Best Non-Sopranos/Deadwood/The Wire HBO One Hour Dramatic Series

before this season, Oz. now GoT without any question.

6FU

i think this is a two horse race but am curious

also which of these 3 unseen do i most 'need' to see, am most likely to enjoy: in treatment, boardwalk empire, treme

xp (tho i would never in a billion yrs watch game of thrones)

Rome.

treme

lol j/k

don't knock treme, it is still building, in 3/4 seasons something is expected to happen

personal rankings of ones i've seen more than two eps of:

6fu
oz
got
rome
A GAP
big love
true blood
carnivale
john from cincy
tell me you love me

steve zahn will be ripped apart by vampires

this is tough!

also which of these 3 unseen do i most 'need' to see, am most likely to enjoy: in treatment, boardwalk empire, treme

― balls, Saturday, June 18, 2011 2:00 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

in treatment is the best/most fully realized of these

motherFUCK Six Feet Under is all I want to say

an old thread to cross reference (although obviously it's a pretty different question): best hbo series premiering post-2005

got is kinda rome meets oz

bah tried to see if this had been done, didn't see that. there have been a shitload of hbo threads on ilx.

think i'm the only person who really liked unscripted

i've only had HBO at home for the last few years so i mostly have only watched the more recent shows. of those, i've probably enjoyed True Blood the most although it's pretty funny to call it the 'best' anything.

lol these all kinda suck in their own way, didnt really realize how much of the hbo brand excellence in my mind was built on the big three, of course theres still like mr show band of bros ali g etc

i quit watching 6FU after the episode where david was kidnapped, raped and forced to smoke crack, so i feel like i have an incomplete understanding of the show

kinda comes down to oz and rome for me, might go with rome because of the production design and the fact that it never got a chance to go off the rails like oz did, though it was never as dramatically satisfying as oz was at its peak

ive always intended to get into big love cuz im a big fan of bill paxton and sisterwives but i still havent seen an ep, i'll get to it someday

for me:

1. got
2. jfc

true blood's a lot of fun, not sure if i can vote for the sexey vampire werepanther show though

i liked big love for a while but it got really redundant and the central conceit fo the show is kinda lame and over played imho - most of these have something to recommend them if not enough to watch like every last ep

3. boardwalk
4. carnivale
5. oz

a lot I haven't seen but 6 feet under all the way

i can admit 6fu got weaker in later seasons but it never totally stopped working for me, while the ends of deadwood and big love felt like mercy killings

I still need to see Oz and I miiiiight watch Boardwalk Empire on DVD (saw first 2 episodes, liked 'em all right but didn't feel like investing). Rest I'm not that curious about beyond the bits I've seen.

Rome/John from Cincinnati/GoT all vying for my vote here.

i would crack up whenever i'd see a promo for a new episode of big love and it was all people yelling and waving guns with the stock hbo pounding drums soundtrack... maybe thats the show that the creators wanted to make, but it always made me think hbo was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole

big love would be awesome if it were abt the crazy fundamentalist mormon compound instead of the boring ass family drama shit

the dealbreaker for me was when they lost amanda seyfried and were given a short final season, and instead of tying up loose ends of the characters we were invested in they added a whole bunch to plot threads to leave open, most gratingly nicky's daughter and her teacher boyfriend (was he a perv? a dope? none of our business apparently)

though the first real downturn was the first time someone said "weber gaming"

to me their tendency to be all SEE SEE JUST LIKE A NORMAL FAMILY EXCEPT W/THREE WIFES just seemed way heavy handed and was the biggest problem

yeah that felt like the focus at first until they distracted by crazy mormon shit, which was fun for a while but hell, i missed the "normal family" stuff once we got into the wheelings and dealings and boyfriends for all

yah it def got a lil diffuse, tho i didnt see the last season and a half

you missed nothing

6fu plots got wackier over time (it's tv, it happens) but they never forgot the show was about watching the leads cry

kind of loved how they beat everything remotely likeable out of those characters over the course of 5 years

by the end of big love, all that could be enjoyed was the occasional line reading by a wife, and alvy sniffing dudes

lol alvys sniffing is p amazingly executed

I really loved No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency when it was on... haven't rewatched it though

oz/carnivale/john from cincinatti

I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO

i mean theyre all amazing in like totally different ways, the truth of it all is that oz wins on merit but the other two are both so brave and batshit that i just dont know.

