The Argument For Sticking With A Program: Carnivale Season 2 On DVD

The Good: Great story, Amazing acting, Surprising character twists
The Bad: Story is truncated (no real story resolution), Could use more DVD bonuses.
The Basics: In an amazing second season, Carnivale accelerates the battle of good and evil between two avatars in the 1930's!


Carnivale is a series that has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time unwatched and it behooves me to follow that comment up with the understanding I have recently reached (yea therapy!): I intensely associate new experiences with the person I am experiencing them with. This is not a huge deal, but when the person with whom I enjoyed the first season of Carnivale (click here for my review of that!) moved out, I found myself unable to simply pick up Season Two from the shelf and get through it. Following that epiphany, I managed to have the time, mental clarity and devotion to actually watch Carnivale - The Complete Second Season on DVD.


And wow, am I glad I did! And oh, am I peeved! Carnivale's first season ran against nothing like it and it built an audience (I first discovered it on DVD). The second season ran against a little show named Lost and the intended five-year story was finished in two . . . or at least, that is what I thought. After all, if the writers and producers knew they were going down, they would be so kind as to finish the series off so there was nothing left hanging, right? Yeah, Carnivale doesn't do that. Instead, just as the story ramps up, it's over. I, for one, wish there were Whedon-like armies of fans behind Carnivale if for no other reason than to get a movie of the work done to wrap it up a bit neater.

Because this is a heavily serialized show, there are elements that cannot be mentioned without revealing some aspects of the series I purposely omitted from my first season review to encourage viewer integrity (it's no fun to read reviews that give all of the secrets away!). That's the closest to a warning I can give . . .

Picking up where the first season left off, Apollonia's trailer is ablaze and Jonesy is able to rescue Sofie from her dying mother's grasp. Ben and Samson, under orders from Management, dispose of Lodz's body. Soon, though, Lila is asking questions and demanding answers, and the Carnivale leaves with Ben searching for Scudder. As Hawkins leads the traveling circus across the dustbowl, Brother Justin Crowe - guided by visions - establishes his congregation near a hillside he names New Canaan. There, he begins to compel his followers to converge, including a small army of criminals and Reverend Norman Balthus, who is recovering from his stroke that he suffered upon seeing Justin's true nature.

As the Carnivale folks fall apart with infighting and suspicion, Brother Justin summons a killer named Varlyn Stroud to find Scudder. Stroud quickly discovers that Hawkins is on the same quest and begins to use brutal means to insure that he will get to Scudder before Hawkins (including burning another traveling carnival to the ground). As Hawkins comes to understand and accept his powers and the sacrifices that must be made whenever he heals someone, Brother Justin's true nature begins to become apparent to those closest to him as he sexually abuses the women in his care while his sister, Iris, waits for the right time to take him on.

Carnivale is television not for the feint of heart. As an HBO series, it is graphic, dark, depressing and demands attention. Like Lost, Carnivale is a series that is deeply involved in terms of details. Every scene is packed with visual information that forces the viewer to watch and actually pay attention. Laced with the metaphors of dreams and a pretty striking storyline of good versus evil, Carnivale in its second season is leading to a bloody convergence and in that regard, it satisfies perfectly.

Indeed, unlike the first season where there existed still some ambiguity about who was on which side, the second season of Carnivale very clearly draws a line in the sand. Ben Hawkins, given the ability to heal by taking life from those around him, becomes firmly rooted as the moral center of the show in the second season, doing what he can whenever possible to limit the collateral damage to those around him. But it is Brother Justin who is finally outed for exactly what he is in the second season and that he is the demon slowly begins to dawn even on his loyal sister, Iris.

The thing is, the second season of Carnivale has more than one emotional climax and there are character-based cliffhangers that pretty much rule the series in a way that anyone who watched and enjoyed the first season would be surprised by. So, for example, following her mother's death, Sofie becomes distraught and leaves the carnivale. She is rescued by Ben, but when his quest to find Scudder becomes an imperative, Sofie suffers the collateral damage of that obsession.

