| DVD Roundup June 2005
 HBO: A
Network Unimpeded by Advertisers
Amid countless reality shows and soap operas
disguised as investigative news programming, there may be three or four network television
programs that are worthy of your time -- provided you don’t mind four minutes of
dim-witted commercials every ten minutes. Advertising is a necessary evil for nonpay
channels. Without ads, there would be no money. The problem is that advertisers are
quickly becoming the moral authority on what people are allowed to watch. Thanks to TiVo,
my wife and I live without commercials. Even so, writing for commercial-based television
requires the narrative to have a cliffhanger at every break so that the audience will stay
tuned and rush back from the refrigerator for the next act.
In 1972, Home Box Office began its life covering sports,
then branched out into comedy shows. Some ten years later, Not Necessarily the News
premiered as HBO’s first Original Series. This farce, which lampooned network news,
was followed by the critically acclaimed Larry Sanders Show (****) and, more
recently, by Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm (***1/2), seasons of
both of which I now own on DVD.
HBO’s virtual immunity from censors and commercial
interruptions has meant that the channel can develop programming that does not depend on
sponsors’ money or approval. Avoiding sponsors allowed them to tackle politically
loaded topics without affecting their bottom line or creative direction. And the Band
Played On (***1/2), If These Walls Could Talk (***), Live from Baghdad (****),
The Gathering Storm (****), and Iron Jawed Angels (****1/2) presented
social and historical issues with unflinching honesty. The need to appeal to a wide
audience, and therefore a wide population of advertisers, forces the major networks to
sanitize their programming, resulting in television that lacks weight, truthfulness, and
originality. Formulas are endlessly repeated, and serious social issues are resolved with
a laugh track or, worse, oversimplification.
Many half-hour network television shows devote more than a
third of each episode -- about 12 minutes -- to commercials. Hour-long shows top off at
about 42 minutes of entertainment and 18 minutes of advertising. HBO’s witty Sex
and the City (****1/2) fills almost its entire 30-minute time slot, while episodes of
such hour-long HBO series as Deadwood (***) and Carnivāle (***1/2) run
about 58 minutes each. This leaves just enough time for HBO to advertise its own other
shows. You won’t see any product advertisement.
It’s wonderful to watch an entire show without
commercial interruptions. What’s even nicer is the quality and honesty I’ve
experienced in every HBO show I’ve watched. Although my wife and I do not subscribe
to HBO, we’re big fans of its programming and own many of their DVDs. Sex and the
City, The Sopranos (****1/2), and Six Feet Under (*****) are among our
favorite dramas. Watch The Sopranos, Oz (****), The Wire (****), or
HBO’s miniseries Band of Brothers (*****) and you see a class of cinema
once available only on the big screen. Acting, set design, direction, and, most important,
writing, are vastly superior to what’s found on the majority of commercial-driven
programming. Tony Soprano would not be as memorable or possess his depth of character were
his actions censored, or the dramatic flow of the story interrupted by commercials. The
gruesome reality of war would not have been as realistic had the bloodletting been edited
out of Band of Brothers.
So far, my favorite program to have come out of the HBO
studios is Six Feet Under. My
review of the second season expresses how enamored I am by the show’s writing and
beautifully drawn characters. Six Feet Under could not exist without pay TV. The
show’s homosexual content, graphic depictions of death, and realistic human
situations would be too much for a commercial network to bear. Compromises would be made.
David would have to be a happy gay man, while Nate and Brenda couldn’t have
sex. Mother Fisher would act like Mrs. Brady, and Claire would be a gifted and successful
artist with a steady boyfriend with golden locks and water-blue eyes. And no one would be
able to say the F word, even when the situation and character called for it. The
show would be a pale imitation of what drama and true-to-life situations should be -- with
an unrealistic happy ending thrown in for good measure.
The third season of Six Feet Under promises to be
even more realistic and riveting. When last we saw the Fishers, Nate was having an
out-of-body experience during brain surgery, while David, Claire, and Ruth Fisher came to
understand what being a family really means as the troubled Brenda moves away. The best
part about a show like Six Feet Under is its willingness to let the characters
reflect on a situation. As in great cinema, a look or gesture can convey the most complex
emotions. The majority of commercial television shows give little time to such details --
after all, viewers might get bored, change the channel, and miss a commercial or two.
Lesser shows resort to using voiceovers to explain characters’ emotional states.
The true reality shows are not about wife-swapping or going
one on one with "the Donald." Good reality television depicts characters who
mirror how actual human beings deal with life every day. The producers at HBO seem to get
it. They know that if they continue to develop programming people can connect with, then
they will never need to rely on advertising and compromise their standards.
…Anthony Di Marco
anthony@hometheatersound.com |
