HBO's 'Big Love' and 'Flight of the Conchords' return to enchant viewers

Who woulda thunk that shows about Utah polygamists and displaced New Zealand musicians would provide two of the high points of this or any TV season?

And what network besides HBO could have made those shows work?

No need to answer those questions. HBO subscribers can simply watch and marvel when "Big Love" and "Flight of the Conchords" return with new seasons starting at 8 p.m. Sunday on the premium-cable channel.

HBO catches a lot of flak for its boast that "it's not TV, it's HBO," and sometimes rightfully so. Even granted Jeremy Piven's snarkily obsequious agent, the comedy "Entourage" isn't half as clever as it thinks it is, and dramas like "Carnivale" are little more than just plain weird, HBO doing things simply because it can.

Yet "Big Love" and "Flight of the Conchords" find HBO showing off to good effect. If anyone pitched these premises to a major broadcast network, they'd be shown the door and most likely never be invited to a free Hollywood lunch again. In the hands of HBO, however, they not only work but excel, although permit me to insist that "Conchords" excels more.

This wry and wacky comedy returns for its second season at 9 p.m. Sunday. It stars Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie as two Kiwi musos transplanted to New York City, where they're trying to make a splash as their real-life two-piece band, Flight of the Conchords.

The season premiere, "A Good Opportunity," pretty much takes the series from its quasi-cliffhanger ending of last season and sets it back in place to continue on.

As fans will remember, a brief third member of the band went off and formed his own group, the Crazy Dogs, which instantly enjoyed a vogue to rival the Baha Men. Along the way, their clueless manager Murray, played by Rhys Darby, started spending most of his time and effort on the successful offshoot. He can't help inadvertently rubbing it in to the Conchords.

"R. Kelly wants to sing on your next song," he says. "Shall I find out who he is?" But, oops, that's an offer for the Crazy Dogs.

Through one thing and another, the Crazy Dogs go south, Murray gets his comeuppance (and his own video song along the way) and all is set as it was, just as at the end of any episode of "The Simpsons." Yet along the way there are also more laughs than in any network sitcom with the possible exception of "The Big Bang Theory," as well as comical musical videos such as an ad jingle for Femident, an organic toothpaste being marketed to women.

Truth be told, the second season of "Conchords" has the feel of a rock group's sophomore-slump second album: It's not quite as inventive or inspired as the first time around. Yet it's still funnier than almost anything on the broadcast networks, and I know it will make for appointment viewing in my household.

If "Big Love" isn't quite as successful, it's twice as daring. Bill Paxton stars as Bill Henrickson, a Salt Lake City hardware-store owner who is trying to juggle a shift into the gaming industry and, not coincidentally, three wives, played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin. In fact, there might even be a fourth on the way, as he's once again wooing Branka Katic's waitress Ana, even as she confides in Goodwin's Margene that she's simply more comfortable as "the other woman," even to three other wives.

What's amazing about "Big Love" is the way it takes this completely foreign milieu - that is, foreign to most of us - and makes it the stuff of a TV soap-opera satire that puts "Desperate Housewives" to shame. The new third season finds it getting even more ambitious, piling on the plot lines involving a tribal casino, Bill's troubled teenage half-brother (yes, his father, played by the cantankerous Bruce Dern, has multiple wives as well) and, last but not least, Harry Dean Stanton's disgraced "prophet" Roman Grant and his scheming, conflicted son Alby, played by Matt Ross.

Its persistent theme of what's bubbling under the surface of seemingly calm and simple lives gets perfect expression in the season premiere, "Block Party." It serves as a perfect place for a viewer to jump in, even if one hasn't seen the show before, just as "Big Love" and "Conchords" make this a perfect time to pick up HBO. Yes, these are two shows worth paying for, whether now on cable or satellite TV or later at the video store.