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| HBO is phasing out the old and introducing the new. Is it successful? |
"We enjoyed your drugs, but now it's time for you to go" - Jazz Musician, The Life and Times of Tim S02E06.
HBO has a pretty impressive record when it comes to dramatic television shows. In the beginning, HBO created Oz, back in 1997. Then, on the third year, 1999, HBO created The Sopranos. On the fourth year, HBO rested. Soon after however, it was back to creation. In 01, 02, 03, and 04 HBO created Six Feet Under, The Wire, Carnivale, and Deadwood respectively. All six of the aforementioned dramas were incredibly well done and received very high critical reviews, especially The Wire and Sopranos. Even Six Feet Under, which stumbled a bit in the middle seasons has gone down in history as a great work.
So, needless to say, when HBO creates a new drama, the standards are very high. This Summer, HBO welcomes a new addition to their roster of dramas while saying adieu to one of their older members.
Four weeks ago, The Leftovers began. Five weeks ago, True Blood's final season began. Let's start with the new generation before moving on to the old.
The Leftovers is the haunting tale of a group of characters three years after 2% of the population mysteriously disappears. At the center of the show is Justin Theroux's character, Kevin Garvey, the police chief of the small town of Mapleton. Around him are his daughter, Jill, his wife who has joined a cult, Laurie, and his son who has joined a different cult, Tom. Other than the Garvey famiglia, we also observe the actions of Matt Jamison, AKA Doctor Who. Jamison is the town's religious leader who has very few people to lead. Finally, there is Nora, Jamison's sister, Wayne, the leader of Tom's cult, and Meg, a new recruit to Laurie Garvey's cult.
This wide array of characters is to be expected from a show created by Damon Lindelof, the genius behind Lost, but in Leftovers, he is taking a different approach, focusing much more on everyone in the cast each episode than having individual episodes to introduce different characters using flashbacks, like in Lost. The only exception to this is episode three, which is almost 100% focused on Matt Jamison. The show both suffers and is helped by this more common type of storytelling. In Lost, even the more minor characters got an episode to introduce them and make the audience care about them. This way, whenever a major event or death took place to any character, it always mattered. However, Lost was 22 episodes a season, while Leftovers is only ten. Now, that being said, some characters in Lost were just more dull than others, making their episodes sometimes quite dull. In The Leftovers, the characters do not have the same level of development, but because of this, when there is a more boring character, viewers do not have to sit through an entire hour of that one particular character.
So, aside from babbling on about different types of storytelling, I'll get down to the real question. Is The Leftovers worth watching? Is it any good? Did Lindelof succeed or falter?
The answer is not quite as clear as I would like. As a huge fan of slow burn dramas that make viewers discover the mythology little by little such as Carnivale, I am a proponent of Leftovers. However, while Carnivale seemed to give answers each episode while keeping the big secrets for later, Leftovers gives absolutely nothing and expects us to stick with it. For now, I am very much willing to stick with it as almost all of the characters are compelling (more on that in a minute) and the plot is intriguing enough, but if the show continues to plod along and gives lackluster mythology hints, it may grow stale - and fast.
Then there is the other major problem with the show - teenagers. I understand that the stereotype of a teenager is to be reckless, not care, and be generally disenchanted with life, but even the supposed precursor to the apocalypse does not make teenagers SO INCREDIBLY reckless, not caring, and disenchanted. Kevin's daughter Jill and her gang of friends really weigh this show down. In the first four episodes they steal a baby Jesus doll and almost burn it, go to a wild sex party with a spin the bottle game involving such fun options as "burn" or "choke", and stalk a woman and steal from her car. That's in four goddamn episodes. At the rate we've been going, I'm expecting them to commit a gang rape in episode five. It almost begs the question of whether or not Lindelof has ever met a depressed teenager, or just read fifty blogs on Tumblr and based Jill Garvey on his "research". Now, luckily enough for Lindelof, he has done a good enough job developing his other characters, Matt Jamison in particular, to not have Jill weigh down the show completely, but unless she becomes suddenly enthralling soon, her large amount of screen time may start to take it's toll even more so.
On the other hand, while The Leftovers shows promise in developing into something very good, it's counterpart on Sunday night, True Blood, shows promise of winning the "Worst HBO Drama Ever" award. Alan Ball's show started out actually very strong. In season one, vampires were used as a metaphor for gays and "coming out of the coffin" and being accepted by society seemed to be a big deal to characters on the show, reflecting the acceptance of gays in society. Of course, vampires were a bit more looked down upon than gays, but that is to be expected. Additionally, in the first season, Sookie, the central character of the show's love story plot line actually captivated the audience. Though she was quite annoying since the first episode, the viewers actually had a reason to care about her. Her friends in the town also were unique and gave audiences a reason to care about them. Was True Blood season one the most amazing thing on HBO? No. Of course not. Even in it's strongest plots and episodes it never really came close to Deadwood, Wire, or even Alan Ball's first show, Six Feet Under. But it was a welcome addition.
In season two, the plot lines became a bit more faded and silly, but the show stayed enjoyable and kept trying to be a critic's darling. Season three was actually better than two, mostly due to the expert acting of Denis O'Hare, playing the season's villain, the mad vampire king Russel Edgington.
Then season four hit. This season made the current episodes look like Breaking Bad. Season four was so disgustingly terrible that all hopes of True Blood going down as one of the television greats dissipate. After that, they really should have just quit while they were behind.
But no - the show went on for a fifth and sixth season, which although not quite falling to the level of season four, still disappointing in almost every aspect.
Now, at the very end of the show's run, we are halfway through season seven, the season to end it all.
The best thing about the current season is that it seems to have finally realized what the show is good for - campy fun. The current season is not trying to be Breaking Bad or Deadwood. It is better compared to such mythic works as Sharknado or PiranhaConda. True Blood is just plain silly at this point. Now that the final season is upon us, the show is willing to kill off characters willy-nilly, as shown by the deaths of Alcide the werewolf and Tara the vampire already. While this is a bit bold for the show as most of the time characters avoid death or get resurrected every goddamn time they seemingly die, it's really not enough to keep our attention, Throw in the fact that one of the episodes of the supposed-to-be-epic final season was literally a party at Sookie's house where nothing important to the main plot really happened, and you have quite a lackluster season thus far.
In the end, True Blood is being saved by its fun level, not it's quality. And so, while I would not ever recommend beginning True Blood if you've never seen it before, if you've stuck with it this far, you may as well see the last five hours... and then tell your friends that you watched The Wire to save your intellectualism.
So here we are, Summer of 2014, on the heels of a new era of HBO programming. In with the new, out with the old. Though certainly the current programming is not quite the hit after hit that the early 2000's had for HBO, it is still quite promising. Ridding themselves of True Blood while bringing in the promising Leftovers is a good start. However, with the looming end to Boardwalk Empire in sight, HBO will need more than just the so-so Leftovers (so-so right now that is. I truly do have hope that it will blossom into a great show) and the acclaimed True Detective to carry the network into the future. Even Game of Thrones won't be around forever.
Goodbye True Blood and hello The Leftovers. Let's hope this transition goes smoothly.Labels: Alan Ball, Christopher Eccelston, Damon Lindelof, Deadwood, HBO, Justin Theroux, Lost, Six Feet Under, The Leftovers, True Blood