In order to truly understand and appreciate the two storylines that are rushing toward a head in the second season of Carnivale, it helps to understand the characters. The primary characters in the second season include:

Brother Justin Crowe - Asserting his will through the use of this apparently benevolent radio program, he takes up in New Canaan where he begins to assemble his flock. He takes in Father Norman in order to be able to torment him, but when he begins to take in orphans to do cleaning around the house, his true evil begins to show more obviously,

Iris Crowe - Having found the beaten and raped bodies of the women Brother Justin has used, she continues to look to protect her brother by any means necessary. Soon, though, she realizes what Brother Justin is, especially when her involvement in the orphanage fire is about to be made public by Tommy Dolan,

Tommy Dolan - The businessman who has created the radio show for Brother Justin, he begins to investigate the orphanage fire and quickly concludes that it was Iris who burned the place down. He prepares to make a deal with the devil, though,

Varlyn Stroud - A simple and direct convict, he is called by Justin through the radio to find Scudder and he begins to leave a trail of dead bodies in that pursuit,

and The Usher - A wormy little man who keeps popping up with the texts that explain to Brother Justin just what he is and what he needs to do to make his power ripen.

On the other side, there are:

Stumpy Dreifuss - He has incurred severe gambling debts to people who come looking to collect,

Rita Sue Dreifuss - Recommitted to her marriage to Stumpy, she begins to make additional money the only way she knows how,

Libby Dreifuss - Estranged from her friend Sofie, she and Jonesy work to make amends and in a pretty incredible twist of fate, she marries the head Roustie,

Lila - Upset that no one seems to care that Lodz has disappeared, the bearded woman begins to mount an insurrection amongst the carnies. As she prepares to overthrow Samson and Management, she gets an unexpected visitor,

Ruthie - Having been resurrected by Ben, she begins to see the dead Apollonia and becomes a conduit for Lodz who actually has something useful to contribute. Shocked at her sleepwalking activities, Ruthie is disappointed when Ben begins to avoid her,

Sofie - Lost following Apollonia's death, she begins to have more and increasingly troubling visions. Tormented by the visions, she takes comfort with Ben, who is forced to leave the carnivale to find Scudder before Stroud does. That desertion compels her to find her own way . . . to New Canaan,

Jonesy - Heartbroken over Sofie, the wounded roustie finds himself healing without Rita Sue, as well. Soon, though, he begins to notice Libby and shortly after they are married, there is an accident on the Ferris wheel and he is dragged off to the middle of nowhere to die,

Samson - Having had it with Management jerking him around, he pressures Ben to come clean with him, at the very least. Defending Management puts Samson in a dangerous position and the carnivale is forced to use all of its resources to aid Ben in finding Scudder,

and Ben Hawkins - Reluctantly admitting his abilities to Samson and his need to find Scudder, he becomes even more tormented with visions that threaten his sanity. He is tortured by his hillbilly cousins, romanced by Sofie, pursued by Stroud and protected by Jonesy and Samson. Soon, though, it becomes clear that the evil of the priest is growing too quickly and Ben prepares to do everything he has to to stop him.

The second season of Carnivale hits its marks so consistently because Ben is finally the hero in the process of becoming that the viewer has been waiting for. Tired of rejecting his gift, Ben finally begins to explore it and in one of the final episodes of the set, the climactic moment is an amazingly uplifting scene where he fully embraces his destiny. Ben becomes a hero that the viewer wants to see succeed and, frankly, it's about time!

The second season is also a bit more graphically violent than the first season, especially with the way that Brother Justin sexually abuses the women in his care (the implied incestual rape in the first season remains just that, but he's pretty despicable in very on-screen ways this season). There's the regular amount of nudity, which makes sense given that Rita Sue and Libby are strippers, so those who are squeamish with that sort of thing ought to know it at least.