JfC has so many flaws it's hard to really rate it but dammit if it wasn't crazy ambitious.

Carnivale's second season should have been the first season finale.

People seem to really love GoT so maybe the analogy isn't fair, but it's funny how people compared the cable drama renaissance to the Easy Riders Raging Bulls era, what with all the auteurs and groundbreaking, and now we have those guys busting out serious indulgences (john from c, treme) while the networks get hyped up on Big Deal Fantasy Epics just like the studios did in the late '70s

jfc show def had some moments where you were all something really interesting is happening but it never really came together - why oh why couldnt he have just kept making deadwood - its like it ruined 2 shows

True Blood probably fits better in that analogy xpost

Don't blame JfC for Deadwood's demise! He had no choice.

good point re 1970s cinema xp

Big Deal Fantasy Epics just like the studios did in the late '70s

what are you thinking of here

when i think of the fantasy boom i think of the 80s but maybe you're thinking of something else

Star Wars I'd think

actually iirc they were kind of on the fence abt reinstating deadwood after canceling it but dude was all 'already making john from cincinnati too bad' - but w/e it wouldnt make the last ep of deadwood any less horrible, it just wouldnt be the last ep

Star Wars/Spielberg blockbusters are seen as the death of that auteur period (though the indulgences of those directors played a big part in it). Now we've got Game and The Waking Dead blowing up the ratings

Has anyone else besides me even watched No 1. Ladies Detective Agency?

It's not a perfect analogy, but it seems like networks are learning that a Big Deal Genre Epic will do better than letting David Milch chase the rainbow xpost

i meant to watch it, but then i didnt

am i the only person who thinks season 3 of deadwood was a serious buzzkill? Characters like Sol Star and the Doc had jack to do, while we got episode after episode full of Brian Cox's theater troupe and Gerald McRaney, who just was not as fun as that season 2 serial killer.

major dad wasnt fun? get outta here

but w/e it wouldnt make the last ep of deadwood any less horrible, it just wouldnt be the last ep

totes unfair on that last ep, but maybe that's a discussion for another time.

Season 3 was setting up to payoff in Season 4 in a way that the previous two seasons never tried to do, so things like the theatre troup (though some great stuff came out of it) is a shame. Other than that though, I think it's a really great season and, in a sad, way, a good ending.

i liked deadwood season three, felt they built the tension really well until it LEAD TO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OMG WTFFFFF

insanity! they struck a deal, they killed Johnny's girl, Bullock lost the election

it promised a mass murder it didnt deliver basically

i know i shouldnt continue the deadwood chat but can i just say that i recently found out that ed o'neill was milch's original choice for swearengen and i really wish that happened (even though mcshane ruled)

loved major dad and the guy who played two guys, so evil the both of them

ed oneil wouldve fit right in in deadwood 4 sure

i'd have no problem slotting breaking bad and mad men alongside the big 3 up there and would be much more inclined to include justified w/ them than w/ oz/6fu/etc. also let's not get to far ahead of ourselves on calling got a big hit just yet - numbers are far from incredible (alot closer to rome than sopranos/sex in the city/true blood), and while it's gotten good reviews it doesn't get nearly the prestige of the wire or, i predict here and now, the emmy nods of the sopranos or 6fu. it does what hbo wants and i could see it turn into a phenom w/ 2nd season (kinda how it works w/ hbo), but it's not exactly star wars to deadwood's nashville.

actually iirc they were kind of on the fence abt reinstating deadwood after canceling it but dude was all 'already making john from cincinnati too bad'

This is not accurate.

p sure it is

they were gogin to make 2 3 hour long 'deadwood movies'

and that of course wouldve just snowballed into just doing a whole nother season

it does what hbo wants and i could see it turn into a phenom w/ 2nd season (kinda how it works w/ hbo), but it's not exactly star wars to deadwood's nashville.

