• by Ed Martin , June 7, 2013

What does it say about television – or, more to the point, the television audience – when one of the most buzzed-about programs of the year is an episode of a dramatic series filled with unspeakable physical and emotional violence?

At this point nothing should surprise me about “Game of Thrones,” which appears to have emerged as the most popular and most-talked-about series on HBO since “The Sopranos” came to a profound stop back in 2007. Any doubts about its status as television’s most violent and disturbing show should be put to rest after last Sunday’s episode, featuring the already infamous Red Wedding, in which a mother whose trials we have followed for three seasons was forced to watch as her son and his pregnant wife were murdered  -- and then the mother herself was brutally dispatched.

This may not have been the most grisly or shocking scene in the series’ three-year history – a list of similarly jarring sequences could fill this entire column – but it seems to have generated a seismic response that has been mostly positive. Is this what’s known as giving the public what it wants?

Ardent fans, including many television critics, are positively giddy with excitement over this latest bloodbath. I’m not sure that I share in their enthusiasm -- not because the sequence was so violent, since I have been as desensitized as the next person to such horrible stuff after decades of movie and television watching, but because it has resulted in the deaths of one too many good or innocent characters on the show’s canvas. Bad people suffer on this show, too, but so many good people, and young people, and poor people and children and animals have suffered at the hands of evil, wealthy and powerful characters that it’s getting to me.

So while others grow ever more excited as “Thrones” becomes increasingly savage and sadistic, I start to find myself wondering why I’m still watching. Is it the world-class production values, the uniquely ambitious scope of the storytelling, the uniformly flawless acting, or the sheer dramatic sprawl of it all that keeps me coming back no matter how upset I sometimes get? I haven’t read the books on which the series is based, so I have no idea where any of it is going, but professional obligations aside, I’m pretty sure I would stop watching at this point if Daenerys and her dragons ceased to be.

I’m not sure what bothers me more: Being disturbed by vicious content in entertainment, which has been abundant in this year of Fox’s “The Following,” NBC’s “Hannibal,” Starz’ “Spartacus: War of the Damned” and “Game of Thrones” -- to isolate just four programs that aren’t for the faint of heart -- or being made to feel that I overreact to it, or that I’m too sensitive.

It may seem that the content of pay-cable programming should be of little concern to advertisers and others who are involved with basic cable and broadcast television, but for the last 10n years or more that simply hasn’t been the case, because viewers – especially younger viewers – don’t necessarily differentiate between the various subsets of television. All they know is shows on HBO, Showtime, Starz, Netflix and elsewhere are often more powerful and provocative than shows on other programming providers.

Further, the content of certain shows on FX and AMC, which would likely earn them a strong R rating if they were theatrical films, suggests a determination to blur the line between basic and pay, just as certain shows on CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox look to be challenging time-worn distinctions between broadcast and basic.

Just for the heck of it, this is as good a time as any to once again ask why it is that violence, no matter how extreme or how personal, seems not to distress the average viewer of any type of television or movie entertainment nearly as much as nudity that is anything but fleeting -- or, heaven forbid, an extended scene in which two consenting adults enjoy sexual activities.

All this talk of ultra-violence – physical, psychological or otherwise -- takes me back to “The Sopranos,” arguably the finest drama series ever produced. Nothing excited its audience more than the occasional killing of a well-known character. The frequent speculation over who might next be whacked was often white-hot.

But what really got people talking was an episode in 2001 in which a desperate and pregnant young woman who had turned to stripping to make money was savagely beaten to death by the father of her unborn child. The violence was unspeakable, the media attention enormous and the audience response similarly substantive. All of which prompted Bob Wright, NBC’s top executive at the time, to circulate a memo along with a copy of the episode asking his team for ideas on how their network might compete with such ferocious fare, given the federal restrictions and advertiser sensitivities that can keep broadcast at a disadvantage, at least where adult programming is concerned.

As far as I know, Wright never received a satisfactory answer. I’m not sure one exists.