Unabashed Love for HBO, But...

Since there's nothing in the theaters I feel compelled to review at the moment, I've decided to turn my attention to my first and truest love....Television. I indeed have an unabashed love for the programming on HBO...I think it's some of the best stuff on television (see also FX). But the Sopranos season finale this week was WEAK. With a capital W. It's as if they had something explosive planned, but then heard from the net that they were greenlit for 8 more episodes and suddenly all of their ambition just melted away. For Christsakes, if I wanted a season finale that ended with a happy Christmas dinner scene, I'd have watched "The Waltons." Such a letdown. By the way, did the Christopher/Juliana hook up seem enormously contrived to anyone else? That's one thing this show usually stays well away from. Ugh.

On the other hand, the season finale of Big Love was BRILLIANT. That show has grown on me significantly, and now I'm totally hooked. The look on Barb's face when she was pulled off the Mother of the Year stage was horrifingly priceless. Looking at the season as a whole however, Chloe Sevigny deserves an Emmy. She's a genius as Nicky and has managed to nicely reverse the suspected career suicide that was The Brown Bunny. Cheers to her for taking on controversy. So, is Alby dead? What will the fallout be now that they've been discovered? Does the fate of the HomePlus empire stand in the balance? By the way, leaving someone in the hospital with a tag that says "Alby Grant - Drank Antifreeze" is not a good way to get someone medical attention.

Speaking of polgamists, my friend Susie was touring with a theater company for the last few months. Her troupe actually visted and performed at a Polygamist compound out west. According to her expert account, the clothes and wierd hairdos in the show are right on...but the place itself wasn't nearly as creepy as they had expected.