5:26 pm - 06/01/2012
HBO never hesitates when a show breaks through the clutter and starts making noise: this spring it has added two noisy comedies to its schedule, “Girls” and “Veep,” and on Monday it jumped to renew both of them for second seasons.
“Girls,” the slice-of-young-female-life creation from the widely praised writer-director Lena Dunham, has stirred perhaps the most talk in the news media of any new series this television season. The comedy has ridden on a wave of almost universally positive, even glowing, reviews, while also stirring several layers of backlash. Those have included dismissive comments from (mostly male) commentators on Twitter about the show’s highly internalized view of life in New York among single women in their 20s, and a more serious discussion of the cast’s lack of racial diversity from African-American writers, and others.
HBO has carried only three episodes of “Girls,” but it has now guaranteed that it will be back for more — which means Ms. Dunham will get a chance to live up to her promise to do something about the show’s all-white casting.
“Veep” won its renewal order after only two episodes had been presented by HBO. The comedy also received wide praise for its original voice and satirical take on American politics, and especially for the lead performance by Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the first woman vice president.
Neither comedy has piled up big audiences in its first presentations on Sunday nights, which has led some competitors to question how popular the comedies are. But for HBO what matters (besides the media chatter) is how many viewers accumulate over many plays on various HBO channels and on-demand orders.
So far, both “Girls” and “Veep” have averaged about 3.7 million total viewers for their first episodes. That compares to about four million for HBO’s long-running comedy series “Real Time With Bill Maher,” though it is far behind the hit dramas on the network, like “Game of Thrones,” which is averaging about 11 million viewers for the multiple plays and on-demand orders.
NYT.
Started watching VEEP on HBO OD yesterday, and I am already addicted! Girls is fab too, but seriously if y'all still haven't watched VEEP yet, do it NOW!!
HBO Renews ‘Girls’ and ‘Veep’
HBO never hesitates when a show breaks through the clutter and starts making noise: this spring it has added two noisy comedies to its schedule, “Girls” and “Veep,” and on Monday it jumped to renew both of them for second seasons.
“Girls,” the slice-of-young-female-life creation from the widely praised writer-director Lena Dunham, has stirred perhaps the most talk in the news media of any new series this television season. The comedy has ridden on a wave of almost universally positive, even glowing, reviews, while also stirring several layers of backlash. Those have included dismissive comments from (mostly male) commentators on Twitter about the show’s highly internalized view of life in New York among single women in their 20s, and a more serious discussion of the cast’s lack of racial diversity from African-American writers, and others.
HBO has carried only three episodes of “Girls,” but it has now guaranteed that it will be back for more — which means Ms. Dunham will get a chance to live up to her promise to do something about the show’s all-white casting.
“Veep” won its renewal order after only two episodes had been presented by HBO. The comedy also received wide praise for its original voice and satirical take on American politics, and especially for the lead performance by Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the first woman vice president.
Neither comedy has piled up big audiences in its first presentations on Sunday nights, which has led some competitors to question how popular the comedies are. But for HBO what matters (besides the media chatter) is how many viewers accumulate over many plays on various HBO channels and on-demand orders.
So far, both “Girls” and “Veep” have averaged about 3.7 million total viewers for their first episodes. That compares to about four million for HBO’s long-running comedy series “Real Time With Bill Maher,” though it is far behind the hit dramas on the network, like “Game of Thrones,” which is averaging about 11 million viewers for the multiple plays and on-demand orders.
NYT.
Started watching VEEP on HBO OD yesterday, and I am already addicted! Girls is fab too, but seriously if y'all still haven't watched VEEP yet, do it NOW!!
i still cry at "wasaaappp as they say in the late 90s"
I watch Girls but I still don't know if I actually like it.
Veep I watched the first two and have since stopped, not as good as I hoped. Will catch up on holidays though.
Where r ur dragonzz :((
I wanted to scream "STOP FOLLOWING ME!!!!!!!" at him so hard.
Only new show on HBO worth watching.