Fictionalized TV programs about Baltimore and drug addiction are nothing new. From NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street, to HBO's The Wire, images of drug-ravaged addicts moving through a landscape of bombed-out rowhouses have come to define the city for many viewers.

But tonight, MTV chronicles a real-life story on the local drug landscape - and it does so with sensitivity and power. Mixing documentary filmmaking with reality TV and celebrity journalism, I Won't Love You to Death: The Story of Mario and His Mom takes viewers inside the heart and mind of Baltimore-born R&B; star Mario (born Mario Dewar Barrett) as he tries to save his mother from a daily heroin habit.

ON TV I Won't Love You to Death: The Story of Mario and His Mom airs at 10 tonight on MTV.