July 12, 2007

Blogging TCA: HBO Curbs Its Critics

Seth Arenstein, at the TV Critics Association summer press tour, on HBO's first post-Chris Albrecht TCA

CURBED: Jeff Garlin and Larry David are back in Sept.

HBO announced it will keep to former chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht's basic plans; Curb Your Enthusiasm returns Sept. 9, when HBO also premieres Tell Me You Love Me; the jury is still out on season 2 for John From Cincinnati; The Wire will return in the 1st quarter of '08; it's pondering two 2 specials featuring Ricky Gervais, including a movie to conclude Extras; and Real Time With Bill Maher is coming back for a 6th season ('08); also, the stars of BBC America hit comedy Little Britain will be making a show with HBO.

Finally, TCA members had a chance to grill the makers of the new HBO series Tell Me You Love Me. But you must understand—uppermost in the minds of TCA critics is providing the highest journalistic service to their readers. That was why nearly all the questions they lobbed at HBO’s panel for the series concerned its explicit sex scenes. No other explanation could possibly be advanced.

HBO last month sent critics screeners of more than 6 eps of the series. Despite their busy schedules, nearly all the critics seemed to have watched every minute of every show prior to today’s session. Now we know what many of you are thinking—the critics devoured the screeners because the series was touted as the most sexually explicit in HBO’s history. For shame! How could you accuse the TCA cadre of such a thing? These people are highly trained professionals. They’re just doing their jobs. Without doubt the questions they addressed to the panel indicated just that.

“Did any of you really do it?” one critic asked without even a hint of prurient interest. (Of course not, was the clinical retort from the panel.) Addressing sexual segments between the eldest couple in the series, the question was: “Did they use prosthetic devices in those scenes?” ("Does it really matter?" responded exec producer Gavin Polone.)  Another critic wondered whether the show’s creator, Cynthia Mort, was concerned that the realization in the viewer’s eye that actors were engaged in extraordinarily real sex scenes might distract from the show. (Huh?)

Naturally Mort took the moral high ground, professing nearly complete surprise that the critical buzz revolved around the series’ explicit sex. From the time she, er, conceived the series, sex was a central part of the package, she said. The sex “is done in the service of intimacy,” Mort added. HBO original series chief Carolyn Strauss noted that “we wanted to be honest about the language of intimacy.”

Actress Sonya Walger (familiar to HBO viewers from The Mind of the Married Man) floated so far above the moral high ground she should be considered for a role in John From Cincinnati. The sex scenes are hard to do, Walger admitted. It’s difficult taking your clothes off and emotionally taking your clothes off, she said, although for actors there’s a perverse enjoyment in doing both, Walger concluded. In addition, she insisted in the sex scenes the actors are saying as much [about their characters] as they do in other scenes, but are doing so without words. Amen, we say.

Unfortunately, the high ground was abruptly lowered when the normally perceptive Strauss chose to end the session with a highly cynical observation. The American television public, and by implication the TCA critics, are just not ready to see sex portrayed realistically. There’s not a chance she’s correct.

• EARLIER: Blogging TCA: Hallmark Tempts Critics, Talent