Culture

David Simon Sort of Apologizes for Offending 'Wire' Fans

David Simon, creator of The Wire, has sort of apologized for his Thursday New York Times interview in which he seemingly told Wire fans all the improper ways to watch or pay homage to his show.

Eric Randall

This article is from the archive of our partner .

David Simon, creator of The Wire, has sort of apologized for his Thursday New York Times interview in which he seemingly told Wire fans all the improper ways to watch or pay homage to his show. In an interview Friday with HitFix.com's Alan Sepinwall he said, in part:

Let me say this: my apologies to anyone for saying, or trying to say, "You're not cool if you didn't get to The Wire early, and I only want you to watch the show on my terms." What I was saying is The Wire has been off the air for 4 years now. That it would be celebrated with things like who's cooler, Omar or Stringer, at this late date, and that the ideas of the show would be given short shrift, those were the target of my comments ...

Simon initially created a mini-fury with his Thursday interview with Jeremy Egner when he said:

If you want television to be a serious storytelling medium, you’re up against a lot of human dynamic that is arrayed against you. Not the least of which are people who arrived to The Wire late, planted their feet, and want to explain to everybody why it’s so cool. Glad to hear it. But you weren’t paying attention. You got led there at the end and generally speaking, you’re asserting for the wrong things.
Wire fans -- especially those who, heaven forbid, caught up on the DVDs years later because they didn't subscribe to HBO when they were 12-years-old and anyway they were more into 7th Heaven back then (just a hypothetical...) were pretty annoyed with his suggestion that they didn't quite get what made it so good because they didn't get there first. Simon was spurred on by Grantland's March Madness "best characters of The Wire" bracket, and he seems in his Friday comments, to still think that's a poor way to pay homage to his show. But hey, at least he didn't double down. In fact, while issuing the apology, he gave Sepinwall a very thoughtful, long interview that touches on his difficulties writing TV in a culture of instant recapping, and we certainly encourage you to read it, but in the meantime, we're off to catch up on our ranking of best scenes from Season 4 or something. You know, just paying homage.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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