FX and HBO are often compared ...
Question: FX and HBO are often compared because of their high-quality, risk-taking hour-long dramas. For the most part, I agree with every word of praise written about these shows. But I'm concerned about the one persistent flaw I've found in almost all of them, including
The Sopranos,
Rescue Me,
Six Feet Under and
The Shield: their Murphy's Law mentality, their fervent belief that honest drama begins with making characters unhappy and proceeds by making their lives increasingly worse. Joy, kindness and generosity do not often surface in these dramas, and their exclusion, after a certain point, comes to feel strident. Don't get me wrong: To skip them would be unthinkable. They're so often wonderfully written and acted. Still, I can't get this nagging objection out of my head. Of course, the truth can be unpleasant, but I don't think it necessarily follows that unpleasantness equals truth.
Answer: It's a valid concern. These shows aren't always easy to watch. But the fact that they're unflinching about their characters' many flaws, the moral compromises they make, the unhappiness they often seem to invite upon themselves, is what often distinguishes them. It is true that in some cases it can feel like the show is piling on the misery, and there's no doubt shows like
The Shield and
Rescue Me open themselves to criticism for their melodramatic excesses (and I generally always thought
Six Feet Under's angst bordered on the pretentious), but I've never really felt that way about
The Sopranos. The way it imbues the world of a mob family with such psychological depth, human empathy and even humor largely keeps it from falling into these traps.
