HBO史上最好20部美剧：权力的游戏仅排第四.

　　HBO may gotten its start in movies and sports broadcasts, but the cable giant has now aired more than 100 series and 20 miniseries in its 42-year history. And looking at that lineup of shows, it's not an overstatement to say the channel helped usher in the current golden age of television. We took a look at four decades of HBO shows (not miniseries) and picked our favorite 20.

　　HBO最初可能定位于电影放映和体育赛事播报，但现在这个拥有42年历史的有线电视巨头已经播出了超过100部美剧和20部迷你剧。看看HBO的节目表，毫不夸张地说，该频道开创了当今的电视黄金时代。我们浏览了HBO四十年里播放的所有节目(不包括迷你剧)，并挑选了以下20部最好看的美剧。

　　20. Boardwalk Empire

　　《大西洋帝国》

　　It's this wide-ranging spotlight, drifting from the highest levels of political office down to lowly bootleggers and prostitutes, that makes the show something special, offering up morality plays that hold the lives of millions at stake, while putting an actual face on those being affected.

　　无死角的聚光灯从最顶层的政客办公室打到最底层的走私贩和妓女，成就了这部独一无二的道德伦理大戏，几百万人命悬一线，而事件所涉人物的真实面孔令人唏嘘。

　　19. Oz

　　《监狱风云》

　　Certainly a "water cooler show" if there ever was one, Oz made waves with its violence and sexual content early on and its equally deep and disturbing storytelling once people got over the fact that it was set in a maximum security prison.

　　如果世界上真的有“噱头剧”的话，《监狱风云》当然就是其中一部，它在早期掀起了一阵有关暴力和性欲内容的激烈讨论，而一旦观众忘记了故事背景其实是最安全的监狱，其故事情节也是既意蕴深刻又令人心烦。

　　18. Sex and the City

　　《欲望都市》

　　It remains a phenomenon, and as cliché as it may sound, it opened the door for more complex narratives about women and sex, and it did so unapologetically thanks in large part to Kim Cattrall's role as Samantha Jones.

　　它已经成为一种文化现象，虽然听起来像老生常谈，但这部剧的确开了一个先河，让人们可以用更复杂的方式来描述女人和性，而这毫无疑问很大一部分得益于金·凯特罗尔(Kim Cattrall)扮演的萨曼莎·琼斯(Samantha Jones)一角。

　　17. Mr. Show with Bob and David

　　《鲍勃大卫二人秀》

　　Bore alternative comedy was a recognized thing, there was Mr. Show with Bob and David, a genius sketch comedy show that had a criminally short run on HBO from 1995 to 1998.

　　在另类喜剧得名之前，就已经有《鲍勃大卫二人秀》了，可惜这部真正的小品喜剧只在1995年-1998年在HBO短暂上映过。

　　16. Eastbound & Down

　　《体育老师笑传》

　　It's one of the few comedies I can think of where I was often afraid of what was about to happen, like I was watching a horror film or thriller.

　　这是少数几部让我常常担心剧中情形会真实发生的喜剧之一，就像看恐怖电影或读惊悚小说那样。

　　15. The Ltovers

　　《守望尘世》

　　Few shows have ever achieved such intoxicating sensations of pure hopulness and near-simultaneous hopelessness in its plots and themes.

　　没有哪部剧能像《守望尘世》的情节和主题那样让人深深沉醉其中，既有纯粹的希望，而与此同时又绝望不已。

　　14. Girls

　　《衰姐们》

　　The one thing I really love about Girls is that it ruses to conform to identity politics.

　　我真正喜欢《衰姐们》的一个原因是它从不认可身份“标签”。

　　13. Flight of the Conchords

　　《弦乐航班》

　　This is a show that you sink into, and that sweeps you along in its own relaxed rhythms, dispensing the sort of calm, surprising laughs that feels almost therapeutic.

　　这部剧能让你深陷其中，用悠闲的节奏抚过你的心灵，而剧中或平静或惊喜的笑点差不多可以算作治愈系的啦。

　　12. The Larry Sanders Show

　　《拉里·桑德斯秀》

　　It blurred the line between reality and TV show, with real-life actors playing themselves on the talk show within the show, and often sending up their public personas.

