The Inevitable Porno Rip-Off Won't Even Have to Change the Title

I don't get HBO. Because I'm cheap. But due to some strange effect--not because I steal it, I'll have you know--the signal comes through pretty strongly; the picture is fuzzy, but not that fuzzy. And so it is that I'm, for the first time, watching The Sopranos in real-time. (I've seen every other season on DVD.)

Since I was taping The Sopranos anyway, I decided to grab Big Love, the new HBO series, about a polygamous family in Utah, as well. And you know what? I just may be hooked.

Odd that Big Love, which is about a man with three wives who is relatively good to all of them, creeps me out more than The Sopranos, which is about a man who kills and steals and has shown himself to be a bit of a bastard to his family. And yet it does. This doesn't mean it's a bad show--it's compelling and intriguing so far--but it does mean that sexual politics hold immense sway over us (or me at any rate), much more so than the politics of violence.

The show has done a good job of contrasting the fundamentalist version of polygamy, with teen brides and old men with dozens of wives, and people living simply in prairie garb on a compound, with what I guess is the more modern version, the modern successful business owner in the suburbs with three wives (even if that family is really the focus of the show). In only two episodes, the various dynamics between the four leads, between the wives and the husband and between the wives themselves, have been interestingly dealt with. The show is doing a good job so far of presenting polygamy, not in a sensationalist or tawdry manner, but as a real choice that people make and a way of living they embrace, at the same time without exactly endorsing it either. The cast is great--especially Ginnifer Goodwin as Margie, the youngest bride, and Harry Dean Stanton as the leader of the fundamentalist group. I'm very, very curious to see how the show plays out over this first season.

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