What are you watching now?

[GKarsEye]

IMO, Carnivale was the best thing HBO ever did

Broken record alert: have you ever seen The Wire?

Though I personally favor Deadwood as my 2nd favorite HBO series, I am biased towards westerns and vulgarity.
I have mixed feelings about Carnivale- I dug it, but I can't "love" any show that didn't end. The closest I can come is Twin Peaks. That's why I can't really understand the intense fandom of Firefly. How can you love something that much after only 13 episodes?

 

[Jade Jaguar]

Two seasons is plenty of time to come to greatly appreciate a program. Of course I wish it had continued, which may have made me like it even more, assuming it ended well. I have seen a few things I have liked very much, up until the ending. A bad ending can spoil something for me, but cutting a show down in its prime, sad as it may be, doesn't make me like the show any less.

I liked Twin Peaks a lot, for the first year, or so, then it kind of petered out, IMO, but not so badly as to spoil what had come before. Six Feet Under was rather good for a year or two, but lost its spark after that. Carnivale maintained its intensity for as long as it lasted.

 

[Alluveal]

It was amazing and HBO is full of idiots for canceling it too soon. The president actually said, "we feel the story line has been resolved to our and the fan's satisfaction."

Uhhh... do they WATCH their own shows? Season 2 ended on a mega-cliff hanger. I've heard the creator talk about getting the rest of the story out there in another medium (books most likely.)

It's nice to know that some of the former producers/writers have found homes elsewhere. Ron Moore of Galactica was a producer and a writer for Carnivale (both seasons) and his wife did the costume designing. I think it's how they met.

 

[hypatia]

That's why I can't really understand the intense fandom of Firefly. How can you love something that much after only 13 episodes?

I can if it's a planned thing. Like a miniseries. I adore "the Barchester Chronicles" and the three "House of Cards" mini-mini series (each of the three is 4 episodes long).

But that is different, of course. Plot and characters were meant to be delevoped quickly and without as much complication when a series is known in advance to be that limited with its time.

 

[Alluveal]

Well, Firefly did instantly for me what a show like BSG took half a season to do. I think it's a sign of a well-written and well-done show. Firefly was a fluke. Cast got along. Story was good. All went well except for the ratings.

I can understand if people need more time to get into a show, but with a show like Carnivale (for example,) I was into it after 2 or 3 episodes and knew it was going to be one of my favorites. Sometimes, it's content that's appealing, sometimes it's pacing, writing, storytelling, acting, character arcs.

I am a writer myself and I've become the kind of person who usually knows if I'll like a book by the first chapter. Certain elements simply have to be there. I have rarely been surprised by my initial reactions. I think this has carried over into films and television shows, though with television the first few episodes can sometimes be awkward, bulky, clunky due to a cast/crew learning how to work with one another (provided they shoot in some semblance of order.) Firefly clicked immediately with me.

Carnivale clicked immediately with me but a lot of that had to do with content that was interesting to me (supernatural/good/evil/the occult.) It was also some excellent writing and story-telling/acting.

I also like the fact that some of these shows use actors that are not terribly well-known. I mean, you have Clancy Brown in Carnivale but he's more of a cult fan's actor (Highlander, all those prison guard roles, etc.) It's refreshing to see new faces.

I'm babbling.

I'm a nerd.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

Clancy was in Buckaroo Banzai too...

 

[GKarsEye]

One thing about Carnivale that is similar to The Wire is that there really were not outstandingly exciting or awful characters. Everything sort of blended together- a true ensemble cast. This meant there was rarely a boring or annoying sub-plot. Contrast this to something like Deadwood or The Sopranos where most of the appeal lay with a couple of incredibly entertaining, wonderful characters, and the show risked being dull when they weren't on screen.

 

[hypatia]

Was Carnivale cancelled due to ratings? I always got the impression that it was a pretty well-watched show.

 

[GKarsEye]

Was Carnivale cancelled due to ratings? I always got the impression that it was a pretty well-watched show.

Eh... I dunno... I'm pretty sure Deadwood and Rome got good ratings and they were canceled. I think overall HBO just couldn't handle the costs of producing all of these expensive original series. That's why the only major new series they have now, In Treatment, is just a half hour of people talking in a room. (I have not actually seen this show, I'm just assuming)

 

[Jade Jaguar]

One thing about Carnivale that is similar to The Wire is that there really were not outstandingly exciting or awful characters.

Well, I thought most of the characters in Carnivale were very interesting, and complex, and often exciting. That was part of what I liked so much about it. I think the best word is enigmatic. Most of the characters were enigmatic, well detailed, and continuingly growing in complexity.

 

[Alluveal]

They weren't terrible ratings (for Carnivale,) but they did not meet the standards of what it took to produce the show, apparently.

Rome, I believe, was only going to go for 2 seasons that I know of.

Deadwood, I think had ok ratings as well, but HBO compares a lot of these shows to The Sopranos, Entourage and Six Feet Under.

