The troubles at HBO: "It's edgy PBS"

Lily Tomlin, in a scene you won't see on HBO.

Got the mailing from Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth today. Got the DVDs of "12 Miles of Bad Road" and the letter that reads, in part,

Knowing HBO has never done a series featuring the South or Texas, we are very appreciative of the twenty-five million dollars they have already invested in 12 Miles. However, we feel the current regime has been and remains uncomfortable with this new, inherited terrain. We are hoping that some critical reassurance might prompt them to reconsider their decision or at least help us move the show to a more receptive environment. We believe we know a hit show when we see it (having done the other kind).

Ouch! Even given the stacks of F.U. money that the Bloodworth-Thomasons are sitting on, could you imagine such a communique going out when Chris Albrecht was running HBO?

It's a new day at HBO. No more "Sopranos," no David Milch (for now), no "Wire." I've got a review running Sunday -- a week late, but I had good reason -- about "John Adams," which appears to be part of HBO’s post-“Sopranos” strategy: create mini-events and hold the fort until the Next Big Thing comes along. That could be a while. There hasn’t had a buzz-making series on HBO since “Deadwood,” and there doesn’t look to be one on the horizon. There are a lot of basic-cable channels now willing to take on the kind of not-for-network programming that only HBO was taking a chance on 10 years ago.

HBO’s entertainment chief Carolyn Strauss, who’s been with the company 22 years, just left, which is being widely seen as a sign that times are changing over at the No. 1 pay cable channel. I have no idea if "12 Miles" was a show HBO should've passed on (and despite words to the contrary in his letter, Harry Thomason assured me today that the show is dead meat over there), but with its departure I don't see any series on the horizon that will make me forget "Assume the Position," let alone "The Wire." For heaven's sake, they just reupped "Entourage"! For two years!!

No, it looks like for the foreseeable future HBO will be trying to generate short-run buzz with product from its films division: “John Adams,” “Recount” in May (about the Florida election in 2000, starring Kevin Spacey) and “Generation Kill” in July (from the creators of “The Wire,” an Iraq war mini). I’m not objecting. I’ve felt for some time that HBO Films is unjustly overlooked by critics. Tom Hooper, who directed “John Adams,” also directed “Longford,” which has been criminally neglected since its debut last year on HBO. I don’t know if that’s because HBO is available at the touch of a button — what, and “No Country for Old Men” isn’t? — but the absence of the next killer serial at least has the benefit of drawing attention to the little masterpieces that, in my mind, help make HBO HBO.

But not everyone shares my view. Just today I was talking with a colleague of mine, and describing some of the wonderful little stabs at authenticity throughout "John Adams" -- the hideous tar-and-feather scene, or the doctor inoculating Abigail and her children from smallpox with pus from the boil of a sick patient, or Adams at Philadelphia, about to launch into an impassioned argument when he suddenly stops, realizes he doesn't have his wig on, rolls his eyes like Harvey Pekar stuck behind a slow shopper at the checkout (another Paul Giamatti moment, also on HBO) ... great stuff.

Unimpressed, my colleague said, "That's what HBO has become these days. Edgy PBS."

Oooh. Harsh but, I've got to admit, true. The films and the docus are what I love most about HBO ... but they are edgy PBS. Actually, they're PBS if PBS made money. LOTS of money. Twenty-five-million-to-blow-on-a-Harry-and-Linda-pilot money.

"Edgy PBS." That Jane Root rumour is making a whole lot more sense now. Between her and Colin Callendar, they could move HBO to London.