It's true...they are. But not quite. I'm spoiled.

One for a new premium tv thread and one for expanded boundaries of the Movie thread?

As an either or, you mean?

Cable shows with cuss words and fucking.

Nip/Tuck!!

I realize I'm not helping.

I was thinking either a, b, or "shut up with the Deadwood talk already, chumpwood industries".

If we get into "wannabe" shows, does that extend to things like BBCA?

signed, doesn't watch any of these shows in any case

I think it's a bad, bad idea to expand movies. Because, um, movies. Big, clearly-defined category. TV series by nature are not movies. They're audiovisual narratives, but, we don't regularly discuss commercials in Movies, either.

If we want a new home for other TV talk, we should do that, and not go confusing poor dictionary literalists like Yours Truly.

There's already some cross-over, Nutty. Best of Youth, for instance, was released as a movie in 2 3-hr parts domestically, but was originally a miniseries in Italy (I think). The logical place to talk about it would be Movies, but given its limited release and origins, most people here would have seen it on dvd.

Not that much crossover. We've never talked The Office or other short-series TV shows in Movies, despite European short series being basically miniseries to an American audience. The British Touching Evil, which I saw on videotape? Natter. Even avowed miniseries, like the most recent Bleak House, was discussed in Natter like an ordinary TV show.

It's not the delivery device I'm talking about -- I saw Titanic on broadcast TV after all -- but the relative open/closedness of the narrative. A movie, and even a miniseries, has a beginning and an ending, and all of the footage for both have been shot before the beginning airs. For an ongoing series, with a new installment every week, and a new season 6 months or a year down the line? Completely different way of talking about it, completely different headspace.

In sum, let us be strict with our words, and banish floppiness from our definitions!

Well, maybe I'm the problem, because I missed most or all of The Office discussions and all of the Bleak House discussions. Natter's too big for my small concerns.

but the relative open/closedness of the narrative

Yeah, but my point is that HBO tv meets your consideration of closedness. Each season is completely thought-through and shot before the first episode airs. Most of the series have deliberate and finite arcs, and, the Sopranos excepted, some idea of when to end things. Actually, The BBC Office is a great example of this sort of movie-like planning and pacing.

Yeah, but my point is that HBO tv meets your consideration of closedness.

This is not my experience of HBO shows. (Now several years out of date; I watched things like Sex and the City and Six Feet Under and a couple others.) Several of these had end-of-season cliffhangers, or other key markers of episodic writing. Also, unless you're prepared to vouch for all the shows that HBO might have coming down the pike, I think it's too strong to say that HBO shows are all and will always be closed arcs the way you're describing. I consistently found Oz to be basically a giant naked man-neurotic soap opera.