All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire

by Jonathan Abrams

Viewership peaked with 4.3 million viewers at the start of the second season. The Baltimore Sun reported that an average of 1.9 million watched Season 3’s episodes. Simon voiced uncertainty that HBO would continue the series and deliberated writing books to finish a story he intended to complete. “I know [HBO] isn’t particularly pleased with our numbers,” Simon told the New York Daily News. “Why would they be? But, at the same time, I’m not sure what on HBO, besides maybe The Sopranos, could have gone up against the buzz saw that is Desperate Housewives and Sunday Night Football…What could have gone up against Desperate Housewives? Desperate Housewives is pretty. I’m not about pretty.” Indeed, in initially greenlighting a show that no one else would have touched, HBO chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht displayed impressive foresight. But he left the show dangling for months on a fourth-season renewal. Soon, a website, www.savethewire.com popped up, inviting viewers to plea for the show’s continuation, and even provided the mailing address for Albrecht’s office. “I have received a telegram from every viewer of The Wire—all two hundred fifty of them,” he joked at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in 2005.