<P> At the close of the third season, The Wire was still struggling to maintain its ratings and the show faced possible cancellation . Creator David Simon blamed the show's low ratings in part on its competition against Desperate Housewives and worried that expectations for HBO dramas had changed following the success of The Sopranos . </P> <P> As the fourth season was about to begin, almost two years after the previous season's end, Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that The Wire "has tackled the drug war in this country as it simultaneously explores race, poverty and' the death of the American working class,' the failure of political systems to help the people they serve, and the tyranny of lost hope . Few series in the history of television have explored the plight of inner - city African Americans and none--not one--has done it as well ." Brian Lowry of Variety wrote at the time, "When television history is written, little else will rival' The Wire ."' The New York Times called the fourth season of The Wire "its best season yet ." Doug Elfman of the Chicago Sun - Times was more reserved in his praise, calling it the "most ambitious" show on television, but faulting it for its complexity and the slow development of the plotline . The Los Angeles Times took the rare step of devoting an editorial to the show, stating that "even in what is generally acknowledged to be something of a golden era for thoughtful and entertaining dramas--both on cable channels and on network TV--The Wire stands out ." TIME magazine especially praised the fourth season, stating that "no other TV show has ever loved a city so well, damned it so passionately, or sung it so searingly ." The website Metacritic, which gathers reviews from news sources and translates them into a percentage score, assigned The Wire's fourth season a weighted average score of 98%, the second highest score for any television season in Metacritic history (with the fifth season of Breaking Bad being the first). </P> <P> Several reviewers have called it the best show on television, including TIME, Entertainment Weekly, the Chicago Tribune, Slate, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Philadelphia Daily News and the British newspaper The Guardian, which ran a week - by - week blog following every episode, also collected in a book, The Wire Re-up . Charlie Brooker, a columnist for The Guardian, has been particularly enthusiastic in his praise of the show, both in his "Screen Burn" column and in his BBC Four television series Screenwipe, calling it possibly the greatest show of the last 20 years . In 2007, TIME listed it among the one hundred best television series of all - time . In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked The Wire as the ninth best written TV series . In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Wire as the sixth greatest show of all time . In 2013, Entertainment Weekly listed the show at #6 in their list of the "26 Best Cult TV Shows Ever," describing it as "one of the most highly praised series in HBO history" and praising Michael K. Williams's acting as Omar Little . Entertainment Weekly also named it the number one TV show of all - time in a special issue in 2013 . In 2016, Rolling Stone ranked it second on its list of 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time . </P> <P> Critics have often described the show in literary terms: the New York Times calls it "literary television;" TV Guide calls it "TV as great modern literature;" the San Francisco Chronicle says the series "must be considered alongside the best literature and filmmaking in the modern era;" and the Chicago Tribune says the show delivers "rewards not unlike those won by readers who conquer Joyce, Faulkner or Henry James ."' The Wire Files', an online collection of articles published in darkmatter Journal, critically analyzes The Wire's racialized politics and aesthetics of representation . Entertainment Weekly put it on its end - of - the - decade, "best - of" list, saying, "The deft writing--which used the cop - genre format to give shape to creator David Simon's scathing social critiques--was matched by one of the deepest benches of acting talent in TV history ." </P>

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