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Carnivàle
2003 · TV series · 54 min episodes · 2 seasons
Created by Daniel Knauf
Science FictionFantasyMysteryDrama
Carnivàle is an American television series set in the United States during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. In tracing the lives of two disparate groups of people, its overarching story depicts the battle between good and evil and the struggle between free will and destiny; the storyline mixes Christian theology with gnosticism and Masonic lore, particularly that of the Knights Templar.
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3 comments on Hacker News
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine was an interesting read. I was looking for a fantasy book which resembled the story of an HBO TV series I liked called Carnivale. It’s about a circus similar to Cirque du Soleil, but imbued with dark magic, which leads to some rather creepy incidents. I don’t want to spoil it too much. Here’s a link to it: https://www.amazon.com/Mechanique-Circus-Tresaulti-Genevieve-Valentine-ebook/dp/B004XT61HA
OITNB is a Netflix show, which makes my point for me.
Season 5 of The Wire was just about a decade ago, and it was abbreviated because it didn't get great ratings.
Carnivale was cancelled for low ratings after its second season. I'm not saying it's bad (it was a mess, though). I'm saying that HBO has to do more things like Carnivale, on a much faster schedule, if it's going to keep up with Netflix.
I don't buy the logic here, and I'm not sure David Sims does either; this strikes me as one of those headlines that was written by an editor, independently of the article.
For as much as anybody here likes HBO, the diagnosis Stankey (and, I think, Sims) has of it seems apt. HBO has a sterling reputation. But so what? Even today, they're no longer distinctively good; in fact, there are basic cable channels (AMC and FX) that have given HBO a run for its money.
Does anyone really believe that HBO is going to outcompete Netflix on original programming over the long run? Netflix introduces new programs like Google introduces new chat programs. It's not even an event for them. They just randomly drop them in the middle of the week, as if they don't have time even to promote them. Have you ever started an episode of Jessica Jones and had to wait 2 minutes for them to promo the next season of Mindhunter?
And that's just Netflix. Amazon will eventually figure TV out. Disney controls Hulu now. Apple is making a move into online video.
Meanwhile, after Game of Thrones ends, what's HBO got for tentpole series? Westworld? Besides the fact that it won't be airing again for 2-3 years, its renewal was not even a certainty.
I think Stankey is right. If HBO is going to be a factor long-term, a thing people pay substantial amounts of money to retain access to, it is going to have to look more like Netflix and less like a thing you pay your cable company extra for. HBO could afford lulls of a year or two taking flyers on just 1-2 new prestige series (Carnivale; Newsroom; Vinyl). But premium cable is over, everything is going to be disintermediated, and HBO will need to justify demanding $15/mo directly from people. I'm not sure it's worth that today.