All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire

by Jonathan Abrams

CHRIS ALBRECHT (CHAIRMAN AND CEO, HBO): He certainly would type these long, single-spaced letters and send them to me and then to Carolyn Strauss, to make his case as to why we should continue. It was David’s letters. It was, almost literally. [And] the fact that I really appreciated the show. Carolyn Strauss really appreciated the show, and we liked David. Look, it was no denying the show was good. Certainly, we knew the show was good before America knew the show was good. The other thing that it had going for it was it wasn’t very expensive. Shooting in Baltimore, great crew, guys that had done Homicide—these guys were very efficient producers. You had a lot of respect and admiration for the production itself. One of the things it had going for it was the show didn’t cost a lot of money. Again, relatively speaking. It became, “All right, let’s just do it. We don’t want to hear from this guy anymore.” He was overbearing, particularly about what he wanted to accomplish in the season.