　　这部剧模糊了现实和电视剧之间的界线，剧中的真人演员本色出演脱口秀中的自己，而且常常会嘲笑自己的公众形象。

　　11. Silicon Valley

　　《硅谷》

　　Silicon Valley isn't crincringe ge comedy, but it has the same level of antipathy towards much of its cast, which makes the show feel real in a way that sets it apart from other sitcoms.

　　《硅谷》不是难堪喜剧，却一样表现了对剧中大多数角色的反感，使得这部剧从某种程度上感觉很真实，与以往的情景喜剧截然不同。

　　10. Bored To Death

　　《凡人烦人》

　　Those of us who watched Season One and immediately fell in love with the ridiculous NYC misadventures of Brooklyn writer/part-time faux detective Jonathan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) and his pals Ray (Zach Galifianakis) and George Christopher (Ted Danson) felt like we were a part of something special—something off the grid, but better than practically anything on TV.

　　我们这些人刚看第一季就立刻爱上了布鲁克林作家兼冒牌侦探乔纳森·爱梅斯(詹森·舒瓦兹曼饰)和小伙伴雷(扎克·加利费安纳基斯饰)、乔治·克里斯托夫(泰德·丹森饰)一起经历的那些荒诞不经的纽约冒险故事，还感觉自己成了某种特殊剧情的一部分——不落窠臼，但实际上好过电视上的任何故事。

　　9. Veep

　　《副总统》

　　Veep satirizes the political world by distilling it down to what the public likes to watch most: the screw-ups.

　　《副总统》讽刺政治世界的方式是将政治提炼成了某种观众最喜欢看的东西：那就是搞砸一切。

　　8. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

　　《上周今夜秀》

　　John Oliver has lapped all the other news satire shows by focusing on global issues and devoting up to half of each episode on a single main story.

　　约翰·奥利弗用《上周今夜秀》敲打了其它的新闻讽刺秀节目，他聚焦全球热点，并将每集中的一半部分都放在一个主要故事上。

　　7. Deadwood

　　《朽木》

　　David Milch created a sprawling, fastidiously detailed world in which to stage his gritty morality plays and with it has come as close as anyone to creating a novel on-screen.

　　大卫·米尔奇在《朽木》中精细地刻画了一个杂乱无章的世界，在其中呈现他质感粗犷的道德剧，无限接近于创作了一部屏幕上的小说。

　　6. Curb Your Enthusiasm

　　《抑制热情》

　　Curb can be hard to watch at times, but it was always hilarious, and was HBO's trademark comedy throughout the last decade.

　　有时候，《抑制热情》很难看懂，但它总是那么逗逼，是过去十年里HBO的招牌喜剧。

　　5. Six Feet Under

　　《六尺之下》

　　Six Feet Under is a television show that attempts to find reason and order in death, but then every episode totally fails.

　　《六尺之下》这部电视剧很想弄清有关死亡的道理和秩序，然后，每集都完全失败了。

　　4. Game of Thrones

　　《权力的游戏》

　　The geopolitical drama that unfolds in George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series is so epic in scope that it can make Lord of the Rings feel like Cliff's Notes.

　　这部改编自乔治·R·R·马丁《冰与火之歌》系列奇幻小说的地理政治剧可算一部史诗巨作，相比之下，《指环王》都感觉像是Cliff's Note学习指南了。(注：Cliff's Notes是一家出版社品牌，有一整套学习指南丛书，都是小册子。)

　　3. True Detective

　　《真探》

　　True Detective was never about its central mystery, the mcguffin of the Yellow King's identity, rather it was a meditation on masculinity, obsession, and—perhaps above all else—craft.

　　《真探》这部剧和它的中心悬案——黄衣王的身份这个引子——毫无关系，其实它是在思索阳刚之气、痴迷之心，还有——也许是最重要的——人之技艺。

　　2. The Sopranos

　　《黑道家族》

　　Murderers aren't one-dimensidimensionalonal; they have feelings, aspirations, justifications, families.

　　不能从单一维度来看待杀手，他们也有感情，有抱负，有义气，有家庭。

　　1. The Wire

　　《火线重案组》

　　Series mastermastermind mind David Simon conceived The Wire as a modern Greek tragedy, a morality play set in a drug-infeinfested sted urban war zone where convenconventional tional good guys and bad guys barely exist.

　　美剧大师大卫·西蒙把《火线重案组》构思成一部现代版的希腊悲剧，一部在毒品泛滥的都市战场上演绎的道德剧，在那里，传统意义上的好人和坏人都不复存在。