# New HBO Series - Big Love **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 13, 2006, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294 "2006-02-13T17:27:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![iluvurmom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iluvurmom/32/7276_2.png) [@iluvurmom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iluvurmom)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2006, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/41 "2006-02-21T14:44:37Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > If I were to write it the first year’s story arc would be the man realizing that maybe his Prophet is a deeply flawed man and trying to figure out how to extricate himself from the situation when he has three women he loves and many children to support and he really can’t live with them on the outside world and the inside world is stifling and corrupt. And it’d star Harvey Fierstein as the zany next door neighbor. I don’t think that there is an “inside world” and an “outside” world. I think that is one of the interesting parts of the show, is that itstarts out based in the suburbs and how Paxton balences all of this within that premise. Hopefully playing on the drama of what its like to have one family in that environment…much less three! I’ll say that would be enoguth for me to go crazy, good gawd. But, damn if it won’t be intresting watching it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/42 "2006-02-21T15:47:03Z")
According to what I’ve read, these characters are not Mormon. The Paxton character was apparently raised in a commune with a “prophet” played by Harry Dean Stanton. The piece I read said that the Stanton character has something like 40 wives. The Paxton character does not live in the commune within any polygamous community, he just lives in the suburbs with three different families in three adjacent houses. A lot of the show is about the families trying to live without getting busted and will focus some on the kids who have to worry about people discovering their family secret. It sounds to me like HBO wanted to do something based on Jack Mormon communities but didn’t want to deal with the controversy of calling them Mormons, so they invented this imaginary commune instead. Will Paxton is an immensely likable actor. He projects an earnest nature which can make almost any character sympathetic (hell, he was likable as an axe murderer in _Frailty_). I’m guessing he might be able to inject this character with more sympathy than he deserves but I’m not sure the novelty of the concept is enough to really sustain the series over a period of time. ---
**Author:** ![iluvurmom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iluvurmom/32/7276_2.png) [@iluvurmom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iluvurmom)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/43 "2006-02-27T15:57:44Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > According to what I’ve read, these characters are not Mormon. The Paxton character was apparently raised in a commune with a “prophet” played by Harry Dean Stanton. The piece I read said that the Stanton character has something like 40 wives. The Paxton character does not live in the commune within any polygamous community, he just lives in the suburbs with three different families in three adjacent houses. A lot of the show is about the families trying to live without getting busted and will focus some on the kids who have to worry about people discovering their family secret. > > It sounds to me like HBO wanted to do something based on Jack Mormon communities but didn’t want to deal with the controversy of calling them Mormons, so they invented this imaginary commune instead. > > Will Paxton is an immensely likable actor. He projects an earnest nature which can make almost any character sympathetic (hell, he was likable as an axe murderer in _Frailty_). I’m guessing he might be able to inject this character with more sympathy than he deserves but I’m not sure the novelty of the concept is enough to really sustain the series over a period of time. Well, looks who turning around! Thanks for the information. I had hearda lot of the same things, which was a big reason I thought that although it was completely understandable that people might object to this lifestyle, I doubted that HBO would place th efocus on that in a way that would encourage to people to debate the lifestyle issue. I can’t wait to see the dynamic and the way the family deal with everyday challenges when they have three familyies to contend with. We will and I can’t wait. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/44 "2006-02-27T23:01:18Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Apparently I’ve stepped into an alternate universe where it’s now acceptable to treat women like property again. Actually, you’ve stepped into an alternate universe where you’re not allowed to tell a woman who she should marry or whose children she should bear just because you’re a man. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/45 "2006-02-27T23:11:43Z")
The best TV shows are metaphorical. **House** isn’t about medicine, it’s about theology. **Buffy the Vampire Slayer** isn’t about monsters, it’s about adolescence. **Northern Exposure** was about all small towns, and had very little resemblance to Alaska. And **Big Love** is, I’m guessing, about the challenges in all families, not just weird plygamist ones in Utah. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/46 "2006-02-27T23:14:42Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > Actually, you’ve stepped into an alternate universe where you’re not allowed to tell a woman who she should marry or whose children she should bear just because you’re a man. > > –Cliffy You must have me confused with someone else since I never said or implied any such thing. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/47 "2006-02-28T02:20:38Z")
I don’t think he had you confused with anyone. That comment was probably due to posts like the quoted one below (and I wholehearted agree with **Cliffy** ): > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Women only agree to crap like that if they were raped as toddlers or something. It’s not healthy or normal. People make the same excuse about women who do porn. They seem to be doing it voluntarily but the majority of them are reenacting some kind of childhood trauma. A normal, healthy woman would normal self-esteem does not want to be part of a harem. > > If you had a daughter would you want her to be some dickhole’s wife number 3? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/48 "2006-02-28T02:35:59Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > I don’t think he had you confused with anyone. That comment was probably due to posts like the quoted one below (and I wholehearted agree with **Cliffy** ): Nothing in that post says or implies that I or anyone else should be able to “tell a woman who she should marry or whose children she should bear.” I was expressing an opinion about people who do it, but I was not expressing any desire to prvent it or make it illegal. You both need to learn to read with a little more comprehension. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/49 "2006-02-28T16:14:00Z")
Your moral disdain for a lifestyle in which no one’s asked you to participate is just piss in the wind. Your moral superiority because you don’t deign to participate in it is self-illusion. And your declamation that the only people who could participate in such a lifestyle are those raped as toddlers is not only inane, it’s deeply offensive to those who have found happiness in a relationship of which you don’t happen to approve. It’s also, incidentally, offensive to those folks who were in fact raped as toddlers and are now happily in polygamous relationships, assuming any exsist, because you devlue the life in which they find satisfaction by saying they don’t really enjoy it, they’re just broken. And finally, your claim that by declaring such activities anathema you’re not actually trying to convince people not to engage in them is a semantic hairsplitting so fine it doesn’t exist. Ultimately, it’s none of your goddam business how consenting adults want to arrange their romantic and sexual affairs. I mean, listen to yourself – you disdain this whole class of relationships because they’re “not normal.” That’s as much bullshit when you say it as it is when Rick Santorum says it. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/50 "2006-02-28T16:27:24Z")
Once again. I never said that I wanted to make it illegal or “make it my business.” I reserve my God given right as an American to disdain it but your accusations that I want to dictate what women should be _allowed_ to do is a lie. ---
**Author:** ![iluvurmom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iluvurmom/32/7276_2.png) [@iluvurmom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iluvurmom)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294/51 "2006-03-03T21:53:13Z")
Ya’ll lets stick with the important stuff here…Sporanos and Big Love in NINE Days!! I’m all about it. I’m even Tivoing Grey’s for it. I can’t even beleive I’m saying that… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-hbo-series-big-love/344294.md?page=2)