Oz, Entourage, Hung, The Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Deadwood, The Soprano's, Sex and the City and loads of other pioneering shows - all by American network HBO who've always pushed the boundaries.
Now they've pushed the boundary so far even they were worried about what they'd agreed to include in their edgy new comedy Girls.
The 10-episode first season premiered in the US in April and the action gets so wild by episode eight that HBO considered deleting a scene because of how shocking it is.
The scene stayed and proved that the show's writer has what it takes to be revolutionary.
The cool news is M-Net have confirmed that they have the rights to it so we'll be seeing it soon. It premieres on Tuesday, 3 July at 22h30, with an age restriction of 18.
As the name suggests, the show's simply about Girls. It's written and directed by 26-year-old newcomer Lena Dunham who plays the lead the role too.
She was an unknown before the series - she wrote a film called Tiny Furniture and won an Independent Spirit Award for it which got her noticed by producer Judd Apatow. Together they made a pilot for Girls for HBO and HBO ordered a full series of it.
Lena plays Hannah, a writer who's a version of herself, who's living in New York, pursuing her dreams, along with her three best friends. The show's based on her real-life experiences and follows her as she gets side' tracked by various mistakes as she pursues her life as a writer.
Hannah's lurve/lust interest Adam.
On one hand Hannah's fiercely confident about her writing, describing herself as "the voice of my generation," yet on another she's as strongly insecure, with lots of of self-loathing.
The series has obviously been compared to Sex and the City with the various parallels between them. Before the show debuted Lena acknowledged the influence of Sex and the City on her, saying that Girls fills the gap that Sex and the City didn’t explore - the girls are younger in it so they’re working on negotiating different things and relationships in their lives.
Girls gives a nod to Carrie and Co. in the decor - look closely while you're watching and you'll notice that one of the characters has a Sex and the City poster in her bedroom.
This tribute is just one of the many layers of the series that’s jam-packed with four dimensions and commentaries. One of the most dramatic of these is Hannah herself, what she looks like and how she narrates events - she's the furthest thing from a Gossip Girl type.
She's unhappy with her weight, her dress code's eccentric and she's so real you feel as if you've known her for years.
One review of the series described her as the perfect anti-heroine, calling her "an unreliable narrator." I've seen the first episodes and it's a perfect way to describe her because she is - it's part of what makes the show so appealing. I'd
highly recommend catching it when it starts.
In the meantime, a trailer: