TVSquad

In the immortal words of Lennon and McCartney, all you need is love. That's especially true for the Hendrickson family of Utah, also known as Big Love. The polygamist clan that's been the center of more complicated stories than most daytime dramas has taken hold and HBO has given Big Love a fourth season renewal.

The Tom Hanks produced series recently returned to HBO after an extended lay-off -- thanks in part to the Writers Strike -- and it's come back stronger than ever. I know for me, it's one of the main reasons I haven't dropped HBO.

(S03E01) Big Love returned to HBO last night, the first new episode since 2007. To say that the show returned with a vengeance is an understatement. Big Love is one of the best dramas on TV. Imagine I, Claudius in the mountains of Utah, with a complicated series of plot that are mostly about marriage. Polygamy, that is. One husband; many wives.

Picking up some time after the last episode, the Hendricksons are intact and solid as a rock, despite past problems. Margene's had a baby girl and is happy as can be, Nicki is working at a job in the courthouse to repay her credit card debt, Barb is keeping it all together as the first wife.

The nominees for Best Actor in a Drama are not all from the movies like the Best Actress nominees are, but they are still a damn fine group of actors. I am glad that I don't have to vote officially for the Golden Globes, because I really think this is a very hard group to choose from. I have to say that my top three contenders are Michael C. Hall, Bill Haxton, and Hugh Laurie-- and not just because of their performances last year, but also because of their bodies of work as a whole. I don't know whether that is entirely fair or not, but I don't live in a vacuum. However, that is not to take away from the other two nominees, and the group as a whole are:

(S02E12) Things certainly didn't end up the way I thought they would in the season finale. And now I can't wait to see Season 3! I hate having to wait for so long for new seasons. I don't want to say too much before the jump, though. I'll just say that I thought I had a lot of things pegged a certain way, and one of the great things about this show is that it shows us that people in all of their wonderful complexity. None of these characters can be easily pigeon-holed.

(S02E09) Things are certainly heating up on Big Love. I don't know for certain what big finale we are gearing up for. I used to think that it was Bill taking over as head of the U.E.B. (United Effort Brotherhood). I thought last season was leading Bill toward being the prophet. But now I'm not so sure. Now, more and more, I think things are careening toward Bill losing everything. I don't think he'll lose the store (though, that would make Margie's concerns foreshadowing), but I think he is going to lose Barb. And that, in Bill's world, would be everything.

(S02E07) Sorry about my absence last week. I was actually in Utah, visiting family who do not have HBO. Things were complicated and I also did not really have an Internet connection before this afternoon, so I couldn't do a review. I have seen last week's episode "The Dating Game," though. I liked Ana, and I thought her friendship with Margene was very sweet. I admired Bill, though, for realizing that maybe it was just lust on his part and ending the relationship. I also admire him for not sleeping with Ana, though can making out with her without two of his wives knowing he is seeing someone really be part of an eternal principle? Just curious about this protocol.

First I thought this would be a summer filled with possibly watching one or two summer series, and then catching up on the growing stack of books in my "to be read" pile ... but somehow it's morphed into the "DVR + TV shows on DVD Summer of Rock " *fanfare*. It's actually not that dramatic, but I like to stick fanfare in whenever I can. Theme songs are one thing, but fanfare can pepper mundane events with joy. "Here's your latte, sir." *fanfare* See what I mean?

I loved the creepy, thought provoking and exquisitely acted freshman season of HBO's Big Love and am eager to find out what the writers have come up with for the Henrickson family, now that their polygamist lifestyle has been publicly exposed.

Well, fans won't have to wait much longer to find out how Barb handles the humiliation of being disqualified from the state Mother of the Year contest because her husband Bill is also married to two other women, or whether Bill's string of home improvement stores will suffer from the news.

NBC brings us the Golden Globes tonight, and this is the last in our series of preview posts looking at the television categories. Sandy will be blogging live updates of the show here on TV Squad, so if Jack and 24 already have your attention, keep a browser open to play along. That said, let's look at the award for Best Television Series - Drama.

Inertia is a powerful thing. And it is one of the big problems with Emmy nominations. Too often the same show will get nominated year after year because that's just what they do, while newer, more deserving shows, are overlooked. The Golden Globes doesn't fall into that particular trap quite as often, but they have their own issues. The Globes have a tendency to favor shows with a lot of buzz, or big ratings, whether their quality is up to snuff or not. I think it's something we see again in the list of nominees this year.

