AFTER watching the 10-hour “Band of Brothers,” I’m so drained by the intensity of what I have just beheld that I’m ready to declare this World War II miniseries the finest piece of work ever produced for television.
But if this show, which starts Sunday night, represents a high point in the history of TV, it also represents a milestone for HBO.
With “Band of Brothers,” the cable channel succeeds for once without resorting to gratuitous sex and violence – traits that endear HBO to its adult subscribers, but are also a turnoff to many who would subscribe, but choose not to.
In fact, because of its ennobling qualities, “Band of Brothers” might just turn out to be the greatest driver of new subscriptions HBO ever had – bigger even than “The Sopranos.”
That, of course, is the name of the game. For several years, HBO’s strategy has been to focus its production and promotion energies on a handful of signature shows that come to air so highly touted that people sign up in droves to bring the network into their homes.
Only then do new subscribers learn that a great deal of the channel’s airtime is taken up with repeat showings of not-so-recent movies and tawdry sex shows.
Still, once the newcomers get hooked on “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City,” most of them choose to overlook the weaknesses on HBO’s schedule and continue paying for it month after month.
Personally, I happen to love “The Sopranos,” “Arli$$” and “Oz.” I have little use for “Sex and the City” and I can’t stand “That Funeral Show” (otherwise known as “Six Feet Under”).
With “Band of Brothers,” however, HBO has come up with a series that possesses none of the repellant qualities of any of those shows, and a ton of attractive attributes that will be offensive to just about no one.
Except for one ever-so-brief coupling with a glimpse of nudity, there’s virtually no sex such as in “Sex and the City.”
And although Steven Spielberg’s war epic is necessarily violent and profane, no one will ever confuse “Band of Brothers” with “The Sopranos.”
Unlike the Mafia series, Spielberg’s saga of ordinary men demonstrating extraordinary courage is so awe-inspiring that, for possibly the first time in the history of HBO, parents might be tempted to invite their older children into the room to watch HBO along with them.
And wouldn’t that be historic?