That said, the second season forces the character to develop against a loudly ticking clock. Each episode from the first in the season gives a feeling of accelerating toward something big. Unlike the first season which was much more about planting the seeds and ethereally creating a dangerous mood, the second season walks, jogs, runs, then sprints toward devastation and it is a true cinematic crime that the series was not continued. In large part this is rumored to be because Carnivale was so expensive to make. The thing is, on DVD, it looks amazing. The second season truly does develop like one massive film and it pays off incredibly well (sort of . . .). What is paid off is paid off well, but literally in the final frames of the finale, the show takes an abrupt and dangerous left turn that leaves the viewer begging for more.

Part of the reason the show is so consistently great is in the acting. While there is a pretty impressive ensemble cast consisting of Amy Madigan (Iris), Michael J. Anderson (Samson), Adrienne Barbeau (Ruthie), and Clea DuVall (Sofie), the show essentially hinges on the performances of Clancy Brown and Nick Stahl. Clancy Brown played the first season of Carnivale in such a way that the viewer was left wondering just how much Brother Justin actually knew about himself and that worked. In the second season, Brown opens Justin up with a much more menacing sense of physical presence. Brown is able to sneer and smirk and convey a quietly brewing evil that makes his character far more rich than most villains on television and despite how despicable his character becomes, he remains a pleasure to watch.

But it is Nick Stahl who rocks much of the second season of Carnivale. Perhaps best known for his role as John Connor in Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines, Stahl is given the difficult task of portraying a hero reluctant to be heroic. He pulls it off wonderfully, slowly developing Ben into a man who stands straighter and actually is able to articulate thoughts and feelings. Unlike the way he was forced to play Ben dense in the first season, as Ben grows, Stahl is able to build upon the character with his performance and it works.

On DVD, Carnivale - The Complete Second Season contains three commentary tracks (I wished for even more, but alas, this is what we have). They are informative, but do not give away nearly as much information as many of us would have liked given that the series ends here. As well, there was a decent featurette from the Museum Of Television And Radio (I'm thinking that's one of the places I have to go next year . . .) with some of the cast and a documentary on the apocalyptic nature of much of Carnivale's storyline. The bonus features are good and about as plentiful as one would expect from an HBO DVD feature.

Sadly, though, the series ends here, but it ought not to be an argument against picking it up; after all, it's a hell of a ride while it lasts and it holds up wonderfully over multiple viewings. Indeed, more than one viewing will probably be needed to catch all of the nuances.

For less of a disappointment, one might as well pick up both seasons of Carnivale together and the complete series is reviewed here!

For other television works with the supernatural, please check out my reviews of:
Wonderfalls
True Blood - Season 1

8/10

For other television series reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



| | |

The Argument For DVDs: Dense Serialized Dramas That Require Rewatching: Carnivale Season 1!

The Good: Interesting story, Great Characters, Good Acting
The Bad: Requires Serious Investment of Time and Attention, Episodes Where Nothing Happens, Bonus Features, Expensive
The Basics: Despite the expense, Carnivale - The Complete First Season is a solid first chapter in an epic story of those who fight the battles between good and evil.


I'm a big fan of serialized television that uses the medium well. Shows like Babylon 5, Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Lost that require a certain investment on the part of the viewer in order to understand the series or receive the most bang for your buck intrigue me and I find to be the most enjoyable. I'm not so much into episodic television. I like serialized; it's more adult because there are consequences for actions and decisions and it often leads to the greatest amount of character development.

Carnivale joins my collection of esteemed shows that I enjoy for their serialized nature and without having seen the second season, I will say that - despite what comes below - Carnivale is not worth the investment of your money. Everything else I write might well contradict that, but in the end, Carnivale will be one of the greatest television failures of our times. Why? It is a heavily serialized, intelligently-written show that hinges on building to its end. It was canceled after its second season. The net effect of the series will be like having the first two books in a series, but not the last four. That can only, on the overall, be a disappointment. In most analogous literary terms, it would be like having Fellowship Of The Ring without The Two Towers and The Return Of The King for The Lord Of The Rings.

