HBO’s Boardwalk Empire is five episodes in, and it has raised the bar for what production value and overall scope of a television show can be. It took a reported ten million dollars to rebuild the Atlantic City Boardwalk of 1920, and every one of those dollars is on-screen. The talent in front of the camera is uniformly intense and convincing. So why does the show feel so superficial and emotionally vapid? Why is it, to the discerning viewer at least, boring?

At least part of the problem has been expectations. When I was told that Terrence Winter, writing lynch-pin of one of the best series of all-time, was teaming up with Martin Scorsese, one of the best filmmakers of all-time, I was understandably excited. When I heard that HBO had given them a blank check to depict one of the most perfect backdrops in all of crime story history, I was more excited. And then they cast Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Michael Shannon, and friggin’ Omar. I was expecting another Sopranos, especially since this was the brainchild of a guy who wrote twenty-five episodes of that show.

What I got was something far more traditional and complacent. If there’s one thing that distinguishes the transcendent programs of our era—The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, and a handful of others that belong in the conversation—it is moral complexity and depth of character development. In every season of The Sopranos, Winter and company molded Tony with Dostoevsky levels of contradiction. Every Monday my wife and I use words like “projection” and “sublimate” to describe Don Draper, and Internet commenters are probably better at analyzing his behavior than they are at analyzing their own. Conversely, Boardwalk Empire’s Nucky Thompson is exactly who we think he is.

While Stringer Bell, David Fisher, and Vic Mackey had motivations that you couldn’t sum up in one sentence, Nucky Thompson doesn’t want to get caught in his hypocrisy. That’s it. He has shown no hint of internal conflict, and all of his actions are in his best selfish interest. The other principals are equally one-note: Nelson Van Alden wants to clean up corruption; Jimmy Darmody wants to escape his own destiny.

Of course there are other problems. For example, Gretchen Mol is supposed to be Michael Pitt’s mom, even though she’s only nine years older than him in real life. Plus, beginning with the first episode, we get the annoying characterization notes associated with these shows based on true stories. (“What’s your name again? Al? Al Capone? Oh, have you met my friend Charlie ‘Lucky’ Luciano?”) And something no one is mentioning is the fact that, sticking to period detail, the show can’t use modern music on the soundtrack. Try as he might, Terrence Winter can’t get the same mileage out of a traditional ’20s tune that he could out of, say, an Otis Redding song. Live by the ragtime, die by the ragtime.

I keep returning to how shallow the characters are though. In the best scene so far,* Nucky and Darmody seem to parse out the show’s imagined theme. In explaining why he dangerously exposed Nucky’s reputation in a daring heist, Darmody scoffs, “You can’t be half a gangster. Not anymore you can’t.” It would seem to set up a yin-and-yang for the rest of the show: the impulsive, earnest upstart challenging the cagey, circumspect veteran. Since that scene in the pilot, however, each character has barely interacted with the other. Darmody’s hunger is expressed with lots of isolation and little reflection; Nucky is left to deceive with no equivocation. These characters—the only ones who aren’t flat types or historical figure caricatures—are going nowhere fast.

Really, what should we expect though? Should we penalize the show for being merely compelling, rather than life-affirming? Just because of its network and creative pedigree, does it have to automatically address the Human Condition? Should we judge it as art before we judge it as entertainment? Is it fair to judge Boardwalk Empire alongside the best of all time? Of course not. But you can’t be a half a show. Not anymore you can’t.

*- Besides the sex stuff—it’s not TV, it’s shows with boobs.