Carnivale

[Find Your Magali]

Looks like more great stuff from HBO (which I dropped in the spring, in an attempt to reduce my cable bill...)

Anyone planning to check this out?

NEW YORK (AP) — In describing "Carnivale," HBO's new dramatic series, comparisons to director David Lynch are likely to crop up.
   But differences outweigh similarities. As the creator of such films as "Blue Velvet" and the landmark series "Twin Peaks," Lynch typically practices weird-for-weird's-sake while making his characters the butt of his sardonic vision.
   By contrast, "Carnivale" keeps its strange little world on equal footing with the viewers'. You are drawn into the same holy war as the Bearded Lady and the Reptile Man: that of Light versus Darkness at the brink of what just might be the apocalypse.
   "Carnivale," whose 12-episode run begins at 9:35 p.m. EDT Sunday, is set in 1934, in the midst of a decade-long drought that reduced 250 million acres of farmland to a Dust Bowl across three-quarters of the nation.
   Wending its way through this biblical ruin, the carnival happens on a chain-gang fugitive, Ben Hawkins. He is struggling to dig a grave for his dead mother in the parched earth of an Oklahoma homestead that bankers are about to seize. Then, when this meager funeral is over, the carnies spirit him away.
   Hawkins (played by Nick Stahl) is a tormented soul — and not just by the unexplained crime for which the law is chasing him. He is afflicted with healing powers he has kept bottled up since childhood. But his effort to repress such mystical impulses is all the harder now, in the company of freaks and outcasts who rouse their ticket-buying public with mystery.
   "The people in these towns are asleep. We wake them up," says Sofie (Clea Duvall), an apt observation even though her mother, the troupe's tarot reader, lives life inert in a catatonic state.
   Meanwhile, a thousand miles away, a small-town Methodist pastor in California's verdant Central Valley sermonizes on "the titanic sandstorms, the likes of which man has not seen since the days of the prophets. What are they, if not harbingers of the apocalypse?"
   However far removed from the carnival's harsh circuit, Brother Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown) shares the same disturbing dreams that plague Ben Hawkins. And they direct him, or so he believes, to help the desperate Okies pouring into his community.
   Clearly Brother Justin's path will cross with Ben's. What then?
   Everything is up for grabs on "Carnivale," and, even from a 21st-century vantage point, you can feel its unrest (add Hitler's rise and the Great Depression to the bubbling brew, and you don't have to be a religious zealot to figure God had something he was trying to tell mortals).
   Meditative and beautiful in capturing its 1930s era, "Carnivale" is carefully measured as it penetrates a range of different realms — Nature, the occult, Christian faith.
   The series occupies itself with stalking (and sometimes fearfully withdrawing from) truths as elusive for the viewer as they are for its heroes. It is weird, all right, but not trying to weird you out. Instead, "Carnivale" aims to gather you in. If you let it, it will.
   A sign of its persuasive force is the towering presence of Samson, the dwarf.
   Having risen in carnival ranks from sideshow oddity to boss of the whole show, Samson (played by the wonderful Michael J. Anderson) is a wily, charming rascal whose diminutive form is beside the point for his fellow carnies — just as, after only a few minutes, it will be beside the point for the viewer.
   For why should anything so obvious be dwelled upon? There is far too much beneath the surface worth exploring.
   Item: the mordantly funny "exchanges" between Sofie and Apollonia (Diane Salinger), the catatonic mother she cares for as well as psychically connects with.
   "I just think you see what you want to see," Sofie chides her mom as she bathes her in the second episode.
   There's a pause to "hear" Mom's "response."
   "Please!" Sofie protests.
   Another pause, then Sofie erupts with, "Forget it!," as if to cut her mother off.
   The creator and executive producer of "Carnivale" is Daniel Knauf, whose credits include an HBO film, "Blind Justice," and the eerie, short-lived CBS series "Wolf Lake," for which he served as consulting producer two years ago.
   It could be Knauf is about to become much better known thanks to "Carnivale," which mulls the fateful day when "man forever traded away wonder for reason," as Samson recalls in the series' opening moments. Somehow, "Carnivale" helps its viewers to both wonder and reason.

[Weak2ndAct]

Heck yeah, I'll be all over this show.  Anything on HBO gets a fair shake from me.  A while ago I wasn't watching any of the HBO shows, but thankfully have been catching up b/c of the great dvd sets (and friends who obsessively tape the stuff for me).  The best thing about the shows here is that they don't *have* to make them.  There's no bottom line and advertisers to worry about, so they wait shit out-- best example being Baseball Wives.  Despite a solid crew behind it-- Tom Fontana show running, Buscemi as the pilot's director-- it just doesn't work (I saw it, so I know).  They put the sucker on hold and it's in limbo.  A heck of a lot better than throwing 20 turds at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Side note: I just caught the first season of The Wire, and it's fucking genius.

