The Wire Was Almost Cancelled After Season 1 — Here's the Secret That Saved It

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The Wire Was Almost Cancelled After Season 1 — Here's the Secret That Saved It

2026/06/09 Report

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The Wire Was Almost Cancelled After Season 1 — Here's the Secret That Saved It

Hard to believe now, but The Wire nearly died before it had a chance to become the greatest TV drama ever made.

When Season 1 aired in 2002, the ratings were modest at best. HBO executives were skeptical.

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Critics didn't know what to make of a show that refused easy heroes and villains. David Simon's unflinching portrait of Baltimore — its police, its drug trade, its bureaucratic rot — wasn't the kind of television audiences had been trained to enjoy.

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