Starting in 1999, television genres – and as a result, film genres – underwent a radical transformation primarily at the hands of the HBO (Home Box Office) pay television network. With the release of the groundbreaking series The Sopranos, Deadwood, and The Wire, the network is singlehandedly responsible for shifting the narrative, syntactical and iconographic features of genre while at the same time riding a wave of unparalleled critical and commercial success. As we reach the end of the road of what seems to be the golden era of HBO, following Deadwood’s sudden ending after its successful third season in 2006, David Chase’s jarring blackout of The Sopranos in 2007, and The Wire’s fifth and final season in 2008, now is a particularly fortuitous time to analyze the overall influence of HBO’s output over the past decade, not only by examining how it has shaped film genres, but how these series have transformed audience expectations, and, importantly, cultural responses to television genres as well.