― balls, Saturday, June 18, 2011 3:18 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah, this. the biggest thing got has going for it right now is its a massive international hit, but the us ratings have been steady-and-solid, not even true blood level popular

at the same time have no doubt hbo is much more interested and aware it's alot easier to create another true blood than another sopranos and suspect amc probably knows the same / walking dead vs mad men.

The problem was a dispute between the studio and HBO, was it not? I'm sure we've gone over this before. They also asked him to make a drama about surfing, so it wasn't like he was throwing away Deadwood to make his long-gestating dream project. He's still upset about Deadwood's cancellation.

at the same time have no doubt hbo is much more interested and aware it's alot easier to create another true blood than another sopranos and suspect amc probably knows the same / walking dead vs mad men.

yeah this was a big part of my analogy, and waking dead numbers are waaaaaay above mad men

The HBO head offered Milch a half season after he had already lost actors to commitments, gotten rid of sets, hired a new crew, set up new sets, etc. There was a chance that the fourth season wouldn't even be completed even if he was able to get everyone together again. It wasn't realistic.

deadwood was crazy crazy crazy expensive to produce (cf rome)(and maybe got?), hbo was on a winning streak and hence not as desperate to keep a good show as they should've been, milch had another project brewing w/ them so it's not even like cancelling it really would've hurt that relationship, and for all the 'prestige' it had it didn't garner emmy nods really, it wasn't a jewel in their crown the way sopranos (which would've survived on emmy basis anyway nevermind huge ratings) or the wire ('the greatest drama in tv history' - hbo wasn't cancelling that though they clearly thought long and hard about it after season 3 there also). still love season 3, esp the hearst stuff, would take it over last season of the wire and definitely over first half of the last season of the sopranos.

hbo has been neurotic when it comes to cancelling shows ever since the deadwood fiasco, they dont want to be seen as the network that cancels everything, which is why we're getting a third season of treme

Apparently Rome was twice as expensive per episode as Game of Thrones and Deadwood.

seriously i think if hbo had known what was coming deadwood gets that fourth season (which we all know how the show probably ends anyway) and hbo picks up mad men.

I think we're getting a third season of Treme because they want to keep Simon happy and it adds enough prestige to get past its abysmal ratings (not that they care about ratings). xpost

rome was insane-o expensive, they made a point to use as little CGI as possible, thats part of why i love it tbh

they should cancel treme, make simon do something else

the hardest i have laughed during got so far was when they had to use the rome gambit for a big battle scene.

no 1 ladies gets my vote, but jfc was pretty great tv too. game of thrones is too early to tell.

Oz - i was into this in high school but dont remember it very well. jk simmons was in it? and bd wong? kinda intense, very soapy, lotta rapes and shit. id probably watch again

Six Feet Under - omg so many emotions in this show get out of here

Carnivale - lol

Rome - this show was pretty sick, the kid who played augustus looks like my girlfriend's brother

Big Love - i watched a little bit of this and didnt "get it," how does he have so many wives

Tell Me You Love Me - no idea what this is

John From Cincinnati - lol i tried so hard to like this show. al bundy was good though

In Treatment - people say this is good but i refuse to believe them

True Blood - ok, i get it, sex, great

No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - didnt watch this

Treme - watched the first half of season 1 waiting for something to happen, peaced out

Boardwalk Empire - this was totally boring and steve buscemi is horribly miscast but i am a sucker for high production value period stuff so

Game of Thrones - this is sick but its only one season, and a lot of my affection for it comes from the books so

