This new show on HBO starts Sunday ( ep 1 is On Demand now ) and I have to wonder if HBO will get into hot water over this. It is extremely graphic in it's depiction of sexuality, somewhere between hard core and NC 17.
The show concerns relationships involving 4 or 5 couples across several generations in various states of bliss or stress. It's well written and realistic, but I have to wonder who wants to watch something like this.

Love is... never having to ask!

Who doesn't??? B)

It's pay cable. No one should complain, not that the usual suspects won't. They can watch watered-down reruns on TBS in a few years.

[Slightly OT, but will the upcoming SEX AND THE CITY movie has as much raunch as the HBO version, or be more in keeping with the much more widely seen, and shorn, reruns?]

I know I can't wait to see Jane Alexander, the former Eleanor Roosevelt and NEA chair, get down and dirty with TV hubby and DARK SHADOWS alum David Selby...apparently, at age 68, Alexander is unleashing her inner Helen Mirren, and going just as far (she's also in Robert Benton's sex-filled FEAST OF LOVE, but how much love and nudity we'll be feasting on I do not know.) :)

I recorded the first segment last night from HBO On Demand and checked out some of it...by which I mean, I looked for the hot parts. Selby's gray hair suits him, I think. I wonder if he ever thought he'd still be around with a career back when he was first playing Quentin Collins in the "Dark Shadows'" rip-off of THE TURN OF THE SCREW.









SPOILER:
That HAD to be a barely glimpsed prosthetic prong for the hand-job (w/eruption) sequence, didn't it?

I did the same as Bob. It's certainly more explicit, if less crazily passionate, than the NC-17 LUST, CAUTION. The gals and guys get about equal time where nudity is concerned. And I'd say a prosthetic; seemed a little too immobile to me...

So, is this an actual show or just a collection of unrelated scenes from unsold pilots? The only connective tissue that I could see is that most of the young actors (particularly the women) so closely resembled each other as to be almost indistinguishable.

Certaily it was a prosthetic, but HBO is to be commended, I think, for acknowledging male orgasm in a way that is graphic without descending into the pornographic. The sex scenes were perhaps the most convincing I've ever seen in what might be called a mainstream entertainment. I suspect this may have something to do with the fact that the show was created, written, and directed by women. I appreciate that the show's aim seems to be to uncork the feelings that get bottled up between couples over time, as routine and work and television and family band together to erode the very impulse that brings people together in the first place.

I suspect that the various story threads will all eventually converge in the therapist's office; the show is giving us various stages of sexual relationships as they change through life and marriage. It may take a few episodes to get there.

My only real complaint with the show is the photography. Enough with the UnSteadicam already! If the performances are convincing, we shouldn't need a constantly wavering camera to tell us that what we're seeing is "real."

The blog "Arbogast on Film" commented on this thread today. I tried to post a reply there to his comments, but only "team members" are accepted as commentators, so with your indulgence, I'll respond here...

____________

Actually, the ejaculation shot in TELL ME... is filmed in medium shot at best, but for the reasons you outline in your typically fine posting today, I'm sure it felt like a closeup to many viewers. I thought more than once during the premiere episode that Joe Sarno's influence is finally being felt by mainstream television -- something I never thought I'd live to see.

There is another heated intercourse scene in the episode that looks as much like hardcore as it's possible to look without actual penetration imagery, because the actor's scrotum is in open view while the rest of his equipment is tucked away... somewhere. I suppose it's possible that his balls were a CGI illusion, but this is television after all, and it's cheaper to shoot the real thing.

Keep up the great work; I read you every day.

I don't have TV and so no HBO, so I'm just taking the moment and thanking Tim for pointing out the Arbogast site last week on VWb... it really has been a vastly readable blog.

One of only a few that I have bookmarked and read every day (VWb being one, of course).

Amen to that. Another site to earn the coveted daily visit. Thanks, Tim.

But who could possibly be behind it?! :ph43r:

I think the sex and nudity is fine, but I find the characters rather obnoxious, especially the men, so I don't know how much longer I'll be watching.

First episodes of anything are notoriously awkward, as the actors are just beginning to test the waters of their characters. (It's jarring to revisit the pilot episode of THE SOPRANOS and seeing Tony use some nearly 'ten dollar' words during his therapy with Dr. Melfi, indicating at least a partial college education -- before he turned into a kind of Norm Crosby.) I would imagine that the very nature of TELL ME -- people with problems, dealing with problems, especially such personal problems -- may work against it, especially if viewers find themselves identifying with what's under discussion. But the potential of the show is to deal dramatically with problems that many couples can never find the courage to acknowledge, so its instructional value may ultimately prove worth the effort. But I share your hope that the characters become deeper and more fully rounded with time.