I'll Be There For You

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Kelsey Miller. I'll Be There For You

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Dedication

For my friends

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So they winged it. They had a staff of three writers and a warehouse in North Hollywood, where they whipped up a show that they thought was funny, and hoped everyone else would, too. In the end, they didn’t win over everyone, but more than enough. Dream On was HBO’s first definitive hit, as well as Kauffman and Crane’s, though today its legacy has been largely lost in the shuffle. Watching it now, it feels very much like a relic of its time: one part a standard story of a divorced dad muddling through middle age, and the other part a naughty cable show, where everyone swears like a sailor and walks around with their nipples out. But look beyond the titillation and it’s a quiet triumph.

Dream On was often mixed with the critics; the most typical complaint was that the language and sexuality seemed a little too deliberate, which, of course, it was. But it was a solid success, and signaled a sea change for premium cable, and for HBO in particular. Dream On was quickly followed by shows that further cracked the mold of traditional television formats, allowing for both sophisticated and oddball comedy, nuanced and polarizing drama, and the kind of stories that simply didn’t sell before, because no one knew if an audience would buy them. It proved that television didn’t have to cast the widest net possible in order to be successful. A show could be smart and specific and sellable, all at the same time.

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