Big Love - i watched a little bit of this and didnt "get it," how does he have so many wives

lol

its because he has three houses next question

oz, followed by rome. i am amazed i've seen at least one episode of all of these considering how spotty my cable's been over the last ten years.

though looking at this list it reminds me the sopranos was a mixed blessing in its influence

tempted to do a non-dexter showtime show you'd watch again with a gun to your head poll

would vote in that

am i to imply based on yr wording that there are shows worse than dexter on showtime, shudder

wait showtime had a post-apocalypse show starring dylan mckay and theo huxtable??

sounds p good

man i dont have time for tv how do ppl do it. i can fit a couple shows in a year, impressed folks can know this many shows inside and out

tbh i was more thinking this after reading al's top 50 shows of the 00s

the only other show besides Dexter I've watched on Showtime was Sleeper Cell, which was badass in Season 1, just kinda 'good' in Season 2.

xp you'd be surprised how much time you have for tv if you don't beef on ilx

i don't know why i wrote that, i don't actually have a beef w/ u, but so many ppl always say to me, "how do u have so much time to watch tv" and i'm like, "well, i do other stuff when i watch," but the real reason is, "idk." it's not like these ppl are remarkably more productive than me so i have to imagine they're just sitting at home staring into space and they could just turn on a sopranos episode and stare at that instead.

man i dont have time for tv how do ppl do it.

Step 1: Don't get out much.

Step 2: DVR.

i almost never watch TV live thse days

yeah i mean i guess im usually just procrastinating on writing which i count as 'time im writing' which involves browsing ilx & downloading rap mixtapes but idk i hate multitasking when watching tv so

it's better to collect a series of episodes over time cuz then you can make a night out of watching em and skip commercials. watching eps in real time to me makes me want more and having nowhere to go afterwards.

man i dont have time for tv how do ppl do it. i can fit a couple shows in a year, impressed folks can know this many shows inside and out

tbh i was more thinking this after reading al's top 50 shows of the 00s

― arachno-misogynist (D-40), Saturday, June 18, 2011 4:38 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

that was totally a product of being home all day for a year and a half raising a baby and catching up on every show i've ever been interested in w/ netflix or ondemand

i am pretty much never on ilx without also doing something else. i actually love browsing ilx while watching tv. killer combo.

Mordy otm

tbh i was more thinking this after reading al's top 50 shows of the 00s

― arachno-misogynist (D-40), Saturday, June 18, 2011 4:38 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

where can i read this

i kinda it hard to watch anything dramatic while ILXing cuz the frequent zings/excelsiors have me wanting to laugh too much

to be honest i used to feel the same way as the "i don't know how you people have time for tv" people but then i realized how much time i spend dicking around on the internet and how much better (while still mostly being bad) (or really bad) than network stuff most of the cable stuff is.

also i didn't have a laptop until 2007 and so.

i obv do other stuff while i use ilx -- its just w/ tv i have trouble focusing on other ish -- ive never been the type that just has a tv on in the background

cough

its a great list btw even if i think u ranked 00s simpsons way too high.

maybe i did. i just thought it should be there somewhere.

i kinda it hard to watch anything dramatic while ILXing cuz the frequent zings/excelsiors have me wanting to laugh too much

― why i am an anarcho-sandwich artist (Neanderthal), Saturday, June 18, 2011 4:48 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is one thing is that i've become worse about, both because of that and chasing a toddler around while watching stuff -- i might enjoy Game of Thrones or Boardwalk Empire or Deadwood or Breaking Bad more lately if i was able to sit still while watching them (and had the willpower to turn off the computer)

breaking bad is one that ive seen but my attention span killed it at the episode that entirely takes place in the one room where they cook the meth -- i couldnt make it past that pt, attention span failed me

treat it like a movie. a really long movie.

tbh i almost never watch shows until i can do so in one long chunk anymore. serialized entertainment is not for me.

oz or rome, voted oz

that's why I love getting into shows after their air date like The Wire. My viewing experience stops when I want it to, or when I run out of episodes!

breaking bad bottle episode is season 3, that's some long attention span

i'm curious how the earlier shows will do in this poll. i definitely want to watch Oz at some point, am hoping someone can sell me on Rome and/or Carnivale being worth checking out. have a really strong gut level aversion to Six Feet Under and Big Love, though.

haha i want to launch into sales pitch mode for rome or even big love and then my critical faculties kick in.

