The HBO Effect by Dean J. DeFino (review)

The phrase ‘HBO effect’ has become popular shorthand for describing the influence HBO (Home Box Office) has had on TV. HBO’s original content, especially its drama series, carry a certain cultural weight and are often lauded as being at the forefront of the current ‘Golden Age’ of TV. In The HBO Effect, Dean J. DeFino of Iona College demythologizes HBO to an extent, demonstrating that the pay-TV network is not an aberration, but was instead a logical outgrowth of developments within the television industry. The book provides a succinct yet extremely informative history of the company that expands beyond the scope of George Mair’s HBO history published in 1988. Over the course of The HBO Effect, DeFino shows how HBO managed to distinguish itself through tenacity and adaptability, setting the standard for what is commonly referred to as ‘quality TV,’ inspiring other companies – both cable and network – to emulate the style and content of its programming. Rather than focusing solely on HBO’s dramatic content to illustrate the ‘HBO effect,’ DeFino examines numerous facets of the titular term, providing examples from a range of American programming to show where exactly this ‘effect’ can be seen in play.

After explaining the generative incident behind the book and deftly setting out his argument in the introductory chapter DeFino chronicles HBO’s origin story. He places it in a broad historical context that considers the technological innovations, public debates, legal disputes and economic components relating to the cable and pay television industry in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. DeFino shows that HBO was not unique “because it was born of a new idea,” but that it succeeded because it was able to capitalize on and learn from previous experiments in pay-TV (59). It was a confluence of several factors that led to HBO becoming a pioneer within the television industry: perfect timing, backing from media giant Time, Inc., and a savvy business model that promoted specialization and exclusivity.

The third chapter looks at comedy, which DeFino describes as the “caterpillar to HBO’s butterfly, helping the network transform itself from a movie and sports service into the gold standard of original programming” (64). DeFino suggests that network sitcoms such as 30 Rock, Newsradio, and Parks and Recreation and cable comedies such as Louie, have been heavily influenced by and owe some debt to HBO’s reality-inflected sitcoms The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm. The term ‘HBO effect’ more often than not is used when discussing the impact of HBO’s hour-long dramatic series, so it is refreshing to see the concept applied to HBO comedies and comedy specials dating back to the 1970s.

Chapter Four, ‘Everything. Everyone. Everywhere. Ends.’, deals with those shows that have received the most scholarly attention and are most closely associated with the phenomenon of the HBO effect – The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and The Wire. As the chapter title indicates, it focuses on the often unorthodox and austere conclusions of these shows, while also providing a brief overview of the serial in American television from the 1970s onward. Here, DeFino argues that the architects of HBO have set “a gold standard for ‘quality’ television only they can meet” although he acknowledges other cable networks such as AMC and Showtime are now challenging HBO’s dominance (129). Continuing with the topic of HBO dramas, the next chapter opens with a broad examination of the role that politics plays in popular culture, particularly in television, and evolves into a study of character. DeFino compares and contrasts two major characters from two very different popular and critically acclaimed television series – Jed Bartlet from The West Wing and Tony Soprano from The Sopranos. While it is easy to categorise Bartlet and to recognise what he ‘stands for,’ it is much more difficult to pin down Tony Soprano and similar characters like Mad Men’s Don Draper, The Shield’s Vic Mackey, and Breaking Bad’s Walter White who followed in Tony’s footsteps. Commonly referred to as ‘antiheroes’ in current literature, DeFino...