[PeteSB75]

This show looks great, good scenery, great costumes, incredibly detailed period depictions. What I'm missing is a story to pull me in and keep me interested. I just don't have a reason to care about any of the characters right now. After three weeks lets go through em Jimmy - He's decided he wants to be a gangster and has just abandoned his common-law wife and son. Nucky - he likes to sleep with showgirls, is move liquor and is free with his money - only slightly redeeming qualities I've seen are that he deals fairly with everyone and takes on charity cases. The sheriff brother is an ass and is only still around because of Nucky. They can't seem to decide what to do with the irish widow, one week she is coming to Nucky for help, next week refusing it, pretending to be too proud to take it. All the remaining characters are caricatures of mobsters, showgirls, black leaders, and businessmen. I'll give it a few more weeks, to see if there are some more interesting developments, but so far I just see a number of very good actors (Buscemi, Gretchen Mol and Michael K. Williams mainly) wasting their time on weak material.

The Sopranos worked because Tony was an engaging character. We didn't like him, weren't meant to. But we wanted to know more about him, just as we wanted to know more about his crew and his family. We wanted to see just how far he would go, and how low he would sink. Boardwalk Empire is missing the human depth that was the center of The Sopranos.