release

HBO executives last week announced the next wave of original series they’re going to be adding to their lineup – a cop show, a hospital drama, a hospital comedy, and a new reality show.

Just kidding.

HBO calls its original series development “groundbreaking” and fairly so. If it could air on the major broadcast networks, you won’t find it here. And that’s not just because HBO can include profanity and nudity without the FCC birthing a collective cow. It’s because they purposely strive for the shows that break out of the mold of what you’ll see everywhere else.

The newest example of that is “Big Love,” a show that never would have seen the light of day in any of the Big Four shops. Set in Salt Lake City, the show follows a family of one husband (Bill Paxton), three wives (Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin), and seven kids as they struggle to build a suburban life in the seam between the fundamentalist society they left behind and the modern mainstream society that condemns their marriage practices. The show manages to explore larger dualist themes – good and evil, faith and temptation, wealth and poverty, male and female – through the prism of its richly written characters and their interactions.

The family homes, clustered around a central backyard, provide the backdrop for the show’s core – the dynamics among husband and wives. Paxton’s character Bill Henrickson loves all three wives, and they all love him. To some extent the wives could even be said to love each other, although that love is often clouded by the jealousies inherent in sharing a partner three ways, the difficult logistics of managing three households, and the natural friction that develops whenever a group of people live together in close quarters. Add to that the tension of the wives’ different ages – Barb, the eldest, seems to be early forties while Margene, the youngest, is no more than 25 – and you’ve got a seething cauldron of drama just waiting to boil over.

Put a lid on it and call it a pressure cooker. In their desire to be left alone, the Henricksons have just moved into three brand new homes adjacent to each other – a typical suburban setting in every other way than their own arrangements. On the one hand, they try to conceal their lives from their more conventional neighbors, who grow increasingly suspicious as time goes on. The consequences of discovery by outsiders are potentilly grave – criminal prosecution, loss of their livelihoods (Bill owns a home-improvement store, Barb is a substitute teacher at a local school), possibly even the dissolution of their family.

This threat almost seems minor compared to the peril posed by the community they have disavowed – the Compound-dwelling clan led by Roman, the Prophet. Harry Dean Stanton plays Roman with a perfect creepiness, making him one of the few TV villains that actually chill my blood when they appear onscreen. He embraces soft-voiced zealotry: “There’s man’s law and God’s law. You know which side I’m on.” He plays guitar and sings “Big Rock Candy Mountain” to a group of children – including the 14-year-old who is his newest bride. He’s willing to murder for his own ends, which at this point have not been revealed. Most important of all, he’s insinuated himself into the Henrickson household in a way they cannot possibly escape – his daughter Nikki is Bill’s second wife, and her loyalty to her father sometimes seems to trump her commitment to her manifold marriage.

The struggle with Roman plays out through Bill’s business, which Roman claims a piece of in payment for a substantial business loan. The two disagree about just what it is Bill owes Roman, and the clash between the two serves as the chief drama outside the household. The Prophet’s willingness to do almost anything to have his way, and Bill’s inability to escape his influence, work to make their scenes some of the most entertaining of the show.

“Big Love” is thoughtful, multi-dimensional, and entertaining. Compared with anything else on TV right now, even some of HBO’s other series, it’s a work of genius standing out in a field of mediocrity. It’s getting decent ratings, but the drop-off between “The Sopranos” and “Big Love” on Sunday nights suggests that many people are changing channels to watch the same old cops-and-doctors shows instead of this. And that, my friends, is the real crime.