I have no idea what the chances are that 'Southland' will get picked up for renewal by TNT, but as a fan, I'm not hopeful. While the show's gotten critical raves and has decent ratings, it's missing the crucial buzz that would push a network teetering on the fence to renew it.

While viewers love the show, they're not fanatical enough to start letter writing campaigns or picket outside the network's headquarters. It's been a little over a week since the show's final episode, and it's fallen off everyone's radar. That's not a good sign.Here are three reasons why 'Southland' should be renewed.

1. Great acting, great writing, great production values
But 'Southland' isn't just well produced, well acted and well written. It adds something far more compelling to the television landscape. This isn't just a show about cops and victims and violent crime running rampant in urban areas. It's more about how they're inextricably tied together in a city, almost like a living, breathing organism.

2. Realism all the way
Don't we have enough shows about problems of well-heeled middle class citizens and reality shows about vapid celebrities? Shows that tackle the problems of lower-middle class and poverty-stricken citizens are almost non-existent. And 'Southland' doesn't have any easy answers. In fact, it has no answers at all. Instead it provides an unflinching look at the distressing circumstances facing citizens who deal with drugs, guns and violence on a daily basis. This isn't an easy show to watch, but it should be watched, and it should be renewed. Unlike 'CSI' or 'Bones,' where murder and death are dealt with in an often chilling scientific manner, 'Southland' keeps everything way too real.

I'm thinking back to the episode 'What Makes Sammy Run' and that scene with Officer Sammy and the boy, Casper. If you've seen it, you know what I mean. When Sammy (played wonderfully by the underrated Shawn Hatosy) loses all professional composure and sweeps a sobbing child up in his arms, it's painful to watch. I haven't seen any episode of 'CSI' provide a moment like that, something that feels so intimate that it's an invasion of privacy.

3. It's like 'The Wire,' but for LA
David Simon, who created 'The Wire,' said that the dark HBO series wasn't just a crime drama, but really "a show about the American city, and about how we live together." 'Southland' follows that same ethos. It's a show about the life of a city as much as it is a show about the cops. These emotional moments and the cinema verite style of filming give the show an almost documentary-like feel, much like the early days of 'ER.'

TNT, if you're listening, I know the ratings haven't been great, but they've been good. Solid even. And isn't it worth banking on a show that doesn't traffic in the same exploitative and banal reality TV fare as every other network, but, instead, tries to tell the stories of people who are too often ignored or dismissed?