[RegularKarate]

Been waiting for this for a few months... intentionally not learning TOO much about it.  Should be eggzellent

Side note: I just caught the first season of The Wire, and it's fucking genius.

Don't believe the hype, The Wire belongs on network television... it's just not very good.  Tries WAY too hard.

[Weak2ndAct]

What constitutes 'trying too hard'?  
Admittedly, it took an episode or two to get into the show and learn who's who and what's what, but...
I really dug The Wire because we were presented with a incredibly complex look at what it takes to bring down a drug ring and the conflicts between the different law enforcement entities that can prevent it from happening.  The network television version would have had a different crime solved every week and fuckin' Jerry Orbach bitching that the coffee tastes bad.

[RegularKarate]

Well, I watched an episode and a half... starting with the first.

The dialogue is pretty poor and the acting is overdone... it just tries to be "gritty" and the "street lingo" was evidently written by my mother.

[mutinyco]

Anybody ever see Reform School Girls?

"Wanna play Carnival?"

"What's that?"

"You sit on my face and I guess your weight."

[Xixax]

RK is right about The Wire. It's a cheeseball cop show with some "fuck"s and some titties thrown in. Trite suckage.

I wasn't expecting much from Carnivale because HBO has such a great way of hyping things, even if they suck ("Dinner With Friends" anyone?).

I have to say I was thoroughly surprised.

I can't wait for it next week. Great casting... The kid from Bully was great.

[RegularKarate]

Just watched the second episode and I have to say this thing looks very promising.  I'm sucked in.

It could easily get fucked up, but it could also be a marvelous show.

[RegularKarate]

Surprised more people aren't into this show.  
Things are really starting to come together and pay off here.  I think this show is shaping up to be quite good.

[Xixax]

Man, I'm glued to it now. My wife and I never miss it, and every week it's good for at least a 10 to 15 minute discussion theorizing what might happen next.

Not to mention that it's beautiful visually.

The story is taking some great turns. I'll be sad when it ends in another 6 weeks. It has been a great ride.

[Xixax]

I'm not sure to be happy or pissed off.

Some sources called it a mini-series, and others called it just "a series".

So now, we're at the end of "Season One". I thought it was going to be a "Band of Brothers" type thing. 12 episodes. You're in, you're out, it's over.

Now, those tricksters at HBO have me hooked on ANOTHER one of their shows. Sopranos. Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and now Carnivale.

Tricky...

Anyone interested in discussing this one, or am I alone? It seems to be hard to find anyone who has even heard of this kick ass show. Forget finding anyone who has followed it for 12 weeks like we did.

[RegularKarate]

Yeah... I might give up on it.

It slowed a bit and didn't pay off like I wanted it to.  And it's like the ending was shaped around whether or not certain actors would be coming back for the second season.

[MacGuffin]

Carnivale to Return for a Second Season
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

HBO has greenlighted a second season for Carnivale, ordering 13 more episodes. Production is expected to begin in the spring in anticipation of returning the Depression-era drama to air sometime in late 2004.

Created by Daniel Knauf, Carnivale completed its 13-episode first season earlier this month with an episode drawing 3.5 million total viewers, just under its season average.

While HBO's more established series such as The Sopranos and Sex and the City attract much bigger audiences, Carnivale earned a respectable viewership on par with another of its critically acclaimed dramas, The Wire.

[modage]

i didnt have HBO then, but i want to see this now.  is there a dvd in the works?

[modage]

Yeah... I might give up on it.

It slowed a bit and didn't pay off like I wanted it to.  And it's like the ending was shaped around whether or not certain actors would be coming back for the second season.

i'm currently going through season 1 on dvd and now 8 episodes in and still not sure whether i really like it or not.  it seems to have everything in place to make a great show, and yet can't seem to quite pull it off.  and i keep thinking that every 'next' episode will be the one when it starts to really get rolling but the goddamn pacing leaves room for so little to happen in each episode.  i also still hate nick stahl and his character is not helping matters.  but i keep watching hoping for the best.  i love the mystery aspects of hte show and i dont mind spending a lot of time for things to be revealed, (a la twin peaks), but only when i feel like i'm always getting somewhere.  some episodes seem fairly pointless, and when you've got a good mystery going the last thing you want to do is go off on a bunch of detours that arent bringing you any closer to anything.  you have to wrap your soap opera within a framework that seems to be getting closer to something, even if in reality the more you 'discover' you never are really getting all the way there.

how is season two?  or did you give up on it.