HBO's Unrecognized Masterpiece Snubbed By The Emmys

Shockingly, despite being HBO’s best crime drama — and one of the greatest TV shows ever made — The Wire never won a single Emmy Award during its run. The Wire was arguably an even better crime show than The Sopranos, but, while The Sopranos won 21 Emmys, The Wire never won one; it barely even got any Emmy nominations.

The Emmys don’t always get it right. Parks and Recreation never won a single Emmy, even though it had one of the best sitcom casts ever assembled, and Better Call Saul was snubbed for every one of its 53 nominations. Maybe the most egregious Emmy snub in TV history is the complete lack of recognition for The Wire.

17 Years After Its Finale, The Wire Remains HBO’s Best Crime Show

Nearly two decades after it aired its final episode, The Wire remains the greatest crime drama to ever air on HBO. The network has produced gems like The Night Of and Mare of Easttown in the years since, but The Wire is still the gold standard in this genre. It’s the most realistic cop show ever made by far.

David Simon spent years working as a crime reporter in Baltimore, so he has ample amounts of hands-on experience watching police officers at work and getting to know them on the job. He translated those experiences into the perfect antidote to far-fetched Hollywood fantasies like CSI and Law & Order.

The Wire captured just how hard it is to build a case against a criminal empire and have the charges stick, and it didn’t shy away from grim realities like police brutality and corruption. Its sprawling cast of characters showed that there are good people (and bad people) on both sides of the law.

Over the course of The Wire’s five seasons, Simon and his team of similarly whip-smart writers examined and deconstructed all the broken institutions that keep the American city mired in crime and corruption. They broke down the systemic problems within law enforcement, local government, public schools, and the media to show why these problems are so deeply embedded and aren’t going away.

It’s Shocking The Wire Never Won Any Emmys For Its Incredible Run

Despite being one of the finest TV shows ever produced, The Wire never won a single Emmy throughout its groundbreaking run. The Emmys typically reward shows that highlight social issues, but The Wire highlighted just about every social issue under the sun — crime, prejudice, addiction, fake news — and it never got a lick of recognition from the Television Academy.

Throughout its entire run, The Wire was only ever nominated for two Emmys, both for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Simon and George Pelecanos were nominated for writing season 3’s “Middle Ground,” the episode in which Stringer was killed, while Simon and Ed Burns were nominated for writing the series finale, “-30-.” But they lost to House and Mad Men, respectively.

And that’s it. The show received two nominations for its writing and nothing else. None of the directors and editors who imbued the show with a documentary-like sense of realism ever got any recognition. The show itself was never up for Outstanding Drama Series; the Academy nominated glorified soap opera Grey’s Anatomy over The Wire.

Perhaps worst of all, no one in The Wire’s incredible ensemble cast ever got an Emmy nomination. Idris Elba wasn’t nominated for playing a business-savvy drug lord. Michael K. Williams wasn’t nominated for playing an oddly charismatic shotgun-wielding vigilante. Andre Royo wasn’t nominated for playing a homeless addict with his head held high. All these actors gave Emmy-worthy performances.

There are dozens of actors who gave stellar performances in The Wire. There are so many three-dimensional performances in this show that the Emmys could’ve stacked both supporting categories with actors from The Wire every single year. It’s hard not to assume the Academy has a racial bias, given that the all-time classic it ignored for five years has a predominantly Black cast.

The Wire Is Proof That Awards Aren’t The Only Measurement Of A Show’s Success

McNulty and Bunk sit on their car in The Wire

The fact that The Wire didn’t receive a single Emmy Award throughout its run and yet it’s still remembered as maybe the greatest TV show ever made is definitive proof that awards aren’t the only measure of success. Martin Scorsese didn’t win an Academy Award for Best Director until 2007, and Stanley Kubrick never won one.

There are plenty of forgettable shows that did win Emmys: unfunny Mike & Molly, preachy The Newsroom, Two and a Half Men in the post-Charlie Sheen years. And there are plenty of classic shows that have stood the test of time that never won an Emmy: Star Trek, Chappelle’s Show, Better Call Saul.

Awards are essentially meaningless. They’re political and subjective. They don’t go to the artists who did the best work; they go to the artists who played the game on the campaign trail. When you do great work, like The Wire, people will notice, whether you got a shiny statuette for it or not.

Release Date: 2002 – 2008-00-00
Network: HBO
Showrunner: David Simon
Directors: Ernest R. Dickerson, Ed Bianchi, Steve Shill, Clark Johnson, Daniel Attias, Agnieszka Holland, Tim Van Patten, Alex Zakrzewski, Anthony Hemingway, Brad Anderson, Clement Virgo, Elodie Keene, Peter Medak, Rob Bailey, Seith Mann, Christine Moore, David Platt, Dominic West, Gloria Muzio, Jim McKay, Leslie Libman, Milcho Manchevski, Robert F. Colesberry, Thomas J. Wright
Writers: Richard Price, Joy Lusco, Rafael Alvarez, Dennis Lehane, David Mills, William F. Zorzi, Kia Corthron