10 TV Shows That Would Have Been Better On HBO

6. M*A*S*H

HBO wasn't really the HBO it is today at the time that M*A*S*H was dominating television ratings, but had it been the two could have formed a beautiful friendship. M*A*S*H just may be the most successful adaptation of all time that barely held true to its source material. The set-up and characters were the same, but the original book and the Robert Altman film that preceded it were two incredibly dark pieces of comedic entertainment. By comparison, M*A*S*H the television show was best described as occasionally dark, but mostly just quirky.

While there is no way that basic television would have allowed them to venture into some of the source material waters, imagining what those few moments of dark content the show did portray getting stretched out across entire episodes on HBO is pretty exciting. The M*A*S*H show we got was pretty incredible in its own right, but it could have kept the things that made it unique while also expanding upon those tantalizing moments of something a little more cerebral and inappropriate.