"I don't think people are bad, but some of them tend to view themselves as the main characters in their own movies," Hill says. "We magnify that for the comedy, but we tried to make all the characters and stories work like they would in a 'serious' movie."
-- Denise Martin
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'UNITED STATES OF TARA' A VEHICLE FOR MULTIPLE STORIES
The names above the title were enough to attract savvy viewers. Executive producers Steven Spielberg and Diablo Cody created "Tara," the story of a wife and mother with dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) who decides to go off her meds to get to the source of her problem. As a result, when faced with stress, she turns into one of four "alters" -- '50s housewife Alice, teenage troublemaker "T," Buck, a macho jerk, and an animalistic creature named Gimme, who actually makes Buck look good.
Tying them all together is Toni Collette, who never thought she'd find herself at the head of a television family but couldn't resist after reading the pilot. Though she acknowledges that a show sometimes "will tick all the boxes and yet flop," she attributes "Tara's" appeal to "its originality, its frankness, its honesty and humor."
Cody, on the other hand, attributes it to her lead actress. "Toni Collette is a movie star. I think people tune in to see her," she insists. "I can't think of a better actress on television. She gave a lot of humanity to a character that in lesser hands could have almost seemed like just that, a character. Sketch comedy at its worst."
Cody goes on to laud Brie Larson and Keir Gilchrist, who play Tara's children, Kate and Marshall, and John Corbett, who plays her husband, Max. "John is somebody that people have no qualms about welcoming into their homes," she says.
For a woman dealing with a major, potentially destructive issue, Tara is part of a family that is remarkably close and loving without being remotely perfect.
"It's nice to feel you can watch people like you and me on TV," Collette says. "Just because Tara has DID doesn't make her a leper. People see themselves in this family and connect."
-- Lisa Rosen
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'THE NO. 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY' NO GUNS?
"The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" is not your typical HBO drama. There is no swearing, no scenes of graphic violence, no racy sex (or even sex talk). There aren't even any guns.
Instead, there is cozy crime-solving, one large-and-in-charge detective, Precious Ramotswe (Jill Scott), and lots of red bush tea.
The series, a co-production between HBO and the BBC, was the last project director Anthony Minghella worked on before his death in March 2008. He produced, directed and co-wrote the pilot, having fallen in love several years earlier with Alexander McCall Smith's books about the adventures of Botswana's first and only female P.I. The show was shot entirely on location in Botswana, the first of its kind.
In the first episode, Precious sets up shop in Botswana's bustling capital of Gaborone because, after a disastrous marriage and her father's death, she wants to "help people with the problems in their lives." She hires top-scoring secretary Grace Makutsi and begins to solve the mysteries of a missing finger, a dubious daddy and a cheating husband.
The caseload is light by most crime procedural standards, but it's the people and spirit of daily life in Gaborone that have made the characters beloved since the book series' 1999 debut.
"In many ways, this show is as brave, if not braver, than most American dramas," show-runner Timothy Bricknell says. "It's the first prime-time drama out of Africa with all black characters. Just portraying a positive side of Africa is something people have never seen before. I don't think it's out of place on HBO at all. Without having an overtly political agenda, it encourages us to think about Africa a little bit differently," he says.
Precious is a big, bright, patient woman who drives around in a pickup and relies on a book, "The Principles of Private Detection," as her official instruction manual.
"I think it's important that TV has a wonderful lead character who's a woman, not in her early 20s and not a size 0," Bricknell says. "She's clever and tough and black. It's significant."
-- Denise Martin
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