No Love for Big Love

What do you think so far about Big Love? Again, I am surprised you have not shared your reaction with Roth Brothers readers. I am having trouble getting into it, and have decided to give it only one more episode. It seems to have picked up some of the tropes of HBO's genuinely good shows -- Sopranos and 6FU -- without actually replicating what makes them compelling. Mainly, I just can't make myself care about any of the characters. There seems to be no moral or emotional center at the heart of the show. Perhaps because he's a Mormon, Bill just seems totally bloodless and held-in. Maybe this is intentional, and we'll see some moment of catharsis or whatever at some point, but I don't think I'll be able to stick around for it. It's very hard for me to sympathize with the trials of a man with three wives, when A) he's so unbelievably cold and self-absorbed, 2) we know so little about what led him to think this was a good idea in the first place, and D) he seems to have made a conscious decision to choose this life. But then I think about Tony Soprano, who also "chose" his unconventional life as much as Bill did (though maybe neither of them did, families being what they are) and that doesn't stop us sympathizing with him. I guess it's because with Tony there's some humanity under there (and we have the sessions with Melfi to make it even more explicit), which we've hardly seen in Bill at all. And plus the sex is creepy. The best thing so far is the teenage daughter who was in Mean Girls, and her weird but sweet new friend at the burger place.