I thought HBO was international, but maybe not. Do you have cable, Deb? If you do, check with them. The one critically acclaimed HBO show I do not watch is the Sopranos. It's just too violent for me.
"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is available on video I believe and it is the most inventive comedy on TV right now. It's theme is similar to "Seinfeld" in that some small gaffe snowballs into a huge problem and ends with a kind of shaggy dog blackout finale.
But "Six Feet Under" is the best dramatic writing (Alan Ball of "American Beauty" fame) and has various writers and directors. The characters are uncannily real and familiar and the attitude of the show toward life and death, comedy and pathos is very Marcel Proust. Also available on video so you should be able to rent it -- I know you can rent it from the online NetFlix that Phoenix asked about. "OZ" about prison life is also excellent. HBO rules when it comes to state-of-the-art writing and presentation. I've watched "C.S.I." and it is the best of the network fare but still has a long way to go to beat out any of the HBO shows.
BTW, Phoenix, I would call some of the sex scenes on the HBO shows, especially "Sex and the City," as being soft porn. "Queer As Folk" on Showtime is definitely not a show I'd watch with Mom!!! Despite the controversy on that show, it is very well written.
Lightwizard- I have seen only a few "Sex and the City" episodes, so I really can't make a reasoned judgement.
In general, I am rather open minded, and probably would not blink an eyelash about some aspects of entertainment that might bother some people! :wink:
Ok! I admit it! I'm a CSI and Law & Order junkie too!
I was very depressed when the A&E Network stopping carrying Law & Order. They used to have it on 4 or 5 times through the day and they were only a week behind on their shows...
fishin'- Don't you get TNT? They have all the newer reruns (post Chris Noth) on there in the evenings.
Thank you people - I do not get cable - so was not familiar with HBO.
I wonder if I might be able to get that show on video from somewhere, Lightwizard?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
All the HBO series are available on DVD and videotape. Like "The Larry Sanders Show," they'll all find their way onto network and free cable someday! (Sans the language and most of the sexual content). Most of the Showtime series are also on DVD/videotape.
"Sex and the City:"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/104-1063878-0031933
Some used available and if you want videotape, just click over to the Amazon videotape section. For price, also try WalMart.com, DVDPlanet.com and DVDUniverse.com.
No one mentioning West Wing????? My goodness. And I'm Canadian.
LW...re Sex and the City...I read a very nice piece some time ago by the mother of a 15 year old girl who said that the show facilitated conversations between the two of them on sexual matters that mom just wouldn't know how to initiate "I'm not going to bring up anal sex, but it's good for her to know that this is part of some people's sexuality".
"The West Wing" is kind of docu-fiction and I never could get warmed up to it. For one thing, politician's personal lives are about as interesting as artificial insemination.
I forgot who quipped that line but it's not my original and really can be used in context of a critical statement. It's like "underwhelmed" or "runs the gamet from A to B."
I can't let this slander get by. Docu-fiction? Invalid category ad hominem. For shame. (Interestingly though, per capita viewing of West Wing is much higher here in Canada than it is in the US, a somewhat curious phenomenon.) This show is precisely my taste in TV drama and I think the boy a genius.
Hi all,
I must say that I like 99% of the shows you've mentioned, although, my current favorite is "Monk" on the USA network (and I think that they replay in on one of the major networks on Friday nights).
Anyway, Tony Shalhoub is one of my favorite actors, and the shows writing showcases that very well!!
I agree that "docu-fiction" is an oxymoron, certainly moreso than "docu-drama" which was applied to films like "In Cold Blood." But "The West Wing" does take political and other current events and dramatizes them with vignettes of the personal lives of those involved. It doesn't work for me beyond a few shows (which I did watch most of the first season). Films like "The Candidate," "The Best Man" and "Advise and Consent" specifically examined an aspect of politics that "The West Wing" capsulizes and succeeds in really glossing over the real guts of politics. It really white washes what goes on behind closed doors and if it were every honestly exposing what goes on in American politics would never go on the air. It's bent toward liberal politics does suceed in pissing off the conservative Republicans and has been held up as an example of Hollywood's left wing influence on the public.
While "Six Feet Under" gets into examing real people with real lives and real problems. This show has no blinders on and isn't as quirky as it is true to life. I think it has some of the most ingenious, innovative writing ever seen on television. Ditto all the HBO shows -- they make network drama look like faded duplications of typical Hollywood fare. I like CSI for entertainment but it ultimately comes out as contrived and only works if one leaves their credulity meter in another room while they're watching.
The trouble is that sponsors have too much influence on what one can do on network TV shows -- they break new ground only to find old dirt underneath.
LW
I really have to disagree with your notion that there is a vast expanse between portrayals and reality. Some distance, sure, and particularly as regards the left/altruistic motivations of the main characters. Yet, comments by folks who have actually worked in the White House are particularly lauditory. Each script is, for TV, unusually sophisticated in structure and nobody nobody writes dialogue with the wit and panache of this team of writers (I don't know where I'd find something comparable other than looking back to Cukor). And I'm going to argue for what I consider to be an exceptional example of socially responsible content (am I actually going to walk out on this limb?)...but I mean this in a specific way...one fellow from Clinton's administration stated that an episode of West Wing had addressed an issue (taxes on farmers?) which he had been an issue under his juridiction - he said "They explained that issue better in five minutes than we had been able to do in two years."
I'll readily admit the show works as sugar coated politics and that some social issues are handled with much aplomb -- the fact that I agree with nearly all of the premises, however, doesn't make the show dramatically exciting for me. The characters are too consciously molded on actual personas and thinly veiled. As for "nobody writes dialogue with the wit and panache" of this team of writers is the problem that it is written by a team of writers.
That description could be used for any of the HBO and Showtime series -- Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," for instance, which isn't written dialogue but almost wholly improvised around a specific situation. Someone might need the issue of taxes on farmers explained to them but it's not me. However, would they address the issue of tax on churches? I'm not holding my breath.
They still come off as gun shy on hot topics.
(And I'm a moderate liberal which should make this show appeal to me even more -- I tried to maintain interest in it but after the expoiltive episode on the terrorist attacks, I simply lost interest).