Surprised to see people repping for that No. 1 Ladies Detective thing that I'd mostly forgotten existed. Might have to check that out.

I like Oz just fine, but it's not the best of anything non-penile. Big Love was the quickest slide from solid to shit I've ever seen in a show.

I kinda thought SFU was gonna sweep this poll. One of my prolly top 10-15 shows of all time.

Breaking Bad is the all-time greatest HBO series not on HBO.

a good portion of my love for oz (aside from the peen) comes from the disconnect of seeing good ol' likeable dr. emil j. jonah skoda father of juno playing scenery-chewing david duke.

plus adebisi's hat

btw the ep i mean of breaking bad is near the end of s2 i believe i did a p good job getting thru most of that!

c'mon, that hat looks like something you'd see in a comic strip from 1912. adorable!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_g0LJJ8mOPo8/TIBgB9KhznI/AAAAAAAAAGE/7ot4KTLM43I/s1600/simon%2Badebisi.jpg

Oz is the opposite of the Wire in watchability - in half hour doses great, but you can't power through four hours of it at a time. Too soapy.
Rome had a lot of great stuff - the guy who played Caesar, the buddy comedy aspect of Vorenus/Pullo, but the latter half of the second season was waaaaaay rushed
Watched all seasons of SFU without ever feeling like I enjoyed the show. Making every single character somehow dislikable is an interesting move
True Blood - good performances from the vampires, shit performances from the humans, lame story

Voting Rome with a chance for GoT to surpass.

xpost

Oh, yeah, in terms of larger-than-life awesome characters, Oz would probably win this poll by a landslide.

True Blood - good performances from the vampires, shit performances from the humans, lame story

ryan kwanten's the best actor on the show! well him and denis o'hare

have to admit as soon as i remembered adebisi (who'd give tony soprano, omar little, al swearengen, hank kingsley, whoever a run for best hbo character) i felt superguilty not voting for oz.

can't wait to see what kind of insurance that dude's gonna peddle

there are actors on true blood?

distract yrself from the paquim for a minute

denis o'hare was the best/only reason to watch season 3

that show is so lucky it comes on during the summer

a friend actually tried reading one of the novels. apparently they are bodice-rippers minus even the scummy atmosphere and frighteningly gynmastic cross-species sex.

+ vampire Elvis apparently

No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency way underrated, but fits in more with PBS' "Mystery" show than the whole "it's not TV, it's HBO" mannerisms. Still a great series though.

+ vampire Elvis apparently

― Number None, Saturday, June 18, 2011 5:27 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark

Glenn Danzig getting his lawyers in 5...4...3..

one of my sisters has read all the books, same one who read got fwiw

srsly though when I read The Stand, I had Larry Underwood's "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man" song all fleshed out and written in my head as some really groovy pop-rock-blues tune, with soulful vocals, then they made the shitty miniseries and it was some turdy sounding synthpop song and it was like FUCK YOU WHAT I CAME UP W/ WAS BETTER

when i was taking a commuter train to work last summer those books were HUGE. you were apparently either on "team sookie" or "team interminable swedish thriller."

Tell Me You Love Me

I think I'm the only person who watched this. It wasn't very good but I was pissed when it it got cancelled because I needed resolution. Gah!

Out of these I've watched Rome, Boardwalk, TMYLM and GoT and out of those it would be Rome because I just really loved that show. Pretty sure I'd love Oz if I ever get around to watching it.

