Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Passion

fhw,

Six Feet Under is the best show on TV, IMO. It's the main reason I have DirecTV with HBO right now. You see, I used to get HBO for free after a cable repair man fixed by cable a little bit too well one year. I got hooked on the show during this extended free preview.

When Comcast bought out AT&T Cable, I guess they noticed this mistake and I stopped getting HBO. My wife made me fix that problem, so I dropped standard cable, got DirecTV w/Tivo and HBO and we haven't looked back since.

My wife really liked that Six Feet Under show, but I'm not fond of it. Reminded me of all the creepy stuff I used to think about in high school.

What is this "TV" thing everyone is mentioning???

...and cable, I thought that was for broadband Internet access....

The Soprano's
Six Feet Under
Mind of a Married Man

The quality of HBO series is impressive....may 'cause of the creative freedom given to the producing unit......

I have started to like Curb ur entu...quiet hillarious, and from Mar7th , Hell hath no fury, the family will b back!!!

Did anyone watch the promo for the new soprano's season, the crescendo of music and the events shown reach a summit, every thing stops with tony on a chiar smoking a cigar......man what editing

How could I forget Trailer Park Boys?

I've heard/read a bunch of interviews explaining why HBO shows are of such high quality.

First and foremost, because HBO doesn't compete for advertising dollars, they can afford to gamble airtime on a show that might catch on through word of mouth rather than mountains of hype. Six Feet Under or The Sopranos would never last past a first season on a network, because the shows are an acquired taste with complex characters and story arcs (forgetting for a moment both shows are filthy at times)...advertisers are more likely to play it safe with another Law and Order, because they know will do decently in the ratings, if not spectacularly. The system is truly broken, because shows like Cheers or Seinfeld, which tanked horribly in their first seasons, would get axed for lousy ratings out of the gate nowadays.

Secondly, HBO makes a simple demand of its drama producers...characters don't have to be likeable, as long as they're compelling. You're never given the chance to dislike a character on a network show, unless you're supposed to. Contrast that to Beecher from Oz, Tony Soprano, or Nate Fisher...there are times you love them, and times they're totally scum of the earth.

Of course, there is a bit of an unfair advantage in that HBO shows don't have to adhere to censorship. However, networks have gone overboard and sterilized a lot of their shows. Compare the first two seasons of L&O to now. If I were an ignorant foreigner (being Canadian, I suppose I am), I would think that poverty and drugs are no longer problems in New York, because the only people that ever get murdered anymore are multi-millionaires living around Park Ave.

The true solution would be a system where networks don't force providers to charge exorbitant prices for utter garbage, before a subscriber is allowed to order HBO (i.e. you can't order pay TV without full-tier cable, no matter how little of it you actually watch)...at least this is the case in Canada. Of course, given who's in control, it'll never happen.

Supposedly there have been some discussions about cable companies allowing people to pick and choose what channels they want, and get them ala carte. I'd love to see it, because I could get by with under 10 channels if I could pick which ones they were. Most of it is junk I don't ever watch.

I'll believe it when I see it though.

That would be great if I could pick the channels that I watch and only pay for them. I don't see it happening though any time soon. But it sure would be nice.

I am totally addicted...but I can never catch it when it's on! I usually wait until the DVD's come out. About 2 weeks before the DVD for Season 2 came out, they had a free DVD at Best Buy with the first 2 episodes on it. What a marketing tool! Is there anybody who could watch those 2 episodes and not be hooked? Oh my god...Kiefer Sutherland shot that guy and took his head away in a duffel bag!

I call it "Twentycrack"

Mark