Look out! He's got a knife!

Carnivàle - first season review

A little while ago, I flippantly claimed that the deadpan, surreal and hilarious fishing show "Fishing With John" was the greatest tv show ever made. I've found something even better - and lots of you have probably already seen it.

Most of these HBO shows haven't appealed to me. To be honest, from where I'm sitting they look like boring old regular tv with tits 'n' ass 'n' gore 'n swearing thrown in. "Oh look, a show about GANGSTERS, what an original idea."

(Tv is so formulaic it makes me want to kill. For example, if there's a tv show about people at work they're almost always doctors, lawyers or cops - or once in a while, firefighters. In a shriek of inspiration, Law & Order is about lawyers AND cops, and has doctors in it too.)

This is something new. It's basically a gothic soap opera with supernatural overtones set in an American travelling carnival in the 1930s. I've always loved stories about travelling carnivals & freakshows & the like (thanks largely to Ray Bradbury's brilliant kids' novel Something Wicked This Way Comes), and this is a really good one.

The first thing that struck me about that show is that it actually has good theme music. This was something that almost turned me off Firefly from the git-go - the theme song is painfull, especially the twee lyrics. Carnivàle's theme is by Wendy Melvoin & Lisa Coleman - two of Prince's most talented associates, for the clueless - and they did a great job.

The second thing that struck me (apart from "Hey, it's Michael J. Anderson!") was the amazing production values. This show looks GREAT.

The third thing was that the acting is superb.

The aforementioned Michael J. Anderson (familiar to many from Twin Peaks and Mulholland Dr) is great as Samson, who runs the day to day of the carnival (though he's not Management material - I'll say no more).

Horror movie fave Adrienne Barbeau is pretty good as the slinky snake handler Ruthie - Barbeau looks her age (almost sixty) but is still presented as a very sexy woman, which is refreshing.

Clea DuVall plays Sofie, one of the most complex roles in the show, and is sensational every step of the way. Amy Madigan stands out as Iris Crowe, Justin's brother (I'll get to him in a minute). Patrick Bauchau and Debra Christofferson are good as pretty unlikeable characters, and hell there isn't a weak spot in the whole cast.

Two actors seem to be the focus of the material, and they deliver the best performances in it (which is really saying something given how goodMadigan, Du Vall & Anderson are). Nick Stahl plays Ben Hawkins, a young fugitive with mysterious healing powers who the carnival takes into the fold at the beginning of episode one. This young actor has a difficult role, having to be simultaneously a mysterious unknown quantity, and also the audience identification figure. He

And then there's Clancy Brown as Brother Justin Crowe, who appears in a parallel storyline whose relevance to the carnival is just hinted at. As a teenager I loved his portrayal of the evil Kurgen in Highlander, and he's always been stereotyped as a bad guy (apart from a small role in Buckaroo Banzai). He's a big man with a big voice and sinister eyes; his casting as the tough drill sergeant Starship Troopers was one of the clues as to who the real bad guys were in that movie.

I never would have thought could be convincing as a naive and idealistic preacher, and I'm amazed at his work here. He is subtle when required and broad when it's needed; he has charisma to spare, whether he's quietly contemplating his faith or delivering a fire & brimstone revivalist sermon. This is a great performance by any standards, and I hope it leads him to more diverse roles.

I have deliberately not given away anything much of the story, which develops over the course of twelve episodes and by no means comes to a resolution at the end of the series. This is like Book One of an epic, and I am very sad that the show has come to an end after a mere two seasons, reportedly without a satisfying conclusion. Hopefully the show's creators can find a way to continue.

This show will probably drive some people nuts. It's extremely uncommercial in almost every way. It's pretty much sui generis and hard to classify (almost everyone compares to to Twin Peaks, but that's not really valid apart from both shows being basically unclassifiable). Every single character seems to have A Tragic Secret In Their Past, and most of them wander around being All Mysterious about it.

And it moves VERY slowly - pretty much the whole season is asking questions, and there are almost no answers. It's also morally ambiguous - there isn't a black or a white anywhere in the show, and it's hard to even tell which shade of grey any given character is. I love this; it's rare enough in books or movies, and pretty much unheard of on tv. Even something like The Shield lets you know which characters to root for (everyone is slime, but some are LIKEABLE slime).

I loved it. You might hate it, or at least go "Meh" (like I do with The Sopranos). You should definitely try it, though. Unless you're squeamish about a little gore and sex, though those are never overdone or gratuitous.

Posted by pearce at August 26, 2005 12:01 PM