This is the way history works on cable—the period setting is condensed, amplified and sped up so that we can focus on the interpersonal relationships and dramas of our heroes and villains. You add enough historical ephemera to keep people who watch for that reason interested, anyone tuning for a character drama gets a venue more exciting than a hospital or an LA apartment complex and everyone finds a person/place/thing to plug into Google at the end of the night.

The problem with the first quarter of "Boardwalk Empire"—the first three episodes of its first season of twelve—as a cable television show with a historical bent is that [...]

My feeling with television series is that you withhold judgment until about the third episode of the show because the pilots need to do so much heavy lifting-exposition, scene-setting, character establishment, etc.-that it is unfair to render a decision on a project based on the way it brings you in. So I've been extremely patient with HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" thus far. I thought the first episode was pretty great, if extremely scene-setty and box-ticky ("There's Arnold Rothstein!" "Hey, it's Al Capone!" "Oh, he's Lucky Luciano!" If the black guy waiting impatiently for Steve Buscemi in the anteroom during the premiere shouted something like, "You tell him Bumpy Johnson doesn't [...]

I had not realized that HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" had retained the services of Michael Pitt in the role of Steve Buscemi's protege. Pitt's work can most often, these past few years, be viewed solely under the JMZ elevated, as he struts along in a t-shirt that displays his scars and tattoos and his tight filthy jeans with the rocker belts. How reclusive is he? His band's website only plays music; it has no words or, you know, gig announcements. He has not made a movie since Funny Games. But here he is on the HBO: "Mr. Pitt was simply made for the fashions of the 1920s, with [...]