Even though it's now widely considered one of the best television series in the history of the medium, if not the very best, David Simon's "The Wire" was frequently on life support. It was a critics' darling, but viewership was never robust, and Emmy voters repeatedly shunned it (the taste-challenged organization coughed up all of two nominations during the show's run). Fortunately, HBO understood the value of committing to a high-quality program regardless of ratings. This is why top-flight artists like Martin Scorsese, Tom Hanks, and David Milch took their network-unfriendly series to the pay-cable channel.

Still, the sword of Damocles hung over "The Wire"...

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