Acclaimed TV series "The Wire" back, bleak as ever

LOS ANGELES, Sep 5 (Reuters) Critics call it the best show on American television, but ''The Wire'' always seems to have to fight for its life -- few people watch it and it often depresses those that do.

After all, it's a program that revolves around a devastated Baltimore slum, a place of boarded up, abandoned houses whose denizens are drug dealers, drug users, thieves, police and innocent bystanders caught in the cross-fire. Hope is an emotion that exists primarily to be crushed.

Off the air since 2004, ''The Wire'' returns to HBO on Sunday September 10 for a 13-week fourth season, and its creator, David Simon, a former police reporter who covered the mean streets of West Baltimore, says he doesn't know what will happen after that.

''It's not up to me but I am hopeful. I think they (HBO) are waiting to see how the fourth season is received,'' he said in a recent interview. He said he has plenty of plot left for a fifth season.

So far, the word on the fourth season is ecstatic.

Writing in the New York Post, critic Adam Buckman declared, ''The shows are so powerful -- so well-written, acted, filmed and edited -- that the experience of watching them has left me a complete wreck.

''I am so blown away by this show that I will go out on a limb to declare that these 13 episodes just might comprise the single finest piece of work ever produced for American TV.'' One newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, was so happy at the program's return that it ran an editorial welcoming it back.

HBO is the cable station that produces many of American television's most critically acclaimed hits -- shows like ''The Sopranos,'' ''Deadwood,'' ''Entourage'' and ''Curb Your Enthusiasm.'' MORE REUTERS PB BS0857