As someone that loves really good television, it was shocking to me that all four of those ended at more or less the same time but HBO had nothing to take their place. Big Love was just getting started (and I don't think it has achieved—nor will it—the greatness of any of them), John From Cincinnati (which I bought for $8 at Circuit City and still haven't had the desire to watch) was one and done, Entourage (which gets worse every single season) was flailing and True Blood (which is about Vampires, so already I have no interest) had yet to even start.
In that time, Showtime has thrown out Dexter, Californication and United States of Tara, AMC gave us Breaking Bad and Mad Men, and even FX joined in with Sons of Anarchy, Justified (which could go either way) and probably (hopefully soon) Powers. I guess you can count Nip/Tuck too, but I gave up on that after two seasons.
HBO just got left in the dust.
Until now.
This year they have 4 new shows and two great looking mini-series coming up. And I'm pretty excited for all of them. Except one that got off to a slow start already.
The Pacific - Never saw Band of Brothers, but I love WWII stories and Tom Hanks. Spielberg is decent, but he hits the same notes in every movie he makes and I've lost interest lately. The first episode premiered the other night and about 45 minutes into it, I got bored and switched to watching the Jazz/Wizards blowout, which was only slightly less boring. Nine episodes left, but I'm only giving it one more chance.
Treme - The creators of The Wire—which was the greatest TV show ever—and John Goodman. You might need more, but I don't. Sign me up.
Boardwalk Empire - Again, I really don't need more than the talent involved: Terrence Winter (producer/writer for The Sopranos) Martin Scorsese and Steve Buscemi. Factor in that it's a prohibition era story and I will be there for every episode.
Luck - David Milch (Deadwood) and Michael Mann (Heat) delve into the world of horse racing and probably a whole bunch of other stuff. Dustin Hoffman as an ex-con with a gambling problem will be better than anything he's done in the past decade. Horse racing has always kind of fascinated me, so I can only imagine what kind of things Milch and Mann have planned with that as a backdrop.
Game of Thrones - Don't care much for fantasy, but this shot from the pilot looks awesome. Sign me up.
Mildred Pierce - A mini-series based on a James M. Cain novel starring Kate Winslet. Cain wrote some great, great crime/noir novels back in the 30s and 40s. Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice are two of my favorites, so this can't come soon enough.
And if you managed to get through this entire post, I applaud you. Probably wasn't very interesting unless you're a fan of awesome stuff.
Now I'm done.
Personally, I lost faith in HBO when Taxicab Confessions went off the air. The station just doesn't know true gold when it's talking about unspeakably private sex acts in its own backseat.
ReplyDeleteboardwalk empire looks awesome! thanks for letting me know about this one! (we don't have cable, so we'll have to wait until it's on dvd)
ReplyDeleteim a fan of awesome stuff. so i guess its not surprising i made it through that post then! ;)
ReplyDeletedidnt know about a lot of these and they look pretty badass. thanks trevor.
Treme looks fucking awesome, because you are right, The Wire was, without question, the greatest television show of all time. It even has Lester, shit yeah.
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