What one finds on Carnivale - The Complete First Season, then, is an engaging story of good and evil in the Dustbowl in the Depression. Put simply, Carnivale is a battle of archetypes wherein Samson, a dwarf who runs the traveling carnival, tells the viewer the story of the end of the Age of Magic in the United States.

When Ben Hawkins buries his mother, he is on the run from the law and in deep denial of himself. As a child he exhibited a power to heal that was supernatural and was ridiculed by his mother for it. Hawkins is picked up by a traveling carnival that is passing through as he buries his mother. Samson, who runs the show, learns from Management that Hawkins is expected and is told to take him on the road with the show. Hawkins finds himself in the company of psychics, blind mentalists, bearded women, Siamese twins, snake charmers, strippers and working class folk who assemble and run the carnival rides. As he learns about them and forms relationships, he slowly comes to accept and learn about his gift and what it means.

Meanwhile, in California, the preacher Brother Justin begins to discover his own powers, which begin in the form of disturbing nightmares. He takes over an abandoned bordello and makes it into a ministry for migrant workers and orphans with his sister, Iris Crowe. However, tragedy soon befalls the ministry and Brother Justin finds himself in a moral freefall as he begins to utilize his own talents under the guise of being a man of god.

Carnivale is a clever collection of intriguing, eclectic characters who are moving slowly toward a battle between good and evil. Despite the series' density and use of imagery and metaphor to keep the story interesting and dense, the concept is quite simple. This is the first chapter or volume in a story about an incredible battle between good and evil. And as a series, it works for that.

The problem is that much of the first season is spent establishing the imagery, mythology and ground rules of the "universe" that Carnivale is embodying. So, as individual episodes, Carnivale is hit or miss. In fact, the show is an episodic failure; there are episodes where nothing happens. We do not learn anything new about any of the characters, they do not form new relationships, have new dreams nor change in any meaningful ways. Instead, we simply experience what they are going through. So, for example, in "Insomnia," almost nothing happens to any of the characters and all we truly witness is Ben Hawkins fighting off sleep for an hour. And Brother Justin leaves where he is. It's possible to watch the other eleven episodes of the season and lose nothing by not seeing "Insomnia." Does it aid the mood? Yes. Is it indispensable? No.

And that's the rub of this whole experience. It's an expensive boxed set. For 12 episodes, the average price is in the $90 range. That's a lot of money, an obscene amount for a tease. As far as bonuses, Carnivale - The Complete First Season is a dud. One of the three commentaries (on "Hot and Bothered) is almost devoid of commentary and the only other bonus is a featurette on the making of the show. At least with Babylon 5, for the same amount of money, one gets a full season (22 episodes), a lot of bonus features and the promise that the story will continue to its planned conclusion. HBO missed a huge opportunity with Carnivale; despite the expense of making the episodes and the expense of the boxed set DVDs, finishing the series as a DVD exclusive series could only have benefited the concept.

In order to truly understand what HBO is scuttling, one needs to understand the characters of Carnivale. They include:

Ben Hawkins - A young man who realizes he has a gift for healing people simply by channeling energies from what has life to what lacks it. He finds himself conflicted, barely surviving nightmares that plague him, and desperate to understand himself, his gift and his past,

Samson - The face of the carnival, he effectively runs the show by executing the wishes of the mysterious Management. When Hawkins shows up, he finds himself in a battle with Lodz for control of the carnival,

Jonesy - An ex-baseball player, Jonesy works the rides at the carnival, befriending Hawkins as he tries to understand the young man. He soon finds himself drifting from his attraction for Sophie for a fling with another man's wife,

