Heh. HBO has turned into old fashioned network TV.

Cafe Society
1

For the past few nights, my wife and I have been edging into a later and later schedule. Stay up late, sleep late, stay up later, sleep still later. So it came to pass that we were up until past 3am a couple of nights ago, and in the course of the evening, we had one of the HBO channels on the entire time. Here is the schedule:

8pm. Fools Gold, for about the 1000th time. Matt McConaughy plays the stupid but rugged and loyal husband, Kate Hudson the bright and spunky bride.

11pm. Title not remembered. In a college setting, a male student is accused of rape when all that happened was that the girl passed out and he did nothing. Various other manipulative characters behave in a way that intensifies the drama. I’d seen this once before, but it was reasonably interesting.

1am. Barton Fink. Truly interesting and original story of a NYC playwright who gets a Hollywood job, set in 1941. Darkly comic, surreal, and at times Hitchcockian.

3am. Airplane! Granted, I have seen this one more times than I can count, but would probably watch it now, since it’s been awhile.

I’m not sure but I think HBO is trying to force people over to Pay-Per-View.

Network TV was just like this!

Primetime–mind numbing crap.
The Late Show. Movies that were a cut better than the regular shows.
The Late Late Show. This is when they would trot out the good Bogart, Stewart, Cagney, etc. movies.
The Dead Of The Wee Hours. Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges. If you didn’t have to work or go to school, you could see good stuff on the tube all right!

2

HBO is not like an old fashioned network in that what it plays is GOOD.

3

Let me know when they break out the B horror movies and the B westerns. I also don’t see any World War II films on the schedule.

4

I don’t think you’d see Eastbound and Down on network TV.

5

I agree with the OP, except that network TV doesn’t bother with movies anymore.

I just checked the schedule – looks like they’re repeating Oz again. :smiley:

Are the other premium channels showing better movies? Now that Big Love is over, I might switch.

6

Networks usually swap over to infomercials after ~2am wasn’t it?

7

I cancelled HBO and Showtime channels a couple of months ago and I don’t miss them at all. Any movie that might have been played is probably available on Netflix, and all of the original programming ends up on DVD eventually anyway. Netflix is worth every penny. HBO, not so much.

8

As it happens, today HBO is starting a new series called The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, based on a series of mystery novels set in Botswana. Some of the reviews, including that of Tim Goodman in the San Francisco Chronicle, said that the show is too tame for HBO. Goodman even said that the show is “CBS-like”.

9

CBS would never do a show about a women’s detective agency set in Botswana. It may not say “cocksucker” or have murders and boobies and prison rapes, but that doesn’t mean it’s poor quality or that it’s something you would typically see on the networks.

10

A female detective agency set in Botswana?

Are they using some sort of randomizer to come up with edgy, out of the box premises? Or maybe like that old fill-in-the-blank game?

Detective Agency
All women’s
Botswana
Strip Club
Refugee Camp
Giraffe
Black-faced
Alchoholic
Nick Nolte

So there’ this… … set in … With the help of a … …, who also runs a … which doubles as a …, they foil crimes masterminded by a … …

Times magazine is calling it a “Dark Masterpiece”.

11

It’s based on a somewhat famous series of novels. I haven’t read them, but they are apparently quite renowned.

12

I have all the “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” novels. They’re like the “cozy” type of mystery novels, only set in Botswana. Precious Ramotswe is a female private detective who specializes in the sort of assignments that are too small or not profitable enough for most detectives, but are very important to the persons involved. The mysteries are interspersed with homey stories about Precious, her secretary/sidekick, Grace Makutsi, her boyfriend (later husband) Mr. J.L.B. Mathekoni of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors (yes, he is called that at least once in each book), and various others who appear in the books as the series progresses. I read in the LA Times review of the TV show that they added a gay hairdresser neighbor who is not in the books as far as I remember. I don’t have HBO but would like to watch the show so I can compare it to the books.

13

Edited: **Lucky 13 ** answered much better than I did.

Ed

14

Ooh! I’ll play!

So there’s this black-faced strip club set in Botswana(didn’t have much to work with!). With the help of an alcoholic giraffe, who also runs a detective agency that doubles as a refugee camp, they foil crimes masterminded by all Nick Nolte’s women.

15

Season 2 of In Treatment is coming up shortly. You don’t have to have seen Season 1, but it is probably available at Netflix and it is still running on On Demand. It will be on for 30 minutes five nights a week or you can probably catch it all at one time on On Demand.

Zeldar and I were both riveted by the series last year and Gabriel Byrn won an Emmy, I think. Diane Weist is just incredible too. He plays a therapist meeting with different patients for sessions – one on each day of the week. But on Friday, he has his own session with his former teacher (I think) played by Weist. Good, good stuff!

16

We’ve been rivited by various series too, but after their short seasons end, it’s back to cable movies.