Hit Man (Part 1)

Chris Albrecht, the 49-year-old president of HBO original programming, is standing in the middle of his beige-toned corner office on the sun-drenched top floor of a Century City tower, surrounded by images of Sarah Jessica Parker.

Poster-sized photographs are propped up on every available piece of furniture, on window sills, even on the floor. There's a shot of Sex and the City's iconic heroine, Carrie Bradshaw, sitting primly on a park bench, tilting her pert chin to the sky with her best gamine smile (and pushing the sartorial edge with a tiara and white gloves). There's a flirty Carrie, kicking up a spiky Choo at a street-corner hot-dog stand; a pensive Carrie, gazing out from a telephone kiosk in a picture within a picture; and a glamorous Carrie, sparkling in a beaded dress, all burning eyes and glossy lips.

"We have to present these to SJ tomorrow," says Carolyn Strauss, Albrecht's deputy. Albrecht snaps to attention: "Then let's pick the four we like best, and let her choose from those. We don't want to draw this out." They both scan the photos in a slow circle and, almost in unison, point to the same four. "That one, that one, and those two," says Albrecht. "Definitely," says Strauss, adding, "I'm amazed SJ approved a photo of herself smiling." (Ultimately, when the photos are shown to the actress, pensive Carrie prevails.)

A few hours later, Albrecht is at the wheel of his gleaming white urban-safari vehicle. He's weaving his way through Beverly Hills traffic, riffing on the connection between Tony Soprano, Carl Jung, and horseback riding. Albrecht is passionate about all three. A compact man with alert eyes who favors sleek, open-collared suits, he exudes the casual intensity of a practiced deal maker. But despite the Mercedes G series SUV tricked out with a dashboard computer for rolling calls on the commute from his ranch in Malibu, he is hardly what you'd get if you called central casting for a network executive. (Funny, then, that as Fast Company went to press, he was promoted to the position of HBO's chairman and CEO.)

Albrecht is both slickly confident and openly curious. A fast-talking former stand-up comedian from Long Island, he is reflective in conversation. He takes an almost scholarly approach to the Jungian analysis that he has pursued for the past 10 years. "The idea that we're all connected in the collective unconscious is an extremely important part of what makes entertainment successful," he says. "You can't translate that literally, but you can be aware of the ideas behind it: that the psyche has a structure, that the unconscious is a very powerful force, that we're all on a journey, striving for individuation and wholeness. If you understand that, you have a better grip on what's relevant, resonant, and rich about human experience."

You also have what turns out to be an unparalleled formula for producing genuinely original and genuinely good television. Albrecht's instincts guide him to what is both robustly entertaining and rigorously human, from promotional photos to character development. But he isn't just a philosopher of television. Under his leadership, HBO's original-programming division has unleashed a creative juggernaut on the television landscape. By any measure, when it comes to original programming, Albrecht is the most original mind in television.

Sex and the City, which debuted in 1998, The Sopranos (1999), and Six Feet Under (2001) -- the "3Ses," in HBO shorthand -- are three of the biggest hits on TV. The shows draw prime-time-sized audiences (an average of around 12 million, 14 million, and 12 million viewers per episode, respectively) to a network that still reaches only one-quarter of all TV households. HBO regularly garners more Emmy nominations than the big-three broadcast networks and wins Golden Globes, Oscars, and Peabody Awards for its original series and movies in competition with the biggest players in Hollywood. At the 2001 Emmys, HBO got 94 nominations and won 16. No fewer than 20 winners thanked Albrecht personally from the stage. This year, HBO leads again with 93 nominations, 23 of them for Six Feet Under alone.

The Sopranos, veteran TV writer-producer David Chase's unstintingly original, unflinchingly real series about an angst-ridden New Jersey mob boss (played by James Gandolfini to be both repugnant and riveting) with two dysfunctional families, surged into the popular consciousness two years ago. Even if you haven't watched an episode, chances are that you know all about the show. The series has earned both highbrow acclaim and street-level props. New York Times film critic Stephen Holden declared the series "the greatest work of American popular culture of the last quarter century," while a couple of lieutenants from the New Jersey DeCavalcante crime family were recorded on surveillance tapes raving about the show.