HBO's "Carnivale" (SPOILERS!) (1 Viewer)

[Roberto Carlo]

Excellent cast and great HD picture quality and 5.1 sound.

Some of the discreet surround effects, particularly in the midway and sideshow scenes, had me turning around to see who or what was in the house. The creaking of the rides was very spooky.

 

[Tim Markley]

I liked it and have already got my Season Pass set up on the Tivo. Creepy, weird shows like this always interest me.

 

[Andres Munoz]

What is this series about? The brief description on HBO's website didn't tell me much.

 

[Ted Lee]

i liked it enough to tivo it and keep the season pass.

are we doing spoiler tags for this thread? i hope we can just put a spoiler warning in the thread title?

a lot of character development in this one. i too wonder how the preacher is going to play into all this. what's up with his dreams coinciding with the main character (ben?)?

His mother knew this intuitively...

also, are we sure about the yin/yang thing. i did notice the flowers dying at the very end, but are we sure what the reason was.

i'm also curious as to who "the management" is. i suspect it's not going to be pretty.

twin peaks meets the stand? hmm...

 

[Ralph Summa]

 

[Lew Crippen]

At this point, I think we don’t know if he represents evil or good. And there is no reason to expect that the Mother really got it right either—though she may have.

 

[Doug Otte]

I didn't think of this discrepancy until this morning:

Why didn't the baby revive when he took it from its mother? Can he willingly turn his power on or off?


Doug

 

[Patrick Sun]

Maybe he has to be in physical contact with the skin for his power to work. The baby was wrapped up in cloth, and he made sure he handed it over to the other guy (father?) before he was tempted to do otherwise.

You have to think that breathing life into what was once dead must be a terrible burden if the cost becomes too high, or if your own mother makes you think you are demonic for having such powers.

 

[Ted Lee]

i'm pretty sure it's a conscious effort on his part. when he healed the girl's legs, you could see he focusing and concentrating on that task.

otherwise he wouldn't be able to touch people, etc.

i think with the baby, he subtetly (sp?) focused his energy on the mother, so that she would realize what was going on and willingly give up the baby.

 

[Patrick Sun]

When they flashed back to Ben resurrecting his kitty, that's when my interest in the show piqued. I thought to myself, "Oh cool, he's a healer!" But the gift has a heavy, heavy price.

In some respects, it has that "X-Men circa 1930's" feel to it.

 

[RobertW]

i dunno, i kinda like that "twin peaks crossed with freaks" description from the articles. of course, michael anderson helps in that department.

 

[Lowell_B]

I'll be another adding to the "The Stand" comparisons. It's not just the Good vs. Evil theme of the show, something about it just screamed Stephen King meets David Lynch.

An idea about "The Management": The fetus in the jar that's briefly shown during the show.


Lowell

 

[Rob Speicher]

I enjoyed it. Also, it had one of the coolest title sequences I've ever seen.

 

[Dwight Amato]

I too enjoyed the show, since I replaytv'd it I didn't get to watch it in HD, but I liked it enough that I plan on catching a repeat of it in HD. It doesn't hurt that they showed Carla Gallo's boobies either.

I have a question though: After the girl was healed the plants around her died. What I wondered about was as she was running along the street more plants in her path continued to die, suggesting it's not just the initial healing that hurts it's surroundings. Does this mean that whatever is healed will be forever 'tainted'?

 

[Patrick Sun]

I guess we won't know the full repurcussions until Ben's powers are further revealed.

If you go back and re-watch Ben's reactions to his mother's refusal of his "touch" as she lays dying on the bed, knowing that he had the power to heal her, her rebuke of him takes on a more deeper, tragic undertone towards the character of Ben who was denied an opportunity to save her, due to his mother's fear of what she thought he was (an infidel, unholy), her rejection of him.

If this happened in 1994, he'd spent the last decade in therapy, instead of running away with the carnivale.

 

[Vlad D]

I guess we won't know the full repurcussions until Ben's powers are further revealed.

I can see this being dragged out for a while, because I'm sure even Ben doesn't know the full repurcussions or the full extent of his powers.

 

[Ralph Summa]

 

[RobertW]

dwight, i don't think the two were actually supposed to be cause and effect, just a neat computerized image to show the effects of ben's power.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

My take is that Ben is the good and the preacher is the evil. We'll see.

I also think "the management" is the man upstairs, Jonathan's boss on "Highway To Heaven", Gene Hackman in "Two of a Kind". You get the idea.

 

[Roberto Carlo]

My take is that Ben is the good and the preacher is the evil. We'll see.

You may well be correct but "the earnest preacher is really the source of evil" is such a cliche at this point. In fact, the good man of the cloth is rarer on television and films than the folks in the carnivale are in real life. Still, the pilot earned a TIVO season pass, so I'll be watching.