• by Jack Myers , July 13, 2007

HBO's "Big Love" is my favorite series on television this summer. Tell me your favorite summer TV series and why you love it by adding your comment to this blog.

Although I love FX's "Rescue Me," and there are excellent series on several other networks, including "Monk" on USA, "The Closer" on TNT and "Army Wives" on Lifetime, plus "Entourage" and "Flight of the Conchords" on HBO, "Big Love" has emerged from a shaky first season to become worthy of the HBO tradition.

Although no series could equal "Deadwood" for pure viewing joy, and "The Sopranos" remains a tour de force, "Big Love" reaches new creative peaks each week. The decision by creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer to increase the screen time of Ginnifer Goodwin, who plays third wife Margene Henrickson, is the primary contributor to the series' improved quality. Not only is Goodwin a superb actor, but her character has emerged as the most nuanced and fascinating among an extraordinary ensemble.

Of course, ""Big Love"" challenges traditional standards of marital behavior and packs more family drama into each hour than most family dramas manage in a season. Only on its surface is "Big Love" about modern day polygamy in a suburb of Salt Lake City. There's murder mystery, conflicts between "followers" and "non-followers," conflicts among the various family members, generational issues and emotional hormone-raging challenges, and the fascinating look behind the scenes into a fundamentalist sect that most of us don't realize still exists in America today.

Several performances in "Big Love" are Emmy-nomination-worthy, most notably Harry Dean Stanton as fundamentalist prophet Roman Grant; Bill Paxton as Bill Henrickson, a complex polygamist with three wives, a straying eye, and an increasingly challenging struggle to integrate his religious beliefs with his need to conform to society; Chloë Sevigny, as second wife Nicki, who is also the daughter of Roman Grant and unable to wean herself away from his Juniper Hill religious compound; and Jeanne Tripplehorn as first wife Barb, who is the family's anchor but also yearns to be perceived as a normal everyday suburban career-aspiring woman. In one of the largest ensemble casts on television, there's not one false note and several younger actors are likely to emerge as future stars, including Amanda Seyfried, Daveigh Chase and Douglas Smith. A favorite since Norman Lear's "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," Mary Kay Place is always welcome and wonderful.

But the real anchor, who is likely to go unheralded during award season, is Goodwin. Her unexpected elevation by "Big Love" writers to a central role in multiple story lines has dramatically altered the series. Margene, the youngest wife in her early twenties, is a family link between generations, a wife who is closer in age to the family's older children than to her sister-wives. Her naïve innocence has been replaced by quiet awareness and insight into the characters and the situations they find themselves enmeshed in. Even more than solid-as-a-rock first sister-wife Barb, Margene is the intermediary, peace-maker, and in many ways, the thought leader in the family.

You can get into "Big Love" (Mondays 9 p.m. plus multiple airings) without having to watch all last season's episodes. Subscribe to HBO on-demand and just watch the first episodes from season 2. Seven episodes remain this season and HBO has not yet announced a third season renewal. However, with 5.5 million viewers a week, renewal is likely. Executive producers include Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman.

After the finale of "The Sopranos," a shaky start for the new David Milch series "John from Cincinnati," and continued heat for the cancellation of "Deadwood" and "Carnivale," the press has been justifiably critical of HBO. But credit the network for the best drama on television this summer, "Big Love", and the most original comedy to come along in years, "Flight of the Conchords." HBO is alive and well.

What's your favorite TV series this summer? Share your recommendations.