10 TV Characters Killed In Desperate Attempts To Boost Ratings

Before he emerged as the James Bond that everyone wants, Idris Elba was Russell 'Stringer' Bell in The Wire, a drug kingpin who stands out from most of his fellow traffickers on the show thanks to his educated background and approach to gang culture.

Elba shines throughout his portrayal and Stringer is undoubtedly one of the most complex and intriguing characters in the show, however The Wire is notorious for how it was never received as well as it should have been at the time, and these middling ratings ended up contributing to Stringer being killed off in season three.

Though Stringer's demise was shocking enough to help the series carry on solidly throughout the fourth season, it was clear that interest in keeping the series was beginning to decline. The ratings at the time weren't booming in the way HBO had hoped, and the final series for the show was forced to water itself down from thirteen episodes in season four to just ten in season five.

Viewership for season five was the lowest the franchise had seen, only surpassing one million views four times out of the ten episodes at the time, perhaps showing that the decision to take out such a strong performer in Elba and a brilliant character in Stringer was not necessarily the right one.