Even non-cable subscribers have probably heard of HBO series like "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City," "Six Feet Under," "Oz" and "The Larry Sanders Show." These are shows that win Emmys and bring in and keep subscribers to the pay-cable channel.
But if you start asking even cable subscribers about Showtime series ranging from "Resurrection Blvd." to "Jeremiah" to "Queer as Folk," chances are you're going to be met with blank looks. You'll probably get the same look from Emmy voters, for that matter.
Showtime would desperately like to remedy that situation. The channel wants nothing more than to find a series that will bring it the kind of attention that "Sopranos" and "Sex" have brought its much-larger rival.
And Showtime is going to try again this weekend with a pair of new shows, neither of which appears destined to make much of an impression or bring in a lot of new subscribers. (But, given that this is a "free preview" weekend on most cable systems, Showtime is hoping viewers will at least check the new shows out.)
Street Time (Sunday, 11 p.m., Showtime) wants to be as tough and gritty as HBO's prison series "Oz" and, in a lot of ways, it's "Oz" after parole.
Rob Morrow ("Northern Exposure") stars as Kevin Hunter, a convicted drug dealer who's paroled after five years in federal prison. He never ratted out his brother and brother-in-law as his co-conspirators and expects a big payoff when he gets out.
He's disappointed.
Hunter desperately wants to avoid going back to prison — he's missed more than half of his 8-year-old son's life — but he's tempted by his brother, his wife and his former life.
His counterpart is James Liberti (Scott Cohen of "Gilmore Girls"), a tough parole officer and family man with troubles of his own — chief among them a serious gambling problem. Liberti wants to save all his clients but at the same time repeatedly tells Hunter he's going back to prison.
Oh, and the two of them live in the same neighborhood.
Everything about "Street Time" fairly screams that it wants to be taken seriously. That this is, somehow, IMPORTANT TV. But it never really makes an emotional connection with the viewer — it's hard to care about either lead character, let alone all the other regulars and guest stars. It's not in the same league as HBO's series or FX's "The Shield."
And this being Showtime, "Street Time" is loaded with R-rated language (about the only characters who don't use the f-word repeatedly are the children), graphic sex and some ghastly violence.
Odyssey 5 (Friday, 11 p.m., Showtime) is the latest sci-fi series from Showtime. And it plays off a pair of sci-fi standards — Armageddon and time travel.
In the premiere, a space shuttle crew commanded by Chuck Taggart (Peter Weller) is working 190 miles above the Earth when, suddenly and inexplicably, the planet is destroyed. Taggart and most of his crew survive, but just barely.
The crew includes his son (Christopher Gorham); a TV news anchorwoman (Leslie Silva); a scientist/doctor with an overactive libido (Sebastian Roche); and the shuttle's pilot (Tamara Craig Thomas).
As they're about to run out of oxygen, the survivors are rescued by an alien (John Neville) who tells them that Earth is only the latest in a long line of destroyed planets he has visited. He sends them five years back in time to give them a chance to avert the disaster, which, it seems, was caused by evil aliens.
From there, "Odyssey 5" turns into sort of a weekly "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." And, given that they're back on more-or-less present-day Earth, it's also a fairly inexpensive way to do science fiction on TV — there's no need for a lot of high-tech gadgetry and special effects.
(And, again, this is Showtime so there's plenty of R-rated language, along with occasional sex and violence.)
The premiere, which runs about twice as long as the normal 45-minute episode, is at least mildly intriguing. But while "Odyssey 5" might have made a decent cable movie, whether this can hold up on a weekly basis is highly questionable.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com