No one watches The Americans. Well, almost no one: only about 1.2 million people tuned in for the third season finale last year on FX. That’s enough to get any lesser show canceled, but The Americans is back for season four starting on Wednesday at 10pm ET. Why? Because the people that do watch it absolutely love it and plenty of critics think it’s the best show on television.

The Americans is the kind of show that should inspire the TV industry to throw Emmys at it like elderly men throw bits of bread to the ducks at the park, but not only does it not get the audience it deserves, it doesn’t get the industry accolades either. It’s easy to love Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones, which wear their quality like an enormous corsage, but The Americans is spikier, much more tricky to embrace. So what exactly is it about this show that so enraptures its fans?

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For starters, the premise is dynamite. In the 80s, Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) pose as travel agents living outside Washington DC, but they’re really Russian spies who have been deeply integrated into the community. We see not only their daring missions to save the motherland and destroy imperialism during the height of the cold war, but also their struggles with their relationship, their family and their belief in a cause that no longer directly applies to their lifestyle.

With the 80s setting there are plenty of superficial reasons to glom onto the show. Though glossed over with a kind of gloom that makes everything look like the rain has only just stopped, the period details are spot-on without making the show a nostalgia-fest. Really the big stars here are Russell’s amazing ensembles and of course Philip and Elizabeth’s wigs. Oh, the many, many glorious wigs. There’s also an amazing soundtrack and an early episode in season four will change the way you hear Soft Cell’s Tainted Love forever.

Because the Jennings are spies, that naturally leads to plenty of suspense and high-adrenaline situations. Chases, near-misses and potential death are always around the corner as Philip and Elizabeth engage in all sorts of illegal and unscrupulous behaviour. The mood of an episode can turn on a dime if, for instance, a vial of a biological weapon they’re exporting is tampered with or the father of the teenager Philip is seducing comes home at the wrong time.

Yes, it’s morally murky stuff, just like all the other big Golden Age of Television stalwarts such as The Wire, Mad Men, The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. Just like all those characters, Philip and Elizabeth are constantly grappling with the implications of their actions. When they kill it isn’t blithely or without consequence – it is a deeply considered risk that seems to injure them every time. Walter White can shoot a house full of drug dealers with a gun in a car trunk, but Philip strangles one guy on a bus and he looks like he’s going to lose his lunch.

The other difference is that this is the only one of those shows that really deals with ideology and belief and how it can warp a person’s mind. Ultimately Don Draper and Tony Soprano were on personal paths of exploration. The Americans is expansive: it is about each of us and how we adapt to this country, accept its values or reject them. Are you like Elizabeth, who rejects capitalism and all its woes, or like Philip, who knows this country has problems but even greater promise? Just like Marxism, the ideology of The Americans is focused the common man, not one exemplary antihero whose conflict we’re supposed to be conflicted about.

Like all of those other shows, The Americans intricately threads together different storylines, whether they concern Martha (Alison Wright), the mild-mannered FBI secretary Philip married and drew into a life of crime; Stan (Noah Emmerich), the FBI agent who lives across the street and is increasingly involved in the Jenning’s life; Nina (Annet Mahendru), a Soviet diplomat and double agent; or Oleg (Costa Ronin), an employee at the Russian embassy who becomes intertwined with Stan.

The relationships and how those finely rendered characters crash into and bounce off of each other in their concentric orbits drives the show forward. Just like Game of Thrones, where people countries apart still have an impact on one another, everything that happens ripples across the landscape. To make things more intriguing, the central relationship between Philip and Elizabeth, which goes from love to friendship to collegial to adversarial and back again, is like nothing else you’ve seen before. Russell and Rhys are so exquisite you don’t miss one flash of emotion as it flickers through the room.

The fourth season finds Philip and Elizabeth in an especially delicate position because their daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) found out about their secret life and told her pastor, who is threatening to expose them. The threats they face aren’t to their safety, but to their very existence. So far there isn’t as much of the heart-racing espionage suspense, but the season is still young.

And it’s time to hop on this train now. With only a small number of viewers and no golden hardware from the Academy, FX can’t justify keeping this show on forever. The Americans is sure to grab its rightful place in TV history someday, so won’t you feel cool if you’re one of the people who watched it when it was on?