Carnivale on NPR

[fermicat]

Did anyone catch the NPR Morning Edition story about Carnivale? Unfortunately I was running late and could not stop doing noisy things long enough to hear all of it. There was something about how different it is, how they are asking a lot from the audience spooling it out slowly and making them really pay attention, etc.. Can anyone fill me/us in on what else was said? I won't get to hear it until tonight when I can download it from npr.org.

[PrairieScaper]

I can't recall everything they said, but they did credit HBO with being able to take programming risks since they don't have to satisfy advertisers. As long as a show doesn't drive subscribers to cancel en masse, a premium channel can afford to give something like Carnivale time to develop.

I believe they also compared it to Twin Peaks in character, meaning that it will not appeal to everyone. And they didn't expect it to. But it has suffered from some audience dropoff after its premiere, and HBO has not yet announced whether there will be a season 2.

I have only been able to catch the first 3 eps -- I don't have HBO at home -- but I'm hooked. I will break down and subscribe one of these days, but in the meantime I'm taping it at someone else's house. I know that there are some folks who have posted in another thread that they don't like Carnivale because it's too slow; I don't mind watching one show that builds gradually. For constant motion and action, I can watch 24!

[grapeshot]

They compared it to Twin Peaks, in that it had the same sort of dark characters in small towns, and the story developed slowly. However, one media professor they interviewed said that Twin Peaks eventually collapsed under it's own weight [I'll say!], and he said that although he enjoys this show, he hopes that won't happen to Carnivale. Then they interviewed the writer of the show, and he said, not to worry, there's a WHOLE immense mythology behind this story, although the viewer won't necessarily see it all, and that there will be a final payoff.

I don't watch it because Twin Peaks and its collapsing story pissed me off so much, that I won't ever watch ANYTHING AGAIN by David Lynch. Yeah, I know, this AIN'T by David Lynch, but I've been so sensitized against any show like this -- all that enigmatic American Gothic stuff makes me want to puke -- that I could not bring myself to try this show.
*shrug* Clearly, my mileage is varying!