It wasn't really cancelled though, was it? They renewed it and then the creator just couldn't decide on where to go so they abandoned it, or something like that.

xpost

Oh you're probably right. I just know that I was watching it on On Demand whenever I'd visit my parents and then one day it just stopped being there and I was like, "but . . . but!" ;_;

i really had trouble watching Tell Me You Love Me without just being totally juvenile and preoccupied w/ Sonya Walger's tits and whatnot

Surprised by Oz love, maybe I'll give it another chance--I lost interest/desire a few seasons in on DVD, but respect it as basically the mother of all these shows. More surprised by Big Love and True Blood hate. Granted I'm watching on DVD, but they're so consistently great and rich so far, where Six Feet Under seemed to lose its way after an amazing streak (maybe I can compare them more fairly in a few years).

In Treatment is actually a half-hour show, but it's my favorite. Didn't know it was canceled 'til I clicked on that thread. What a shame, you'd think they'd keep it going regardless of ratings--it's so low-budget anyway. Generation Kill would come in just ahead of Big Love in my ranking:

In Treatment
True Blood
Six Feet Under
Big Love
John From Cincinnati
Rome
Treme (still renting first season; improves dramatically after the first couple episodes)
Oz

Never saw:

Carnivale
Tell Me You Love Me
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Boardwalk Empire
Game of Thrones

Yeah, the first three seasons of Big Love were pretty good. The fourth season completely forgot the point of the previous three seasons, and I never bothered with the fifth.

so is John From Cincinnati worth checking out now as a one season curiosity rental?

I loved it but the general consensus is that it was terrible so ymmv.

i remember everything i heard about it feeling very offputting but that was before i'd seen any Deadwood or was even sure i wanted to watch that

xxxpost

I'm gonna give an 'F' to any show that makes credit card debt a major source of conflict in one season and then fails to follow up on the impact of being held hostage and having one's life threatened in a later season. The shift of quality in Big Love pissed me off almost as much as the last season of L O S T.

so is John From Cincinnati worth checking out now as a one season curiosity rental?

― some dude, Sunday, June 19, 2011 12:21 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Apparently it's really great if you're into a Deleuzian reading of Leibniz.

imo its worth checking out, its p far out

A what-hoozian reading of who-zniz, now?

Al - that is not at all surprising.

The great thing about John From Cincinnati is that Milch has stated that it was going to be about preventing genocide through mercantilism, so you can watch the 10 episodes and then just fill in the blanks!

milch has some p funny ideas abt reality that arent nearly as interesting as he thinks, deadwood was great because of the characters plot dialog clothes swearing etc not cause god is society and conflict is oneness or whatever the fuck, jfc is evidence that shows dont really run on that kind of sheet

not utterly convinced of that tbh

lol enbb was that a diss

http://www.gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs/907264_o.gif

;)

haha

why are walhberg gifs always so good

ha - because he's the best, that's why

true

also the lack of sound it really emphasizes his mastery of eyebrow acting

lol YES

haha i want to launch into sales pitch mode for rome or even big love and then my critical faculties kick in.

my sales pitch for big love's first few seasons is "the opening credits for this show feature bill paxton, bruce dern and harry dean stanton." that's what got me excited in the first place.

Oh damn I didn't know HDS was in Big Love!

i didn't realize bill paxton had the capacity to excite anyone

I didn't realize you hadn't seen Near Dark, Traveller, Frailty, Trespass, A Simple Plan...also I got a soft spot for middle-american secret-weirdo actors like Paxton, Dennis Quaid, Jeff Daniels, etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn5WOTj-mFk

i didn't realize bill paxton had the capacity to excite anyone

― Helen Girly Drown (Whiney G. Weingarten) (some dude), Sunday, June 19, 2011 7:28 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

are you kiddin m8

yah paxton is gr8

I know it's not technically the best, but fuck it, I'm voting "True Blood".

this is hard. I think I'll vote 6 ft under although I haven't seen it since it aired. Game of Thrones and True Blood close behind. I missed most of Big Love but always liked what I saw.

now, bill pullman on the other hand..

miccio: paxton :: marcus : pullman

maybe its finally time for that paxton vs pullman poll

Getting them mixed up is a thing for everyone right?

paxton would win running away but my vote is pullman. i love the 90s.

haven't seen enough of these to vote, but would probably go oz whatever

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pJViCSIOPL0/SSGVKzsiH1I/AAAAAAAAAHs/ap474Pm3XiY/s320/billpaxton_pullman.jpg

Paxton wins sry - Frailty dawg

no way. one is private hudson and the other is bill pullman.

