There have been few TV networks that have had the same reputation as HBO. Go ahead and try to name one. Ever since its launch in 1972, it has acquired a reputation for mixing a top-quality library of movies with an even more impressive line-up of original programming. It would be difficult to find a channel that has produced as much amazing work not only in the subjective sense of the word but also in the objective.
You don’t have to love Game of Thrones or Succession, but you can’t deny that it unifies the social media conversation in ways that competitors like Showtime and Cinemax just can’t achieve. Their productions are given such lavish treatment, allowed to be as vibrant, luxurious, and even risqué as they desire. It’s the place where TV evolved from the more restrained models of basic cable to a place that competed so much with the film landscape that they had the slogan “It’s not TV, it’s HBO.” TV is different there, free to run without commercials and use the profanity and nudity that other networks lack. Basically, it’s more than just entertainment. It’s a cultural landmark.
There is rarely a time in their entire catalog that doesn’t have something to offer. Go back to the late-90s and you’ll get their first edgy show with Oz, which turned a prison landscape into a place to comment on social issues ranging from health care and racial profiling to gay relationships. From there you had The Sopranos and The Wire, which remain the benchmarks for what TV has become. The former is this deconstruction of mob culture that paved the way for the antihero genre while the latter is the densest look at how every person impacts social change. No matter where you go or what you want, HBO has something for you.
It’s personally what has drawn me to their back catalog for years now. There was a time when I would read Alan Sepinwall’s essential “The Revolution Was Televised” where he explored the history of the 21st century’s most essential shows religiously. I then would watch the shows, looking for the contexts that Sepinwall wanted me to notice. It’s what got me through every one of HBO’s masterful series. They rarely had anything in common, but watching them all creates this mentality that TV could be something special. It’s a place where Deadwood could reinvent the western and Six Feet Under the family drama. When you have a richer context of how much of a risk these were, it becomes even more fascinating to see what holds up and what doesn’t, realizing that it’s as much about provoking the conversation as it is creating timeless art. There is a reason that The Sopranos hasn’t been supplanted in conversation for best TV series
That is what makes HBO’s recent announcement so exciting. In a recent report, they stated that they were going to do their part for the quarantine era by providing 500 hours of content available for free. That’s right. You don’t need a subscription or anything. You can go over to HBO Go right now and have at it. Even if you don’t know what’s over there, I suggest giving it a shot because, seriously, it’s one of the greatest free release brags we’ve had from a network so far.
To run down what you’re going to get as part of the free programming block (so far), you will find a mix of Warner Bros. movies, documentaries and docuseries, and nine of the channel’s greatest series. I would assume that you’re like me and the biggest draw for these come from the HBO shows camp, which includes newer shows like Ballers, Barry, Veep, Silicon Valley, and Succession, as well as older classics like The Wire, Six Feet Under, True Blood, and The Sopranos.
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| The Wire and one of TV's Top 10 best characters |
To make clear what a big deal this is, let me start with how you access most of these shows prior to this past Friday. For the most part, HBO didn’t have a lot of great streaming partnerships. You maybe got lucky finding a documentary on Netflix or Hulu, but the variety was poor unless you bought into Netflix’s fading disc plan. You had one of two options to go with. You could go with one of HBO’s various streaming services, which was a given. If you wanted the best and most variety, you went there.
Everyone else had to deal with the Amazon Prime line-up. I’m not about to dig on Amazon Prime. It’s where I watched the entirety of Oz, Deadwood, and The Sopranos many years ago. They have even more for those who want to work into some of the more obscure shows like Rome or Tremé, but there is a hook if you want to watch the newer shows. They do have some Game of Thrones and Veep, but there is a lag between when the episodes first air and when they finally make it to streaming. If you wanted to watch the second season of Barry, then you’d have to look elsewhere.
It’s true that HBO’s free content doesn’t solve all of your matters. It doesn’t have a lot of the bigger new shows like Watchmen, Game of Thrones, The Plot Against America, or Westworld. You would still need to go exclusively to HBO Go to get those great shows. With that said, this is a great starting point for anyone who wants to binge some of the greatest TV of the 21st century.
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| The Sopranos |
There have been limits to watching these shows in the past. With that said, anyone who loves the TV medium should be using this free time to catch up on the classics. I will fully confess that The Wire is an intimidating beast at first, but it feels like the first show ever to use the “give it five episodes and then it’ll be great” excuse and actually mean it. Creator David Simon’s series is an essential narrative and one that will likely appeal to sociology and law majors wanting to better understand the structures of the criminal system in Baltimore, MD. It says plenty about our modern times as well as serves as one of the greatest ensembles ever assembled.
I can say similar things about The Sopranos, which features one of TV’s most iconic performances in James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano. Considering that everyone’s talking about Succession right now anyways, it feels like a good excuse to run through the 20 episodes to understand what all the fuss is about. If anything, this will help restart the conversation about the value of great storytelling on TV- or at worst introduce a new generation to the sexy vampires of True Blood. There’s so much for everyone and considering that we have nothing but time to binge things like Tiger King anyways, you might as well enhance your understanding of the medium.
Besides the TV shows, you have a decent library of films that are also streaming on HBO Go. While this is a less impressive feature of their free package, it does mean that you can see a bunch of recent hits. If I had to personally recommend anything, it would be Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019), which updates the Japanese sensation with a delightful neo-noir story. There are also a few classics that may be worth checking out, including Dudley Moore’s Arthur (1981) and Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun (1987). Overall, one would assume that this is going to rotate with some frequency much like it does on their own service. While it does have some more recent gems like Blinded by the Light (2019), the variety isn’t nearly as impressive when compared to the quality of their TV series.
The one benefit of the Coronavirus is that it has opened up people’s generosity and now there’s so much free content out there that you could probably watch it every minute of every day and end up with plenty leftover when the quarantine is over. With that said, there is now so much free time and access to quality work that I feel the need to tell you that if you wanted to watch any show that you’ve been putting off, it may as well be one of these HBO series. Not only are they quality writing, but they pioneered far more than you thought. Without them, the modern TV landscape would look very different.
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| Succession |
I also think there’s value in accompanying your binge-watching with thoughtful criticism of these shows. Provided you can get access to them, Alan Sepinwall has written an incredible collection of books including “The Revolution Was Televised,” “TV (The Book),” and the recent “The Sopranos Sessions.” Along with co-writer Matt Zoeller Seitz, some of the newer shows even have free archives online that not only give you a sense of what the episodes are about but what they mean on a deeper and even personal level. Add in critics Emily Van Der Werf, Joanna Robinson, Brian Grubb, and Daniel Feinberg and you have more than enough resources to make TV a much more entertaining place. It may even help you appreciate an episode of TV that you thought didn’t make sense at first.
I personally may use this moment of access to work my way through Succession. On the surface it seems like it wouldn’t be a pleasant show. However, everyone talking about it creates this sense that it’s bound to be HBO’s next big phenomenon. Whereas they built Westworld to be that, recent episodes’ ratings have been down and people have been making Succession memes nonstop. There is something fascinating about what shows connect with audiences and how they inform popular culture for a few years. For instance, it’s hard to not think of Ballers and remember that it was Elizabeth Warren’s favorite show. Wonder why that is? Now you have the chance. If TV is your thing, you better take advantage of at least one of these. They don’t call it HBO for nothing.
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