I think for all of them, that the cost to make was always bigger than originally anticipated. I was on the HBO/Carnivale boards throughout the entire show and there was always the fear of "will we get the ratings?"

Bleh on that!

 

[Cell]

Broken record alert: have you ever seen The Wire?

Though I personally favor Deadwood as my 2nd favorite HBO series, I am biased towards westerns and vulgarity.
I have mixed feelings about Carnivale- I dug it, but I can't "love" any show that didn't end. The closest I can come is Twin Peaks. That's why I can't really understand the intense fandom of Firefly. How can you love something that much after only 13 episodes?

For the same reason the The British version of The Office is one of the greatest shows ever produced. It's all about quality, not quantity. Carnivale produced 24 excellent episodes, with not a bad one in the bunch. Firefly did the same with only 13 episodes. Sure, maybe if these shows would have stuck around they would have produced some clunkers, but they never did so all they can be judged on is the actual great content that they supplied.

As far as HBO shows go, Carnivale was excellent, but it falls behind Deadwood and is tied with Rome, Extras and CYE as far as their best shows go. I have never seen the Wire so I can't comment on that, but those five shows I listed are so much better than anything else that HBO has ever produced that it's not even close to being a fair contest.

Oh and as far as the cancellations go. Deadwood wasn't canceled because of ratings or money issues, it was canceled because of a bunch of disputes between the creators and the execs at HBO. I'm still waiting for HBO to deliver on their promise of a Deadwood mini-series to wrap the entire show up, but that will never happen. Rome was canceled because of disputes between the creators and the execs and because it was so damn expensive to make. It was so expensive that it wasn't just an HBO production, but BBC helped to produce it as well as the Italian station Rai, but not even the three of them could manage to the costs of Rome. Carnivale was a combination of costs and low ratings.

 

[GKarsEye]

Well, I thought most of the characters in Carnivale were very interesting, and complex, and often exciting. That was part of what I liked so much about it. I think the best word is enigmatic. Most of the characters were enigmatic, well detailed, and continuingly growing in complexity.

What I meant is that there were no characters that were so much more interesting than the other characters on the show- they were all pretty much interesting to watch, relatively equal.
Contrast this to the Sopranos, where the best parts are almost always with the main characters, and every time his kids were the center of attention it meant a bathroom break.
Deadwood had Al Swearingen, by far the most popular and most love character, and every scene with him would be watched with baited breath, even though the show had a lot of cool characters.
The closest thing Carnivale came to that was the evil priest guy. He was pretty bad-ass.

 

[GKarsEye]

Cell, Deadwood was also canceled in part due to David Milch's interest in developing his new series John From Cincinatti. And, let's be honest here, season 3 of Deadwood was relatively weak.

 

[Alluveal]

Actually, Rome had some casting problems too. It took them a while to get some of the members to sign on for season 2 as I think there were contract issues with a few.

As for Carnivale, I think all the characters were developed so flawlessly. I definitely hope to see the story finish somewhere. I need to know what the frack happened.

 

[Ranger1]

i'm currently enjoying an old favourite, space above and beyond.

 

[Ranger1]

double post

 

[Cell]

Cell, Deadwood was also canceled in part due to David Milch's interest in developing his new series John From Cincinatti. And, let's be honest here, season 3 of Deadwood was relatively weak.

I don't recall much of any of Deadwood, because I refuse to buy the DVDs until they go on sale or are drastically reduced in price. HBO is the worse when it comes to their DVD pricing, I was finally able to pick up Carnivale, Season 1 because they dropped it from $84 to $54 and I had a coupon for Barnes & Noble. They did the same thing with Carnivale, Season 2 and since I have one more coupon I'm looking to pick that up, probably next week.

i'm currently enjoying an old favourite, space above and beyond.

I just picked that up, along with Alien Nation, The Complete Series. They were both on sale for $20 at Best Buy and I have a nostalgia kick for S:AAB, plus I seem to recall it actually being pretty good, and I have always wanted to check out Alien Nation. I also picked up Cloverfield, I was able to avoid it in the theaters. I love the writer, Drew Goddard, but I heard they used an extremely shaky hand held camera style. I can't take that on the big screen, but I can watch it at home and not get sick.

 

[Alluveal]

I never bought a new HBO series dvd. I always got them on ebay or half.com or amazon used. No way I'm paying 89$ for 12 episodes, no matter how good it is.

I still haven't been at all interested in seeing Cloverfield. The only saving grace JJ Abrams has right now is Lost. He's bungled up so much caca in my mind that he'd need to pull a rabbit out of his bum to get me to watch anything new of his.

 

[Cell]

Despite all the rave reviews, I have never seen an episode of Lost. It's one of the many shows that I should have checked out but probably won't until it's over and I start getting the DVDs or something. I mainly picked up Cloverfeld because I heard good things about it and because Drew Goddard wrote it, I didn't even know Abrams was involved until I read the back cover when I got home.