Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City

[MacGuffin]

HBO's 'Boardwalk Empire' to End After Fifth Season

The end of the "Boardwalk" is approaching.

HBO announced at its Television Critics Assn. press tour session in Pasadena Thursday that "Boardwalk Empire," the 1920s period drama top lined by Steve Buscemi, will come to a close at the end of its fifth season, which is slated to debut this fall.

"Boardwalk" has been a key player in the recent history of HBO. The show's 2010 debut came on the heels of a series of disappointments for the network following the end of the groundbreaking "Sopranos" in 2007.

The series, created by "Sopranos" alum Terence Winter and championed by Martin Scorsese (who directed the pilot), has been overshadowed during its run by buzzier shows such as "Breaking Bad," "Homeland" and "Mad Men," but "Boardwalk" nonetheless has been an internal favorite of HBO brass.

"It has been an incredible honor to bring this powerful and groundbreaking series to our subscribers," said HBO programming prez Michael Lombardo. "Terry Winter has created one for the ages."

"We're thrilled to get the go-ahead for a fifth season of 'Boardwalk Empire,' " said Winter. "After much discussion with my creative team and HBO, we've decided to wrap up the series after such a great run and look forward to bringing it to a powerful and exciting conclusion."

The series, which marked Scorsese's first series directing and producing effort for the small screen, debuted on HBO in 2010 and has earned numerous Emmy and Golden Globe awards during the past four seasons. It is exec produced by Winter, Scorsese, Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, Tim Van Patten and Howard Korder.

Scorsese recruited Winter to script "The Wolf of Wall Street," which has both of them on the awards trail this year. Winter is also developing a series for HBO set in the 1970s rock scene, also with Scorsese. That project, tentatively titled "The Long Play," is also exec produced by Mick Jagger.

[Alexandro]

I'm on episode 3 of season 4 and the news made me sad.
This show is very underrated and unique. It has a cold, melancholic personality. There's a deep sadness through all of it. I don't really know why. I guess it's the tragedy of prohibition and how it expands to all sort of characters that sometimes come and go very fast.

Nucky is an interesting character to me because he's a politician who slowly turns into a gangster, but there's never any romantic notion to it from him. As the seasons have progressed there's only disillusionment. He has been so far the most loneliest of the tv antiheroes of this tv renaissance. 

I really like the "slow burn" pace of this show. It hasn't help it to elicit passion among viewers, but it certainly makes it special. I guess time will give this show it's proper dues.

[Kal]

Is anyone here watching this? It's the Final season.

I still think it's a great show, with some awesome characters and incredible production quality. The biggest problem I think I have with it is that some of the other seasons moved very slow at times, and this last season they decided to do less episodes and they are basically cramming way too much in each episode. That's definitely affecting the writing and story lines.

If anyone saw the last episode, two pretty major things happened that probably would not have happened in one episode before.

Anyone?

[Punch]

yup the cramming is ruining the season for me so far, the flashbacks are cool though...i hope they don't have tommy darmody kill nucky too predictable