Roush on John Adams
Question: I just finished reading an article about HBO deciding not to air the six produced episodes of one of their more anticipated new programs,
12 Miles of Bad Road. Ever since
The Sopranos ended, people have been criticizing HBO for its lack of quality TV while I have been defending it. HBO still has some good shows like
Big Love and
Entourage (even though its best years are behind it). It still puts out the epic miniseries — see
John Adams and this summer's
Generation Kill (produced by David Simon and Ed Burns). My last argument was that HBO's development requires a longer process than most networks, and that it was in a rebuilding stage. The two shows that were in development that I thought could appeal to mainstream audiences were
12 Miles and Alan Ball's
True Blood. However, now that HBO has cancelled a Lily Tomlin starrer before it even aired, I can no longer defend it. I don't know if it's a good show — it could be horrible. But why not air the six episodes they have produced. It's not like they have ad revenue to worry about. Plus, they have marketed the show since the finale of
The Sopranos. They are not going to have any new programs airing in the summer because of the strike so they really have nothing to lose by airing them. I don't know if Carolyn Strauss is to blame or the people who urged her to step down. What I do know is that HBO has a superiority-complex that's become a problem. They think they are better than every other network. They produce big budget shows such as
Deadwood and
Carnivale only to cancel them because the audience is too small. I got excited when I found out about a possible
A Song of Ice and Fire series, but then I realized that it would have to get
Sopranos-type numbers to stay on the air. I can no longer defend this once-great channel. I only hope that I won't be saying the same things about the now-great AMC five years from now.
— Chris K., Michigan
Matt Roush: I get and share your frustration. Not only am I a Lily Tomlin fan, but I've been a champion of the show's creator, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, since her Designing Women heyday, and I was intrigued by the idea that HBO would be in business with someone so populist and broadly (pardon the pun) funny. Maybe 12 Miles wouldn't have been a perfect fit for the brand. So what? What brand? Here's how I counter that argument: John From Cincinnati and Lucky Louie. So much for HBO being all high and mighty after those colossal turkeys. Not to mention programming back-to-back downer dramas about therapists (Tell Me You Love Me, which I actually mostly liked, and the aforementioned In Treatment) which hardly proved to have universal appeal. I wouldn't lose hope yet for any network that can get behind something as magnificent as John Adams, but there's no question that HBO has some serious image problems to overcome.
