The story so far... After the demise of its most prestigious and successful original programs -- and with few successes to show for itself (but a couple might have beens) in the intervening months -- HBO has seemed for some time poised to lose its reputation as "more than TV" to rival pay cable network Showtime. To our mind, that hasn't quite happened yet. No matter how navelgazing/boring In Treatment or Tell Me You Love Me were, Showtime didn't overcome HBO in the last year or so so much as supply an alternative to it. They don't have any comedies as idiosyncratic as Curb Your Enthusiasm, nor do any of their hour-long shows acheive the grandeur of The Sopranos or even HBO's misfires, like Carnivàle. (Possible exception: This American Life, which since it's a doc we're thinking doesn't count.)
Still, HBO knows they've got a title to defend. And it looks to us like their solution is to throw lots and lots of money around developing new shows. None of which sound particularly great.
Just in the past couple days, we've heard of their developing a comedy club-based show for comedienne Lisa Lampanelli, with Jim Carrey exec-producing; an adaptation of Sloane Crosley's humorous essay collection I Was Told There Would Be Cake; and Bored to Death, which sounds an awful lot like The Singing Detective as written by Jonathan Lethem but is, in fact, from the very funny New York writer and performance artist Jonathan Ames. Previously reported shows being developed by the net include that vampire show from Six Feet Under's Alan Ball; Hung, from Election's Alexander Payne and The Riches' Dmitry Lipkin, which is about a guy whose "superpower" in life is his humongous cock and balls; and, according to the New York Observer, "a Darren Star adaptation of Tracy Quan’s Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, and Surburban Shootout, based on a U.K. series, about a woman in the suburbs stuck between two housewife gangs."
Anything there tickle your fancy? Yeah, we not so sure either. Nor are we so optimistic about David Simon's New Orleans show, but that may just be because we thought that show's theme song got progressively way worse each season and figure that doesn't bode well for a show about musicians. (Generation Kill, on the other hand, we await with baited breath -- but that's a miniseries.)
The one show that we'd heard about being developed by HBO that we were hardcore excited about was Preacher, an adaptation of Garth Ennis' epic and deeply profane comic book about God, vampires, and rednecks. And that project is apparently stalled, even though HBO and DC/Vertigo (which published Preacher in the '90's) are part of the same company and you'd think they could share a few resources getting it right. (BTW, there's a big hubbub about trouble at DC here and here, which may shed light on that situation. Don't skip the comments.)
So, what do we do? Wait for HBO to get it right again -- or for Showtime to finally put together an hour-long drama that knocks it out of the park? Or are we just gonna have to rely on a diet of Mad Men and Damages for a while?
