Big Love

Big Love has built a devoted audience in Australia on Foxtel Now and HBO Max, and in the US on HBO Max Amazon Channel and YouTube TV among viewers who want their drama to earn its emotional beats. 5 seasons in, and the quality has not slipped. 150 people have weighed in on TMDB, and the verdict leans heavily positive. Watch it for Bill Paxton — one of the stronger performances out there right now. Put it on tonight on Foxtel Now and see for yourself.

Part of the current wave of titles people are actually watching, Big Love earns its spot. Big Love trusts its audience to sit with discomfort instead of resolving it too quickly. The story of Bill Henrickson and his life in suburban Salt Lake City, balancing the needs of his three wives -- Barb, Nicki and Margene-- their seven kids, three new houses and the opening of his newest hardware store. When disturbing news arrives about Bill's father, he is forced to reconnect with his polygamist parents who live on a fundamentalist compound in rural Utah. The performances from Bill Paxton and Jeanne Tripplehorn give it more weight than the premise alone would suggest. The series ran for 5 seasons (2006–2011), building a story that gave its audience time to invest properly. Big Love resists tidy resolutions in a way that respects how messy real consequences actually are. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages.

For anyone looking for storytelling that takes its characters seriously, Big Love delivers. The House of the Spirits is the obvious comparison, but Big Love earns its own place alongside it. Short enough to finish in a weekend, substantial enough to feel satisfying. Bill Paxton's work here is the kind that gets referenced in career retrospectives. It makes everything else feel thin by comparison.

Big Love wrapped up in 2011, created by Will Scheffer and Mark V. Olsen — and 5 seasons are available to watch from start to finish. Find exactly where it's streaming below, and TV Butler Pro makes it effortless to track your progress as you go. Just search the name, and Butler finds it instantly, tells you which service has it, and remembers exactly where you left off.