We admit it. We never gave “Reba” the love that it deserved. Now, after six seasons and two networks, Reba McEntire’s sitcom said happy trails Sunday night with a one-hour series finale (reruns of the show will continue in the same time slot).

It was an underappreciated show that battled lousy time slots and the media (including us) obsessing over more glamorous, “hipper” material. Even its current network, the CW, didn’t appreciate it much, carrying it over from the WB only to unceremoniously premiere it at midseason and yank it without benefit of the May send-off reserved for classic shows.

Here are five reasons we’ll miss it:

1. Reba was Old Christine before there was an Old Christine. And, frankly, she was far less pathetic about it. As divorced mom Reba Hart, McEntire played a woman who put up with a lot: a self-absorbed ex-husband and his dopey trophy wife, a teenage daughter impregnated by her dim-bulb boyfriend (now husband). Rather than seeming overeager to please everyone else, a la Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Christine, Reba has always formed the strong eye within the hurricane of inanity that surrounds her.

2. She’s the not-so-desperate housewife. Reba’s daughters Cheyenne (JoAnna Garcia as the older, shallower one) and Kyra (Scarlett Pomers as the smart one) and son Jake caused problems, but she always worked through them, rather than manipulating the kids like “Desperate Housewives” Lynette or alienating them like “DH’s” Bree. But while she was a good mom, she wasn’t so consumed by motherhood that it crowded out everything else in her life. And she had one of the steamiest TV kisses of the past few years with “Housewives” hunk James Denton. Much steamier than the ones he’s shared with Teri Hatcher.

3. She’s a voice for Middle America. And, except for “Friday Night Lights,” “Jericho” and a couple of other shows, that voice is becoming increasingly rare on network TV, which is the province of coast-bound writers and producers. You could lump “Reba” in with “George Lopez” and “According to Jim” – two other long-running sitcoms that aren’t getting the network support they once received. A few years ago, sitcoms about families (usually with a lovable-lug husband and a hottie wife) were all the rage. Now they seem doomed to extinction. And “Reba’s” Texas-located characters actually sounded like Texans (Christopher Rich, who plays her ex, Brock, comes by this honestly – he’s from Dallas).

4. Reba McEntire’s performance. The singer will continue doing what she does best, singing, so she’s not exactly going away. But she proved to be a surprisingly adept comedian, with crack timing and sharp, sarcastic delivery. Not many singers could survive the transition to a leading sitcom role, but Reba did because, you know, she’s a survivor.

5. Now the network name “CW” will be even more confusing. It stands for country-western, dang it, no matter what the folks at Columbia and Warner Bros. think, and the network is losing its biggest country star.