Ruthie - The snake-charmer, she soon takes an interest in Ben that is not as maternal as their age difference might suggest,

Sofie - The voice of the catatonic prognosticator Apollonia, Sofie has an initial attraction for Ben that is soon redirected in the most unlikely direction,

Rita Sue, Felix, Libby and Dora Dreifuss - The Kootch Dancers (and the man who promotes them), this odd family of strippers is strained and tested when a family tragedy and a series of infidelities overcome them,

Lila - The bearded woman, consort of Professor Lodz, she soon sees the advantages of her partnership and seeks to use it to advance her own agenda,

Professor Lodz - Blind, but with the ability to read the minds of Apollonia and Ben Hawkins, he soon finds his quest to help educate Hawkins was a way to regain the favor of Management,

Hack Scudder - The plague of Hawkins' dreams who is soon revealed to have a special connection to the boy,

Tommy Dolan - A radio personality who becomes intrigued with Brother Justin's story and interested in his sister, Iris Crowe,

Iris Crowe - A mysterious, dark and quiet support of her brother, Brother Justin who seems to understand his potential and his powers and accept them for what they are,

and Brother Justin - A man with a power to manipulate people and reality who seems to share a strange connection to Ben Hawkins.

With a cast this massive, there is little sense going through all of the performers. However, the acting in Carnivale is utterly convincing. The two main leads, Nick Stahl (Ben Hawkins) and Clancy Brown (Brother Justin) are perfect foils. Stahl instantly creates a character who one feels is out of his league and afraid of his circumstances. Brown embodies a man used to being in control who rediscovers the importance of remaining in command of himself and his surroundings.

Ultimately, Carnivale - The Complete First Season is a worthwhile, intense and moody show that is best watched from start to finish (repeatedly!) to appreciate the density, imagery and richness of the series. It is a growth piece that works best for mature audiences willing to commit to a dark tale that we instantly sense is building to something. And as far as that goes, the first season builds to an intense finale that makes the reader want to turn the page, or viewer to pop in the next disc.

It's a shame that HBO did not respect the series as much as the viewers, for while there is another volume for me to pick up (and I will), the tragedy of a work that is so painstakingly constructed but we know is not completed is that the emotional investment will ultimately be for naught.

For other wonderful debut seasons, please check out my reviews of:
True Blood – Season 1
V – Season 1
The Big Bang Theory – Season 1

7/10

For other television boxed set reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |

Carnivale - Seasons 1 & 2: More Than The Sum Of Its Parts!

The Good: Intriguing characters, Good story, Great acting, Costumes, Sets, Concept!
The Bad: Incomplete story, Lighter on DVD extras than I'd like for the price, No spacesaving benefits
The Basics: An excellent series, killed before its time, Carnivale - The Complete Seasons 1 & 2 is a worthwhile set for anyone who loves great supernatural dramas!


Every now and then there comes along a series that is ideally watched on DVD. Some - few - go the other way, like the second season of The X-Files where Scully's absence is somewhat glossed over without weeks in between her abduction and return. There are some shows that need to breathe and let time pass to actually have an emotional resonance with the viewer.

Then there are the shows like Carnivale where sitting and watching the episodes back to back to back to back makes for a much more solid viewing experience than watching episode by episode with a break in between. The reason for this is very simple: this is a heavily serialized show that takes risks and is largely telling one big, overwhelming story. As a result, to sit and attempt to describe some of the episodes is likely to leave the viewer or reviewer frustrated. After all, "Ben falls down a mine shaft and encounters the word 'Avatar'" or "Ben gets a knife from his crazy grandmother" hardly makes for an intriguing plot description that makes one want to tune in. Instead, episodes of Carnivale often are not so big on what happens in each episode as what direction the episode is headed in. The result is a series that is ideal to take in as almost one massive movie. The series builds upon itself quite well and characters continually reference things . . . but I get ahead of myself.

