Sex, Nudity, Obscenity? It's Shameless on Sundance

The Sundance Channel is adding British dramedy, Shameless, to its lineup Thursday nights at 11 starting July 5, a show that lives up to its billing if one newspaper review cited by Sundance is any indication.

The series is about a poor family headed by single father Frank Gallagher and is described in one review cited by Sundance as full of not only “vigour and honesty,” but “sex and obscenity and full frontal nudity.”
The “obscenity” reference will need to have been a bit of hyberbole on the part of reviewer, from The Guardian newspaper, since that is illegal fare for cable or broadcast. The first season has already aired on BBC America, but seasons 2-4 will get their U.S. TV premieres on Sundance.
A Sundance Channel spokeswoman calls the show “gritty and profane.” points out that it is on at a “responsible” hour--11 p.m.--with a TV 14 rating, but says Sundance is not editing the series for content.
Still, another sign the show may live up, at least in part, to its racy promo: a ‘cheeky: YouTube mash-up from the series promoted on its Channel 4 Web site has been removed due to the dreaded “terms of use” violation, which has been known to include posting naughty bits that don’t pass muster with the site.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.