Article:
HBO and why you should be watching

I am a great believer in television as a storytelling medium. Movies are good entertainment, but they never have enough time to really develop a character and tell their story in two hours. With television, writers have years to slowly develop their characters and tell their stories. It can lead to richer storytelling even with the budget and time restraints.

Unfortunately with the invent of Tivo and illegal pirating (Well I guess that wasn't invented so much as rediscovered...Arr) television has been suffering. Ratings have continued to drop across the board, and that has unfortunately led to a lot of good shows getting cancelled long before it was their time. Fox, ABC, NBC, and the CW are all guilty of disappointing fans, drawing them into a world and then cutting them off prematurely.

I'm bringing this up now because of the recent cancellation of Dollhouse. As a big fan of Joss Whedon, I can't help but feel like Dollhouse deserves more. Last year great shows like Terminator and Reaper were cancelled. The year before that we lost Moonlight. Is there no hope for viewers like us?

There is one channel that has done nothing but respected their viewers. That channel is HBO. It's a wonderful channel that understands the power of serialized story telling. They release mature subject matter in their shows containing movie-like themes and production values.

For those who regularly watch HBO, what follows will probably be common knowledge to you. Below I'll list some HBO show currently on the air that I enjoy, and little blurbs about why. I'm telling you this, because if you're not interested, you can skip past to where I will list three shows that might benefit from being on HBO. Now that I'm done the itinerary, lets get right into it.

Californication
My favourite HBO show, it stars David “Moulder” Duchovney as Hank Moody, a ladies man if ever there was one. He's a hedonistic writer in California who balances his writing with looking after his daughter, and sleep with every woman he meets. It's not that he necessarily wants to, they just end up in his bed. This show is great because of David's performance. Week after week his character sweats charm and sarcastic wit that has kept me coming back for three years now. With the third season getting closer and closer to the finale, perhaps now isn't the best time to start watching, but if you get the chance to catch up...then do it already!