The Carnivale - Seasons 1 and 2 multipack is essentially the complete series of Carnivale, at least for now (I'm still lobbying for a movie to cap off the series!). This is a simply bundle pack of Carnivale Season 1 and Carnivale Season 2. There are no additional discs or features in this pack. In fact, there is no saving space either as this multipack is simply the two previously released boxed sets shrink-wrapped together.

What one finds in Carnivale then, is an engaging story of good and evil in the Dustbowl in the Depression. Put simply, Carnivale is a battle of archetypes wherein Samson, a dwarf who runs the traveling carnival, tells the viewer the story of the end of the Age of Magic in the United States.

In the first season, Ben Hawkins buries his mother and is on the run from the law and in deep denial of himself. As a child he exhibited a power to heal that was supernatural and was ridiculed by his mother for it. Hawkins is picked up by a traveling carnival that is passing through as he buries his mother. Samson, who runs the show, learns from Management that Hawkins is expected and is told to take him on the road with the show. Hawkins finds himself in the company of psychics, blind mentalists, bearded women, Siamese twins, snake charmers, strippers and working class folk who assemble and run the carnival rides. As he learns about them and forms relationships, he slowly comes to accept and learn about his gift and what it means.

Meanwhile, in California, the preacher Brother Justin begins to discover his own powers, which begin in the form of disturbing nightmares. He takes over an abandoned bordello and makes it into a ministry for migrant workers and orphans with his sister, Iris Crowe. However, tragedy soon befalls the ministry and Brother Justin finds himself in a moral freefall as he begins to utilize his own talents under the guise of being a man of god.

In the second season of Carnivale, Apollonia's trailer is ablaze and Jonesy is able to rescue Sofie from her dying mother's grasp. Ben and Samson, under orders from Management, dispose of Lodz's body. Soon, though, Lila is asking questions and demanding answers, and the Carnivale leaves with Ben searching for Scudder. As Hawkins leads the traveling circus across the dustbowl, Brother Justin Crowe - guided by visions - establishes his congregation near a hillside he names New Canaan. There, he begins to compel his followers to converge, including a small army of criminals and Reverend Norman Balthus, who is recovering from his stroke that he suffered upon seeing Justin's true nature.

As the Carnivale folks fall apart with infighting and suspicion, Brother Justin summons a killer named Varlyn Stroud to find Scudder. Stroud quickly discovers that Hawkins is on the same quest and begins to use brutal means to insure that he will get to Scudder before Hawkins (including burning another traveling carnival to the ground). As Hawkins comes to understand and accept his powers and the sacrifices that must be made whenever he heals someone, Brother Justin's true nature begins to become apparent to those closest to him as he sexually abuses the women in his care while his sister, Iris, waits for the right time to take him on.

Carnivale is television not for the faint of heart. As an HBO series, it is graphic, dark, depressing and demands attention. Like Lost, Carnivale is a series that is deeply involved in terms of details. Every scene is packed with visual information that forces the viewer to watch and actually pay attention. Laced with the metaphors of dreams and a pretty striking storyline of good versus evil, Carnivale starts apparently aimless, but is leading to a bloody convergence and in that regard, it satisfies perfectly.

Unfortunately, as the story's rising action continues to grow, the series ends abruptly. It turns out that Carnivale was incredibly expensive for HBO to produce, which seems strange because people pay money for the channel and those of us who refuse to shell out a ridiculous amount for these DVD boxed sets. Apparently HBOs bean counters couldn't take the long view and figure there was profit in selling more boxed sets eventually. After all, Carnivale is one of those series' that aches to be completed and it deserves more than some sort of television movie to do that.

