For those of you who don't know, in their recent channel shakeup sky added the new channel, sky Atlantic hd, the home of hbo. Now, I really don't watch much tv at all, but the trailer for the new show Boardwalk Empire on the aforementioned channel caught my eye. It's written by the same guys who wrote the sopranos so you know what to expect from this new show, I've seen the first three episodes with the fourth on tonight at 9. It's about a town treasurer in Atlantic city in 1920 called inuck Thompson, or nucky to his mates played by Steve buscemi. This guys takes payoffs from pretty much every business going and he lives in the entire 8th floor of the ritz, he's minted. Prohibition has just been enforced but this won't stop nucky making a huge amount of money smuggling booze in, with the help of his brother who happens to be the chief of police. It's a really good gritty drama and I'm glad I jumped in from the start. There was even a very bloody headshot resulting in the camera sprayed with claret, it was very realistic and that was just the first episode! Anyone else watching this cool show?
It's decent at best. It can be painfully slow, and I think splitting the setting between Atlantic City and Chicago for so much of the season was a mistake. It did get better towards the end of the season, but I'm not sure if it was enough to keep me watching. The problem is that it tries to be this big sweeping epic, but it just ends up lacking focus and direction, and there aren't any strong or particularly interesting characters aside from the crazy prohibition agent. Even Steve Buscemi comes off kind of flat. There are much better shows on TV, like Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Californication that seem more worthy of my time. If you want to watch a show that will knock your socks off, watch Breaking Bad. It's arguably the best crime drama in the history of television, and it's so tightly written and well acted that it makes the Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire look amateurish by comparison. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903747/