Down to the nitty gritty. Sure, supporting actors supplement a show and often times turn in performances that trump the leads. Usually, though, it's the leading man (or woman) that carries a show for the long haul. You know an award means something when it's either handed out right away at the ceremony (so you miss it before you tune in) or it's saved right until near the end so that you have to sit through all the other awards you don't care about to get to it. You know it's important if you're willing to let your butt go numb from sitting too long to see who wins. The best actor in a television drama is one of those awards.

This year's competition isn't as tight as I think it could have been. First off, I'm appalled that Michael Chiklis didn't get a nom for his portrayal of Vic Mackey in the latest season of The Shield. It was hands down his best performance since the first season. Likewise, I'm very surprised that no one from The Wire received a nomination. No one on that show has ever received an acting nom for a Golden Globe (or an Emmy). If there was a season for it, this past one was it. What we did get was a mix of veteran actors from old shows and new. Some have won. Some have only been nominated. Read on for my thoughts and see if you agree.

The nominees for the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards were announced this morning. Here are the nominees in the major television categories:

Best TV Series - Drama
24
Big Love
Grey's Anatomy
Heroes
Lost

Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Drama
Patricia Arquette, Medium
Edie Falco, The Sopranos
Evangeline Lilly, Lost
Ellen Pompeo, Grey's Anatomy
Kyra Sedgewick, The Closer

Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Drama
Patrick Dempsey, Grey's Anatomy
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Hugh Laurie, House
Bill Paxton, Big Love
Kiefer Sutherland, 24

Best Television Series - Musical Or Comedy
Desperate Housewives
Entourage
The Office
Ugly Betty
Weeds

Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Musical Or Comedy
Marcia Cross, Desperate Housewives
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Felicity Huffman, Desperate Housewives
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Musical Or Comedy
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Zach Braff, Scrubs
Steve Carell, The Office
Jason Lee, My Name Is Earl
Tony Shalhoub, Monk

(UPDATE: One of our readers, Zachary, was kind enough to look up the miniseries nominees -- they weren't announced during this morning's ceremony. He posted them here.)

(SECOND UPDATE: Our sister site Cinematical is covering the movie nominations, if you're curious.)

According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO likes Big Love enough to bring it back for a second season. The series is about a polygamist family consisting of a husband, three wives, and seven children (and at least one wife wants another child).

The viewership for Big Love hasn't been impressive, with about 50% of Sopranos' viewers not sticking around for the show. It has been averaging about 4 million viewers each Sunday night. Those numbers are comparable to HBO's Deadwood.

Season two of Big Love begins filming in August.

Are you kidding me? Cingular is charging customers $1.99 for Big Love wallpaper for cell phones. You know what I'm talking about, right? Teeny, tiny, little cell phone wallpaper pictures. For $1.99. For Big Love? It's a brand new show, on late at night, on premium cable. If HBO wants to promote Big Love, it should be giving away those wallpaper photos for free. Puh-lease.

Cingular also has Muppets wallpaper. Ok, I might consider paying for that one. If I didn't already know how to make my own.

All sorts of television shows are new or returning this week. Some highlights include, of course, The Sopranos and the controversial Big Love tonight on HBO. Personally, I'm looking forward to the new Julia Louis-Dreyfus comedy, The New Adventures of Old Christine. I'm hoping she can break the Seinfeld curse this time around. The promos aren't all that promising but I like Louis-Dreyfus enough to give it a shot on Monday.

Here's what's up:

• The Sopranos, Sundays @ 9 pm on HBO (Sixth season premieres March 12)
• They're back.
  

• Big Love, Sundays @ 10 pm on HBO (premieres March 12)
• Bill Paxton stars as a polygamist in Salt Lake City who has three wives, seven children and three adjoining houses. Also stars Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, Ginnifer Goodwin. Great tagline: Polygamy Loves Company.

Big Love, HBO's show about polygamy starring Bill Paxton, Chloe Sevigny, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Ginnifer Goodwin will premiere this Sunday, but right now you can check out a sneak peek on AOL. The sneak peek didn't really do much for me, but this is, after all, just a small taste of the overall product. Therefore, I'll allow the show might be better than my first impression has indicated. Also, if I actually had HBO my opinion might mean something. The show will focus on Paxton, who plays Bill Henrickson, a company man with three wives and seven kids. I would have preferred a show about a man with seven wives and three kids, but I guess this works, too.