HBO Has The Cure For The January Blues

By: Brett Hickman

Monday January 21, 2008

THE Home Box Office
It's January. It's cold (across most of the U.S at least). There's next to nothing to do. It's no surprise that January is generally the worst month for new movies in theaters (Cloverfield's recent box-office success goes against this theory, but it's a fluke I tell you!), while generally the best month for new releases on DVD and a good chance to catch up on seasons of shows you may have missed the first time around.

And filling that gap mightily is HBO. The cable champion released four major sets in the month of December that deserve your attention for one reason or another.

The Sopranos Season Six: Part 2 - 3 1/2 Stars

If you wait to watch this classic family crime drama on video you hopefully didn't have the series ender ruined by the majority of people who either found it: A) a cop out, B) confusing, or C)stupid. It took a couple of days of mulling it over after watching it, but I still think it's brilliant. The ending that is. Not the last show so much.

The last episodes felt forced and hurried at times. As if there was too much story to cram into a small space of time. And there was a certain poetry about Season Six Part 1, which ended on an upbeat note, with the Soprano family enjoying Christmas and the strains of The Rolling Stones' "Moonlight Mile" on the soundtrack. But there were still loose ends to wrap up and David Chase was pressed hard to give the cable network "more."

So we have some major characters either getting killed or seriously injured in the final act. We see Tony and Carmella Soprano's (the impeccable James Gandolfini and Edie Falco) children struggle with growing into adults, particularly A.J. (Robert Iler), who deals with the same issues as his father, but in very different ways. We see Tony come to some sort of resolution with some of the demons he wrestles with in his family. The family conflict has always been the show's soul, not the abhorrent violence the mobsters inflict on others and on one another. Tony's struggle to be a good husband and father always resonated more than his desire to be head of the New Jersey mob. It's in that last episode where everything gets boiled down to its essence and the ramifications of Tony's choices in life come to bear. Don't be hasty with how Chase ends things. Give it time. Think about it.

The Wire Season 4 - Four Stars

The Wire is probably the best thing that's happened to TV in its history. If you're reading this then you probably do watch it. But there aren't many of us out there. The ratings tell me that. David Simon and co-creator Ed Burns (no, not the guy in The Brothers McMullen) have crafted a tale so byzantine and wondrous comparisons to Dickens seem trite. This is a grand vision of a city under siege. In this case Baltimore. Specifically, West Baltimore, where hope died a slow death a long time ago it would seem.

If you've watched the show in the past, you'll recognize the players. Jimmy McNulty's (Dominic West) not around as much in Season 4 (he was probably too busy filming sizable roles in 300 and Hannibal Rising), which is fine by me as his drunk with a heart of gold act was beginning to wear thin in Season 3. Honestly, the characters of Bunk Moreland, Marlo Stanfield, Snoop, Chris, Alderman Tommy Carcetti, Captain Daniels, Lester Freeman, Howard "Bunny" Colvin, as well as the four eighth-grade kids introduced to show the (mostly) utter failure that are the schools, the police and the parents when it comes to averting the allure of fast cash and easy temptation of drug dealing for kids. You see all four kids at the beginning of Season 4 and write down your predictions on what will happen to each of them. Hold on to those predictions. Because by the time the last episode of the season rolls around, you'll most likely have been dead wrong on each one of them.

And, because HBO isn't exactly trumpeting the fact that it's on (even though, because of the writer's strike, there's a considerable lack of new programming out there and would therefore seem like a great time to tell the world that you've got new shows on), The Wire's fifth and final season started three Sundays ago. This time centering on broken promises by the Mayor and the general decline of newspapers, things look even more bleak than normal for the folks inhabiting "Charm City". Do the show a favor. Tell people about it. Tell friends, family, neighbors and strangers. It's not easy television, but it's necessary for people to know what great television looks like. I can't imagine the lifeless drones that watch every incarnation of CSI will be able to follow along, but more people should take the opportunity to give it a try.

Flight Of The Conchords - 3 1/2 stars

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie are Flight Of The Conchords, both in reality and on this inspired 30-minute sitcom. The two are goofy, but not in some sort of Napoleon Dynamite way. More like, transplanted New Zealander goofy. The duo come to the United States seeking...what? Stardom? Girls? It's not really defined. They would definitely like a few paying gigs, that's for sure. Their manager, Murray ("some people will call you ginger balls/they'll call you ginger balls"), played by Rhys Darby, is even more clueless on how to do this than they are. Managing the band out of his office at the New Zealand Consulate, Murray holds band meetings and takes exacting care to make sure that everyone in the band's organization is "present" (all three of them).

There's also FotC's one fan, Mel (Kristin Schaal), who has a peculiar attractiveness at times that is thwarted by her "Baby Louie" speech, handicapped mannerisms and the fact that she's more of a stalker than a fan. She lusts after the folk duo while her husband sits in a station wagon mere feet away.

Basically, not a whole lot actually goes on, but it's the casual humor, the wry sarcasm, the inspired send-ups of stars (Clement's portrayal of a cosmic David Bowie who visits Bret in his dreams to give him career advice is truly amazing) and the day-to-day lives of these two characters is a sort of comic journey that really goes nowhere. But in a good kind of way.

Big Love Season 2 - 2 stars

It's sad to say that Big Love seems to have said and done everything it could possibly done in its first season. The story of Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton), his three wives, their multiple children, the home improvement stores Bill owns, the goings-on at Juniper Creek, the polygamist compound lorded over by the sinister Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton) sort of flat-lined this season. With the writers trying hard to keep elevating the tension levels that had pretty much popped at the end of Season 1 with the family basically being "outed" at an award ceremony for sister-wife Barbara (Jeanne Tripplehorn).

The show attempts to make compelling arguments for the Henrickson clan to steal away purchase of a gaming company from Roman, and in Bill's potential interest in a fourth wife, in Roman being targeted for death by his own son and on and on and on. But not much of anything sticks and plot lines are abandoned from one episode to the next. Only Chloe Sevigny's character of Nicki still hold true. She is manipulative, demanding and needy all at once. At times the lightning rod for the family's troubles and others the great protector who aims to do whatever it takes to keep her family safe. If only the rest of the show had held as firm as Sevigny's grasp of her character.