HBO Hopes to Make the Unthinkable Totally Watchable

You know things are not so hot with the U.S. economy when immigration slows down, but is the downturn so dramatic it may compel hard-working Americans to leave the country in search of a better life?

A couple months ago it would have been pure fantasy, but after the past few days it seems uncomfortably relevant, at least to programmers at HBO.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that the cable network which made Tony Soprano and Carrie Bradshaw household names -- well, at least among upper income households with premium cable or satellite service -- is developing a series profiling a group of Americans who immigrate to a foreign city in search of opportunity after the U.S. suffers a period of extended decline.

The series, titled Americatown, is being produced by some A-List names. Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson (Homicide: Life on the Street, Oz) are on board along with writer Bradford Winters (Oz fans take note; Winters' siblings Dean and Scott played the homicidal O'Reily brothers on the gritty prison series).

It may not be TV since it is HBO, but any show that takes a cast of American characters and has them leave their country as their only hope for prosperity is pretty cutting edge.

Robert Thompson, the director of the Bleier Center to Television and Popular Culture said Americatown provides a fresh way to explore the American experience on television. "Americatown has the most inherent physical characteristic taken away -- America," he said. "It's a fascinating idea."

Provocative "what if" stories are hardly new for television. In 1983 ABC aired the pre-glasnost miniseries The Day After, a look at what would be left of life after a massive nuclear attack, and followed up four years later with Amerika, which imagined a Soviet-controlled U.S. in far-off 1997.

The problem with television is that today's cutting-edge idea seems painfully out of date just a few decades later. Here's hoping a financial upturn makes Americatown obsolete before it even gets on the air.

by Christopher Lisotta

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