Rank the HBO Original series

Cafe Society
21

!. Deadwood
2. Rome
3. Sopranos
4. Oz
5. Enthusiasm
5.1 6 ft Under
6.Wire
All were better than anything offered on regular TV

22

ArizonaTeach:

Wow. I’d be interested in hearing more of your take on this, if you wouldn’t mind expanding.

23

It was just so blasted boring. I didn’t care for the storyline, the characters, the setting (gritty and “realistic” doesn’t automatically translate to good in my book), the acting, the shots…anything. There’s a group of us here at the school – and I recognize this is anecdotal – who do the water-cooler thing every Monday morning for last night’s HBO shows…one of us even visited the real Deadwood and brought us all back Deadwood shirts to wear for spirit week. Sopranos, Entourage, Rome, Six Feet Under, Big Love, Extras, we get together and gab about it on Monday. Every single one of us loathes The Wire. We just don’t understand why people like it. When it’s on, it’s like a black hole of HBO for those 13 weeks. So when the second season rolled around, I tried it again, and I still thought it was awful. After hearing how “great” it was, I went back and rented the first season’s first disc, figuring maybe all at once…I got halfway through the second episode.

No, I gave it its chances, now I’ll just sulk when it’s taking up valuable programming time…or go back and watch my Rome DVDs or see what’s on Showtime. (Oooh…The Tudors!)

I should say that none of us really cared for Carnivale. I was the only one who managed to get through the first season, but even I gave up after that.

24
  1. The Wire
  2. Curb Your Enthusiasm
  3. Extras
  4. Deadwood
  5. Band of Brothers
  6. Six Feet Under
  7. Rome
  8. Carnival
  9. Entourage

Way, way below everything else (I’ll assume any shows I haven’t seen are better than it too) is Oz, although I did watch it for some reason. The only redeeming part was the acting, the writing was shit.

25

The ones I’ve watched all the way through:

  1. The Sopranos
  2. Big Love
  3. Entourage
  4. Deadwood
  5. Sex and the City

Oh wait … does Ali G count? Because if so, that changes things.

  1. The Sopranos
  2. Da Ali G Show
  3. Big Love
  4. Entourage
  5. Deadwood
  6. Sex and the City
26

I totally agree. I’ve heard so many people say they love The Wire that I decided to give it the old college try. HBO series are always worth watching and The Sports Guy praises it so by all accounts I should be able to get into this. On paper I ought to be a fan.

I’m not. It’s absolutely an effort to watch. Just brutal. I concede that the acting is first rate, if a little melodramatic, and the production values are quite good. However I feel like it takes itself too damn seriously and ends up being nothing but a study on misery. I feel like it’s similar to The Shield (which I’m pretty “meh” on) but with all the cool, testosterone fueled fun stripped away. The whole thing watches like a depressing America Undercover documentary.

Incidentally, I hated Carnivale too and could never stomach Six Feet Under, so maybe there’s a common thread there.

27

Thanks! To each their own. :slight_smile:

28

Omniscient:

That’s really interesting. One of the things I love about The Wire is how full to the brim it is with dark humor. Contrariwise, I tend to think The Sopranos takes itself far too seriously, and as a result it’s always left me really cold.

29

And to respond to the OP:

  1. Band of Brothers
  2. Rome
  3. Entourage
  4. From Earth To The Moon
  5. The Sopranos
  6. First and 10
  7. Dream On
  8. The Larry Sanders Show
  9. Tales From The Crypt
  10. Sex and The City

Special Mention to the non-fiction shows Autopsy, America Undercover, Real Sex, Real Sports, and Inside the NFL. The first 3 don’t really qualify as series since they are really recurring features, but I still enjoy them. The weekly sports franchises are some of the best in the business and deserve mention even if they are not fictional dramas or comedies.

30

I agree that The Sopranos isn’t immune to that. I think it’s somewhat overrated, though I still enjoy it. The big difference I noticed was that The Wire seems to be trying hard to be gritty and realistic while Sopranos pretty much revels in the fact that it’s a collection of over-the-top caricatures interacting. It’s that novelty that holds much of it’s appeal I think.

In fairness, I only managed to stomach a handful of episodes of the The Wire and found them utterly and completely lacking in anything that could be remotely confused with humor of any color.

31

Wow. Of any color? A tremendously strong statement. My experience with the show is unequivocally and categorially different; I can’t think of a single episode that doesn’t have a decent number of lines or scenes that I found very funny. Maybe we just have completely opposed senses of humor.

Weird.

32

Did you have a good chuckle watching Schindler’s List? Just curious. :wink:

33

I have not seen Rome or The Wire, of the big ones. Or Entourage.

  1. Dead heat - Deadwood and The Sopranos. Without a doubt the best shows on television.
  2. Six Feet Under. Man, was I devastated by that last episode! (Note that all the best shows on the HBO list are ensemble dramas in the best sense of the term.)
  3. Carnivale - I really wish it had a chance to show us its stuff.
  4. Big Love - very interested to see what the future holds
  5. Oz - meh. I liked it in the beginning but it got to be too much of the same old thing.
  6. Curb Your Enthusiasm - I’ve just never found this sort of thing very funny. Boring, yes, funny, no.
34

Oh, also, I can’t stand Sex in the City. Maybe I just don’t like yankee humor.

35

Nope! You really think The Wire is that bleak and grim? Wowsers.

36

Interestingly enough my alternative snarky comment was going to be that The Wire would be listed in dictionary as the definition of bleak.

Glad to see that my meaning was not missed. So yeah, I really couldn’t imagine taking less joy from an hour of fictional television.

37

Okey-doke.

38

  1. The Wire - Kept putting off watching it despite rave reviews. Finally rented the first season just a bit before the 4th started, and managed to go through the first three seasons in about a week and a half to catch up on time.

  2. Mr. Show - It’s Pumpkininny!! Shame that it took this long in the thread for this one to even be mentioned.

  3. Deadwood - Swearingen is the best character of all time. Yet another chiming in on the shittiness of the actor plot, and I frequently had to watch it twice to catch everything that was going on. The whole last episode of the first season (ending with Doc dancing with the crippled woman, (Jewel?) was the best hour of television I’ve ever seen.

  4. Curb - I loved Seinfeld, and at times this one was better. S5 was awful, though, so much like Simpsons and Sopranos, it’s years of greatness could be tainted significantly by years of crappitude.

  5. Entourage - Big time guilty pleasure. Probably inferior to all of the shows I’m ranking below it, and really is only great when either Ari, Drama, or Sloan are on screen, but oh well.

  6. Sopranos - See above. Not much has happened in the past two seasons. I think it despserately needs another great character, like Pantoliono’s, Buscemi’s, and Richie Aprille. I probably got all three of those names wrong.

  7. Larry Sanders Show - Unfortunately, it’s tough to find episodes. Loved what I have seen, though.

  8. Da Ali G Show - Uncomfortable to watch frequently, but in a good way.

  9. Extras - Like it. Rarely achieves greatness, but frequently good.

  10. Carnivale - Couldn’t get into it.
    Need to say, that I realy enjoy all of them except for Carnivale, and if making a top 20 of all time list, those 9 make it in.

39

It’s not just yankee girls that are sluts you know! :smiley:

40

Southern girls are funny sluts.