonment. But still, standards are standards.

Reginald Hudlin, the filmmaker who was hired in 2005 to run BET programming, said his editors will take “a scalpel, not an ax” to the show’s F-bomb-laden dialogue.

Unlike “The Sopranos,” which makes its A&E debut this week, also at 8 p.m. Wednesday (see the “What to Watch” box), “The Wire” did not shoot alternate “clean scenes” in the hopes of being picked up one day by basic cable. I think Simon felt fortunate being picked up by HBO.

The bottom line: “Lincoln Heights” is a compelling if conventional drama. My guess is that ABC Family’s audience will watch the show much like teenagers listened to N.W.A. and other rap acts in the 1990s: to fantasize about a life of danger they’ll never know up close.

“The Wire,” an unconventional show, is perhaps the greatest achievement of any American television network. There are reasons to watch them both.

I’ll be covering the midseason previews from L.A. beginning Tuesday. You’ll want to keep your eye on FYI and your Web browser set to KansasCity.com and TVBarn.com for my daily dispatches.