Maverick: HBO (US)

Time Magazine's tv and media critic James Poniewozik recently asked his blog audience if anyone was considering dumping hbo after June 10, following the series finale of its most-watched program, The Sopranos. While Poniewozik's well-informed readers pondered the merits of Entourage, questioned the viability of pay cablenets in the face of on-demand and posited that the future of hbo would be determined by who was hired to replace ousted ceo Chris Albrecht, there was not one mention of the channel's docs. But Lisa Heller, vp of documentary films for hbo, isn't fazed. 'We're not naïve about our content in relationship to the fiction strands,' she says, noting that the fiction series have been key in establishing hbo's reputation as an outlet actively on the cutting edge of programming. 'The Sopranos is a landmark series that points to hbo as a laboratory for experimenting with new forms and new talent, and pushing things in new ways. We see ourselves doing that in our genre and the mainstream series do it in their role.'