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coalescentLast night, I watched 'Milfay', the pilot episode of Carnivale.
Carnivale is the first new show this year that I've been excited about. What I'd heard about the premise intrigued me; the recommendations I'd seen impressed me. In short, I had high expectations. 'Milfay' surpassed them in every way.
Carnivale is an HBO drama, with all that implies. Most notably, it means a short season (12 episodes), and a certain creative freedom denied to major network programming. It's set in 1930s America, following a travelling carnival across the dustbowl of the midwest, a carnival populated by the usual sideshow attractions of the time: A giant, a bearded lady, siamese twins, a dwarf, and several shades of fortune tellers and psychics. In the pilot, after the bankruptcy of his farm Ben Hawkins finds himself pulled into the carnivale. We learn that he was 'expected' by the Management.
It's been compared to Twin Peaks, and there are similarities, but on the whole I think it's a comparison that misrepresents Carnivale. The show may be full of miracles and freaks, but it doesn't have the same sense of the absurd. Instead, it wallows in atmosphere. Carnivale is cast against a backdrop of melancholy-veined passion and old-testament salvation and brimstone that, in tone at least, matches more closely with some of the small-town episodes of The X-Files; on the basis of this episode, it's going to be a dark show. It's also a work of art: From the tarot-twisting opening sequence through every last dust-choked, sepia-washed, immaculately detailed frame Carnivale is a shatteringly beautiful piece of television.
Everyone should be watching this. Besides, where else are you likely to see John Connor debating with The Little Man From Another Place?
Carnivale is the first new show this year that I've been excited about. What I'd heard about the premise intrigued me; the recommendations I'd seen impressed me. In short, I had high expectations. 'Milfay' surpassed them in every way.
Carnivale is an HBO drama, with all that implies. Most notably, it means a short season (12 episodes), and a certain creative freedom denied to major network programming. It's set in 1930s America, following a travelling carnival across the dustbowl of the midwest, a carnival populated by the usual sideshow attractions of the time: A giant, a bearded lady, siamese twins, a dwarf, and several shades of fortune tellers and psychics. In the pilot, after the bankruptcy of his farm Ben Hawkins finds himself pulled into the carnivale. We learn that he was 'expected' by the Management.
It's been compared to Twin Peaks, and there are similarities, but on the whole I think it's a comparison that misrepresents Carnivale. The show may be full of miracles and freaks, but it doesn't have the same sense of the absurd. Instead, it wallows in atmosphere. Carnivale is cast against a backdrop of melancholy-veined passion and old-testament salvation and brimstone that, in tone at least, matches more closely with some of the small-town episodes of The X-Files; on the basis of this episode, it's going to be a dark show. It's also a work of art: From the tarot-twisting opening sequence through every last dust-choked, sepia-washed, immaculately detailed frame Carnivale is a shatteringly beautiful piece of television.
Everyone should be watching this. Besides, where else are you likely to see John Connor debating with The Little Man From Another Place?