In order to truly understand what HBO is scuttling, one needs to understand the characters of Carnivale. They include:

Ben Hawkins - A young man who realizes he has a gift for healing people simply by channeling energies from what has life to what lacks it. He finds himself conflicted, barely surviving nightmares that plague him, and desperate to understand himself, his gift and his past,

Samson - The face of the carnival, he effectively runs the show by executing the wishes of the mysterious Management. When Hawkins shows up, he finds himself in a battle with Lodz for control of the carnival,

Jonesy - An ex-baseball player, Jonesy works the rides at the carnival, befriending Hawkins as he tries to understand the young man. He soon finds himself drifting from his attraction for Sofie for a fling with another man's wife,

Ruthie - The snake-charmer, she soon takes an interest in Ben that is not as maternal as their age difference might suggest,

Sofie - The voice of the catatonic prognosticator Apollonia, Sofie has an initial attraction for Ben that is soon redirected in the most unlikely direction,

Rita Sue, Felix, Libby and Dora Dreifuss - The Kootch Dancers (and the man who promotes them), this odd family of strippers is strained and tested when a family tragedy and a series of infidelities overcome them,

Lila - The bearded woman, consort of Professor Lodz, she soon sees the advantages of her partnership and seeks to use it to advance her own agenda,

Professor Lodz - Blind, but with the ability to read the minds of Apollonia and Ben Hawkins, he soon finds his quest to help educate Hawkins was a way to regain the favor of Management,

Hack Scudder - The plague of Hawkins' dreams who is soon revealed to have a special connection to the boy,

Tommy Dolan - A radio personality who becomes intrigued with Brother Justin's story and interested in his sister, Iris Crowe,

Iris Crowe - A mysterious, dark and quiet support of her brother, Brother Justin who seems to understand his potential and his powers and accept them for what they are,

and Brother Justin - A man with a power to manipulate people and reality who seems to share a strange connection to Ben Hawkins.

Part of the reason the show is so consistently great is in the acting. While there is a pretty impressive ensemble cast consisting of Amy Madigan (Iris), Michael J. Anderson (Samson), Adrienne Barbeau (Ruthie), and Clea DuVall (Sofie), the show essentially hinges on the performances of Clancy Brown and Nick Stahl. Clancy Brown played the first season of Carnivale in such a way that the viewer was left wondering just how much Brother Justin actually knew about himself and that worked. In that first season, he plays Justin with a remarkable ambiguity that keeps the viewer guessing up until the end. In the second season, Brown opens Justin up with a much more menacing sense of physical presence. Brown is able to sneer and smirk and convey a quietly brewing evil that makes his character far more rich than most villains on television and despite how despicable his character becomes, he remains a pleasure to watch.

But it is Nick Stahl who rocks much of Carnivale. Perhaps best known for his role as John Connor in Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines, Stahl is given the difficult task of portraying a hero reluctant to be heroic. He pulls it off wonderfully, slowly developing Ben into a man who stands straighter and actually is able to articulate thoughts and feelings. He develops well from the slouching, mumbling Ben in the first season and as Ben grows, Stahl is able to build upon the character with his performance and it works.

On DVD, Carnivale contains six commentary tracks spread over the two seasons (I wished for even more, but alas, this is what we have). They are informative, but do not give away nearly as much information as many of us would have liked given that the series ends abruptly. As well, there was a decent featurette from the Museum Of Television And Radio with some of the cast and a documentary on the apocalyptic nature of much of Carnivale's storyline. The bonus features are good and about as plentiful as one would expect from an HBO DVD feature.

Ultimately, Carnivale is a worthwhile, intense and moody show that is best watched from start to finish (which is not a Herculean task as there are only twenty-six episodes) to appreciate the density, imagery and richness of the series. It is a growth piece that works best for mature audiences willing to commit to a dark tale that we instantly sense is building to something. It's a shame that HBO did not respect the series as much as the viewers; the tragedy of a work that is so painstakingly constructed but we know is not completed is that the emotional investment will ultimately be for naught.

For other series' by HBO, please check out my reviews of:
Six Feet Under
True Blood – Season 1

7.5/10

For other television season reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |