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  • For those of you without HBO: as of this season, the network is providing full podcasts of Real Time with Bill Maher on iTunes. I am of the opinion that Real Time has the highest level of political debate anywhere on television currently, although sometimes the makeup of the panel leads to a dud. (Please, no more Robin Williams, but Ben Affleck is surprisingly good.) (2) #
    9/22/2008
  • Six months ago, I mentioned that Bob Odenkirk and David Cross were working on a new show for HBO, the network that produced Mr. Show. Now, new details have emerged about the show, titled David's Situation:
    Odenkirk and Cross co-wrote the project, which will star Cross as himself. He leaves Hollywood to move into a suburban, gated community where he has two roommates, a right-wing conservative and a liberal hippie.
    That could be the description of a terrible sitcom on a network, but I have high hopes. (via aicn) (2) #
    3/21/2008
  • NPR's Terry Gross interviewed The Wire creator David Simon yesterday -- listen here. (There are spoilers if you are not caught up.) With the series finale airing this Sunday, will this be my last Wire post ever? (thx, drew) (2) #
    3/7/2008
  • The creators (David Simon, Ed Burns) and the high-profile writers (Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Richard Price) of HBO's The Wire have written a pledge in Time to practice jury nullification when it comes to non-violent drug offenses:
    If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun's manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.
    (thx, luddite robot) (18) #
    3/6/2008
  • It looks like Isiah Whitlock Jr., who plays Clay Davis on HBO's The Wire, has used his trademark "Sheeeeeeet" on other projects. Slate links to two uses in Spike Lee's The 25th Hour, and wonders whose idea it was to port it The Wire. (2) #
    2/27/2008
  • Obama loves The Wire, although he missed last night's premiere because he was, you know, campaigning. Someone should ask him what his thoughts are on Hamsterdam. (0) #
    1/7/2008
  • Multiple people have sent me this semi-critical article by Mark Bowden on The Wire, which starts it fifth and final season on HBO this week. Bowden respects the show and its verisimilitude, but takes on David Simon for letting his personal anger get in the way of "accuracy and evenhandedness." I don't buy the argument that the show's bleakness is exaggerated, although I do think the show has become more didactic in its later seasons. I also dismiss the argument, which I've seen elsewhere, that the show merely serves to comfort the guilt of liberal viewers -- one might as well make the same argument about any great work of social realism. Thoughts? (0) #
    1/4/2008
  • Watching the live (but not on the West coast) Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO last night was more interesting than usual, when 9/11 conspiracy theorists from the audience started shouting in the middle of the panel segment. Bill Maher took matters into his own hands, shouting them down and helping security kick them out. Here's the video. (8) #
    10/20/2007
  • The New Yorker has a lengthy profile of David Simon, who recently wrapped filming of the fifth season of HBO's The Wire, which premieres January. It also discusses his next episodic series in the works, about musicians who live in post-Katrina New Orleans. (thx, terry) (0) #
    10/15/2007
  • Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, the comedic geniuses behind Mr. Show, are working on a new show for HBO, supposedly a sitcom. And right when I was considering canceling my subscription! (After The Wire Season 5, of course.) (5) #
    9/12/2007
  • HBO cancels John from Cincinnati, yet is "staying in business" with David Milch. I'm not surprised, but I'm getting a little flustered with HBO's lack of foresight. (3) #
    8/14/2007

John from Cincinnati: Season One

John from Cincinnati

Last night, John from Cincinnati wrapped up its first (and last?) season on HBO. I'm still not entirely sure what to think of it -- I often felt distanced from the show due to its artifice and its love/hate relationship with verisimilitude; on the other hand, I was constantly entertained by its oddness and engaged by its rich intratextuality. For instance, an insignificant line of dialogue from an earlier episode often would be repeated many episodes later, perhaps with a slight modification, to enhance a comic or mystifying moment. These connections are not meant to be a wink towards the viewer: they are essential to the major themes of the show.

What are those major themes? I'm not sure I'm equipped to discuss them here with sufficient eloquence, but these two essays about the last two episodes, respectively, get close to the heart of things, I think. A quote from the second essay:

I think the show is largely centered around an examination of what it would be like if Jesus came to Earth today, and using that framework, it would make sense John would use a major corporation to spread his message. He converts his disciples, and by putting his logo on everything, he will help to spread the message.

That is indeed the most obvious explanation, although there's no reason to believe that there's any connection to Jesus, or Christianity in general. The way that the car dealer in the final episode talks to John ("You're off-line now, Country.") conjures elements of science-fiction more than any traditional notion of religion. The entire text of the dealer's scene can be found at HBO's "Inside the Episode" website section, where it's described by one of the show's writers as "probably the most important puzzle-solving moment of the season."

It's clear that JFC has an intricate design, and recent hints of global implications (John talking about "towelheads" and 9/11/14) -- in addition to David Milch's unique brand of dialogue and character development -- make me curious enough to want to look forward to the second season, if there is one. But while I know that Milch is a sort of genius, I can't help thinking that there's something off about this show -- that perhaps in its struggle in being both profound and entertaining, it falls short on both accounts.

Mon, 08/13/2007 - 10:23am
  • On HBO tonight, both The Sopranos and Entourage ended with a major character raising their fists in the air while looking upon a stunning desert landscape. How odd. (8) #
    5/13/2007
  • This week, with the final episode showing up on HBO on Demand, marks the end of The Wire's fifth fourth season. Here's an NPR interview with creator/writer/producer Ed Burns, and a great Slate interview with creator David Simon:
    In our heads we're writing a Greek tragedy, but instead of the gods being petulant and jealous Olympians hurling lightning bolts down at our protagonists, it's the Postmodern institutions that are the gods. And they are gods. And no one is bigger. By the way: If at any point any character on the show ever talks as I'm talking right now, it would suck. It's crucial that the characters can't lecture us.
    (2) #
    12/4/2006
  • The New York Times gives us a glimpse into Deadwood creator David Milch's new show on HBO, John from Cincinnati:
    The story defies television genre-speak, but in literature it would be called surf noir. There is a dysfunctional family viewed through the twin prisms of surfing and heroin addiction, a space alien and a lawyer named Dickstein. It should be mentioned that some characters occasionally levitate.
    Man, I'm so sick of HBO's tired clichés and overplayed formulas. (thx, george c) (11) #
    11/20/2006
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