Love it, need to watch it again, even with the disappointment that it remains unfinished. I found the pacing and the level of disclosure to be perfectly entertaining. Of course NOW I’ll go read the whole wiki about the rules, but I did enjoy watching the show with only some minor peeking toward the end.
I think the pacing worked for me because I was fascinated by the realistic elements as much as the supernatural arc. The lives of the carnies and their personal stories were wonderful.
It’s funny, just a couple days ago, one of my favorite lines popped into my head as I counseled my kids on parking lot safety. It makes me giggle every time I think of the one stripper sister posing as a cripple to be healed, and her explanation of her injury: “I got runned over by a thrasher.” This probably makes me a bad person.
One other thing I loved about this show was the opening credit sequence. It may have been the best one I’ve ever seen on TV.
I think it would have been interesting to see Justin’s mantle falling on Sofie, and a strong sexual attraction between Sofie and Ben. Whether Justin survived in the corn field or not, either way you could work with it.
It had the same problem as HBO’s ROME and DEADWOOD, and probably for the same reason. ROME was planned as at least 3 seasons, possibly more, and DEADWOOD was planned for a fourth season, but both shows (like CARNIVALE) after production had already begun on what was to be their final season. As a result they had to wrap up a bunch of arcs that were intended for more time. Hence, the rush-job from Ides of March to post-Actium on ROME (14 years in which characters age from 10 to 12 years of age) and historical omissions (e.g. Octavius’s daughter and Livia’s sons, both of whom were absolutely vital to Roman history for the next century), or the pointless plot about the acting troupe on DEADWOOD (it was meant to be build up to an arc that wasn’t filmed*), and the rushed final episodes of CARNIVALE.
Then, sadly, shows like Entourage and True Blood run forever.
*Also explains why Brian Cox, one of the greatest character actors in the biz, was so wasted. In the hurry-up to finish the show his character got conflated with that of John D. Rockefeller’s father (a literal snake oil salesman and charlatan for whom Milch hoped to cast Zeljko Ivanek), since his own character’s payoff-arc was dropped.
I may have to re-visit this series. I watched the first season years ago when it first came out on DVD but got put off knowing it was cancelled and never watched season two.
One scene that really creeped me out…
When they are in the trailer full of old junk there is a fetus preserved in a jar of formaldahyde (or whatever). As they are leaving the trailer one of the fetus’s eyes opens and looks around!
When they were leaving the ghost mining town and Samson looked back and saw the missing dancing girl in a window being groped by a miner ghost. You knew what her afterlife was going to be.