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/05.08.97/gifs/traveller2-9719.gif

that was to enbb.

pullman is so good in last seduction

otoh http://thumbnails.hulu.com/9/567/31195_512x288_generated__6PQAEpSw7EOf98udHNv0kQ.jpg

lol Chet!

Whoa, had no idea singer Jill Scott stars in No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency! Is she good?

i watched six feet under from beginning to end because i am a sucker for a soap opera but i think it was a terrible show.

i think i'm still a little mad about those hours of my life

the only ones that i've seen a decent amount of are treme and big love. so treme will get my vote.

Six Feet Under by a mile.

paxton, chloe and harry dean stanton (of course!) are awesome. but let's face it, big love is just an overstuffed soap opera with Mormons.

There was boatloads of potential, and they occasionally flirted with achieving it in the first three seasons (even a few great episodes), but season 4 is unforgivable.

Also I want to rep for In Treatment as being very, very good.

frankly big live should have been about hollis green instead of bill henrickson

big love, even

Also the ending was a total cop out.

most stuff on hbo is "just an overstuffed soap opera with _____"

"boobs and curse words"

"al bundy playing autistic"

"incarcerated penises"

ive discussed this before but the term soap opera is thrown around w/a labored dismissiveness signifying nothing

OTM - you ppl need to watch some l word if you want to see what overstuffed soap opera really looks like

i mean i was in the laundromat the other day and a soap opera was playing and i can assure you it resembled v little anything appearing on hbo

or you could watch a soap opera.

hbo should really DO a soap opera. maybe they can reboot all my children.

im not trying to be dismissive about soap operas! im just saying that theres not a lot separating big love from any other show on hbo w/r/t tortuous plot lines and people having emotions and so forth

yeah rite max!

" w/r/t tortuous plot lines and people having emotions and so forth"

to be fair this also describes life.

soap opera = any show where family/relationships mean more than a nagging wife saying the hero needs to spend more time with the family

alright, "overstuffed soap opera" is lazy. but truth is, big love went into the shitter in season #4* (which other folks have said on thread as well). and even at its best (and the show could be very very good during its first three seasons), it did seem to have a "ten lbs of potatoes in a five-lb sack" feel to it plot-wise.

* - haven't yet seen season #5.

don't bother.

i called six feet under a soap opera to explain why i kept watching it. i love soap operas. the thing that was terrible about six feet under was unrelated to its soap operaness.

it was how everyone was always sad

and had feelings

kinda really pulling for boardwalk empire to get a goose egg -- i think there's gonna be a huge wave of 'oh wait this still exists? and we're supposed to watch it again?' when it comes back for a second season.

I got the john from cincy dics from like blockbuster a while ago and accidentally started the series in the middle

I was like holy fuck this is amazing and then I realized what happened and it wasn't v good all told

watching tv series out of order to make it more Lynchian - c/d

ugh i've fucked up on netflix a couple times and rented the 2nd disc of a season of a show before the 1st. generally i've been able to catch on to what i did a few minutes into the episode though.

kinda really pulling for boardwalk empire to get a goose egg -- i think there's gonna be a huge wave of 'oh wait this still exists? and we're supposed to watch it again?' when it comes back for a second season.

I think season 2 could be really, really awesome and am very much looking forward to it.

heh why do you hate b'walk empire al

Rome
GoT
True Blood
Carnivale

Whoa, had no idea singer Jill Scott stars in No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency! Is she good?

