BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.

There's TV that's easy to watch -- familiar stories, not overly complex plots -- and there's more challenging programming that makes viewers work. Writer David Simon, a former print journalist, clearly prefers the latter as evidenced by his dense, demanding HBO series "The Wire" and now as executive producer of HBO's Iraq War miniseries "Generation Kill" (9 p.m. tomorrow).

It's a stark, often profane and utterly believable seven-part drama based on the 2004 book by Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright, who was embedded with the Marines' First Recon Battalion during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in spring 2003. (A review of "Generation Kill" will appear in the Post-Gazette's TV Week tomorrow.)

In "Generation Kill," Simon and fellow writers Ed Burns and Wright introduce viewers to many characters, but they primarily concentrate on the team of Brad "Iceman" Colbert (Alexander Skarsgard); outrageous, smart-mouthed driver Ray Person (James Ransone) and gun-loving James Trombley (Billy Lush). But these characters aren't introduced through clunky exposition so prevalent in prime-time TV.

"When I started writing longer pieces as a journalist, I started to think, instant exposition, which you're always forced to do as a newspaperman by the copy desk -- God bless them, they save you other times -- is sort of soul- and story-killing," Simon said. "You're never allowed to go on a journey with the characters or with the world. I actually give viewers and readers a great deal of credit that if they want to enter a world, they will be willing to tolerate a certain amount of confusion as long as some core values and some core elements of the story are propelled forward, and they will acquire the vernacular."

Simon said the goal for episode one of "Generation Kill" was to introduce Colbert's Humvee crew.

"We don't need you to know every Marine or have a schematic in your head of how the command structure works," he said, adding that a more naturalistic approach increases the reality. "In real life they don't stop to explain everything to you at the moment you need to acquire that information. We all negotiate the world without complete information at every instant."

Simon described his approach as a style that demands viewers lean into the TV to catch more nuance as opposed to programs that encourage viewers to plop themselves on the sofa and simply absorb a story.

"We make you work," he said, "but at the end, there's more of a payoff than doing TV the old way."

HBO's future plans

"Entourage" returns for a new season at 10 p.m. Sept. 7. It will be joined Sept. 28 by "Little Britain USA," a sketch comedy show from the creators of the original U.K. series "Little Britain."

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is expected to return for another season. Larry David is on board, but he's currently filming a Woody Allen film and will get to work on "Curb" after that.

"Big Love" will return for a new season in early 2009.

Ricky Gervais, star of "Extras," will do his first American TV stand-up special in November. A new Chris Rock stand-up special, "Kill the Messenger," airs Sept. 27.

Another "Sex and the City" movie is likely to get made, but those proposed "Deadwood" TV movies are not.

HBO has been in a repetitive rut lately with dark, moody series filled with therapists. The network also tossed out the broad comedy "12 Miles of Bad Road" after filming six episodes (producers tried to shop it to other networks, but it's now a lost cause). The network's new executive regime recognizes that it has to work harder and branch out more.

To that end, the network has put a raft of pilots into production, including a new David Simon ("The Wire") series set in post-Katrina New Orleans; a comedy based on a novel titled "The Washingtonienne" and a drama set in 1920s Atlantic City. And the plethora of shrink dramas may abate, although "In Treatment" and "Tell Me You Love Me" have both been renewed.

"Beginning in the fall with [new vampire drama] 'True Blood,' you'll see a show that is enormously fun to watch," said HBO programming group president Michael Lombardo. "We have 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' coming up, a half-hour comedy pilot called 'Hung'. ... I hope the shows you're going to be seeing over the next year will change that mix a little bit, and I hope a year from now we're not talking about somber programming."