I've been in Shanghai for nearly a month, and granted there are English speaking news and sports channels on the TV here, as well as HBO and Cinemax Asia (which manage to show some of the worst movies ever made--Kull the Conqueror is on every time I flip through HBO), but I really really miss the Edutainment stuff like Discovery Channel, History Channel, etc. At least I feel like my couch potato time is netting me some degree of mental growth with those. BTW, I haven't noticed that they show The Sopranos here, unless it's really late at night.
I think that HBO's series have done a lot to increase the risk-taking for other dramatic series. Someone already listed The Sopranos, Oz, Deadwood, Carnivale, etc. This to me has at least somewhat counterbalanced the overwhelming idiocy of all of the Big Brother/Survivor/Amazing Race/Biggest Loser/Bachelor/Apprentice/American Idol/Queer Eye/Bingo/Deal or No Deal madness that makes up the majority of the 4 major networks. TNT/TBS, USA, and a couple of the other cable networks have made their own forays into dramatic series, and some have been great like The Closer, The Shield, and the first couple of seasons of Nip/Tuck, and I don't think those would have been green-lighted had it not been for the cable movie channels paving the way.
Even series that started off great like Lost and Heroes are rapidly losing their way, as they appear to be catering too much to the audience and not paving their own road. I loved Studio 60, and that got whacked before a full season was up. That's what I have always liked about many of the HBO/Showtime series, is that they don't seem to be concerned that the audience likes the direction of a character arc, but went ahead with it because it was important to the overall story being told.
And then there's the Simpsons. In my opinion, even the worst episodes of the Simpsons are better than 80% of what is on network TV. I agree with many who think the quality of the writing is getting worse as time goes on, but it's been 19 years for cryin out loud.