― Pete Scholtes, Sunday, June 19, 2011 11:29 AM (8 hours ago)

Yes, very. And superb supporting roles for anika noni rose, with a totally amazing guest spot from cch pounder.

Is CCH Pounder never not awesome? That woman. Love her!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Might have said this before, but Boardwalk is building in my esteem upon rewatch and Game of Thrones really came through as probably the best season of television out of any of these series, but they both seem too new to vote for, so Rome it is.

heh why do you hate b'walk empire al

― ☂ (max), Sunday, June 19, 2011 11:23 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

there is really just nothing to like about it imo -- it's not terrible but it felt like a waste of time & considerable talent & resources

also i have nightmares about the face of that girl gr80 keeps posting on 77

^^^^

in my rewatch she stands out as awful. i know she's supposed to be, but still.

I think the problem that stands out about season 1 is it is totally world-building and set-up for season 2. There's a lot of great things in it, and I think Buscemi and MacDonald are amazing in their scenes together. Richard Harrow is a brilliant character. I really dig it, but I'd be lying if its overall success for me doesn't greatly lie with next season.

is the girl you're referring to Paz de la Huerta? if so she is always two things in everything she appears in: a) naked and b) terrible. (see also: The Limits of Control, Enter the Void)

her face is very melted and strange-looking, like a ventriloquist dummy. I get distracted by it, it's annoying.

decided to vote for True Blood because HBO does cheap thrills better than high art these days

Still on a rush from Game of Thrones so I'm voting for that. I honestly think it might be the best here in terms of pure entertainment and audacity.

PS I think La Huerta kind of works in BE as her character is meant to be a vapid bitch. Not seen her in anything else.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

so wrong but I remember what the early 00s were like so no hate

tmulmiud

wish id voted in this poll cuz i coulda thrown 'tell me you love me' a vote. its slow & stilted & silly but it did an amazing job of creating a sense of place and characters that seemed firmly rooted & real.

holy fuck this poll is like the rongest thing ever wtf

wouldve voted game of thrones if id seen it before i voted

FU, 6FU

except for 6FU which i never got into, poll results seem pretty otm to me

did game of thrones suddenly turn into a masterpiece eight episodes in or did they just up the violent sex scenes from every six minutes to every two minutes?

dear got, when did u stop beating your wife? thx.

they just had mayor carcetti start doing monologues during the sex scenes (xpost)

though i guess "lord of the rings with a saucy dwarf and incestuous buttfucking" would say "masterpiece" to a large percentage of ilx no matter what

"a saucy dwarf, incestuous buttfucking, and tommy carcetti"

dinklage & wanklage

^^ haberdashery concern

I don't think they were buttfucking but i guess we'll never really know for sure

i guess i just assumed that if yr gonna bang yr sister you might as well go whole hog

so to speak

maybe max or someone can pop in and tell us if they start fucking pigs in book 3 or book 4

believe they are called "direpigs"

eventually the youngest of sean bean's daughters gets one as a pet, and it befriends a spider, and the spider spells out "that dude's fucking his sister, also he killed your son" in its web

would buy the strongo r.r. hulkington fantasy epic

no there is no pig fucking... yet

i like the series a lot but i feel like its a bit early to be calling it "2nd best hbo show"

then again this is a kind of dire list, so

i think rome was better tho

rome had baboonfucking. or at least the intimation of such.

i'm detecting a pattern here, hbo.

But it's not 2nd best, it's 5th best

I guess I understand why SFU isn't everyone's bag, but it's stuck with me longer than most other good shows. Uneven at times, but it did some amazing stuff.

I can't think of a more jarring scene in any show ever than the culmination of the whole Stiff plotline.

lol @ 3 votes for Treme

eventually the youngest of sean bean's daughters gets one as a pet, and it befriends a spider, and the spider spells out "that dude's fucking his sister, also he killed your son" in its web

JEEZES THE SPOILERS MANG.