Up close and way too personal with HBO

Also, James Gandolfini avoids the obvious, and "Nip/Tuck" news.

LOS ANGELES — If it weren't for the fact that they have a show on TV — and on HBO, no less — one might feel a little sorry for the producers of "Tell Me You Love Me," or as it's becoming known around here, "The Sex Show."

They've spent years writing dialogue, casting actors, shooting and directing episodes, trying to find a new way to present the difficult business of being a couple in modern-day America. And all anyone wants to talk about are the explicit bedroom scenes, three and four per episode, which are envelope-pushing even by HBO standards.

As a cheeky New York Times headline writer put it in Thursday morning's edition, "Honest Look At Marriage? You Mean That Sex Show?"

That show revolves around three couples who all happen to be seeing the same 60-ish therapist, played by Jane Alexander. Most of the time they are talking — talking about how unhappy they are, what fears they have, the problems they are having communicating, and so on.

It's the times when they aren't talking at all that has everyone talking.

My informal survey of other critics and creatives found that while eyebrows were raised by the sex scenes involving the younger couples, jaws positively fell open when the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts got it on with her husband. No ageism on this show!

The sex is "certainly turning out to get a lot more attention than I thought it would," admitted Cynthia Mort, who created "Tell Me You Love Me," which debuts Sept. 9, and I'll wait a minute while you run for the TiVo.

But Carolyn Strauss, the HBO executive who brought this show to the screen, said that "The decision we made wasn't to push the envelope but to be honest about the language of intimacy. You can't judge a relationship until you're in it."

And if nothing else, "Tell Me You Love Me" is an experiment in getting the viewer deeply ensconced in these relationships, from the brains to the loins.

Perhaps the actress who will get more attention than any other on this show is Michelle Borth, who plays Jamie, a 20-something whose frequent romps with her fiance Hugo (Luke Farrell Kirby) are, to borrow the phrase of another HBO program, real sex.

"We are not porn stars," said Borth. "Our job in any scene, whether a sex scene or a fight scene, is to do it authentically." And indeed, it's hard to imagine how viewers would feel the desperation and insecurity Jamie feels toward Hugo without seeing, to some degree at least, how their bodies communicate.

Or take Carolyn, a 30-something who seems more interested in getting pregnant than enjoying intimacy with her husband. As Sonya Walger, who plays Carolyn, puts it, "The sex scenes are essentially scenes that have no dialogue but say as much as if they did."

Speaking of no dialogue, Tony Soprano is returning to HBO this fall, in a mostly non-speaking role. James Gandolfini met with 10 Iraq War veterans, all of whom suffered brutal physical and mental wounds from combat, and interviewed them for a documentary, "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq," also airing Sept. 9.

HBO brought several of the interviewees on stage with Gandolfini, and they did most of the talking, just like in the film. One, Dawn Halfaker, was missing an arm. Two, Bryan Anderson and Jonathan Bartlett, were missing their legs. The other two, Dexter Pitts and Jay Wilkerson, carried PTSD — in Pitts' case, proudly. "A lot of people are afraid to stand up and say what happened," he said. "Some injuries go away, but memories are forever."

The presence of these walking wounded effectively short-circuited any attempts to ask Gandolfini what he thought of being cut off mid-scene at the end of "The Sopranos." Only one critic timidly tried to ask about it, and Gandolfini  immediately batted it down. "Let's have a different question," he said.

Afterward, a writer for the New York Daily News did get him to admit that he thought "it was a great ending." Well, stop the presses.

The cast and creator of "Nip/Tuck" also showed up Thursday to promote the upcoming season, which begins Sept. 13 on FX. Plastic surgeons Christian and Sean are moving to L.A. for season five. Lauren Hutton and Portia de Rossi are among the guest stars who will be on the show this year; Rosie O'Donnell will reprise her character.

Sitting in the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton, show creator Ryan Murphy explained why he moved his characters out of Miami.

"I was very interested in what happens when you go from being the big fish in a small pond to the opposite," Murphy said. "Suddenly they are on Rodeo Drive and surrounded by dozens of other plastic surgeons who have been here forever. How do they make it?"

Well, in part they will make it next season by serving as medical consultants on a TV drama about ... plastic surgeons. Yep, the old show-within-a-show trick.

Comments

[Garnett]

So do Sonya Walger and Michelle Borth show full nudity?

[Aaron]

That's an odd question.