Carnivàle
Carnivàle (/ˌkɑːrnɪˈvæl/)[1] is an American television series set in the United States Dust Bowl during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The series, created by Daniel Knauf, ran for two seasons between 2003 and 2005. In tracing the lives of disparate groups of people in a traveling carnival, Knauf's story combined a bleak atmosphere with elements of the surreal in portraying struggles between good and evil and between free will and destiny. The show's mythology drew upon themes and motifs from traditional Christianity and gnosticism together with Masonic lore, particularly that of the Knights Templar order.
For other uses, see Carnival (disambiguation).Carnivàle
United States
English
2
24 (list of episodes)
- Howard Klein
- Daniel Knauf
- Ronald D. Moore
46–58 minutes
September 7, 2003 –
March 27, 2005
Carnivàle was produced by HBO and aired between September 14, 2003, and March 27, 2005. Its creator, Daniel Knauf, also served as executive producer along with Ronald D. Moore and Howard Klein. Jeff Beal composed the original incidental music. Nick Stahl and Clancy Brown starred as Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin Crowe, respectively. The show was filmed in Santa Clarita, California, and nearby Southern California locations.
Early reviews praised Carnivàle for style and originality but questioned the approach and execution of the story. The first episode set an audience record for an HBO original series and drew durable ratings through the first season.[2] When the series proved unable to sustain these ratings in its second season, it was cancelled. An intended six-season run was thus cut short by four seasons.
In all, 24 episodes of Carnivàle were broadcast. In 2004, the series won five Emmys out of fifteen nominations. The show received numerous other nominations and awards between 2004 and 2006.[3]
Cancellation[edit]
At the time, HBO made their commitments for only one year at a time, a third season would have meant opening up a new two-season book in Daniel Knauf's six-year plan, including the introduction of new storylines for current and new characters, and further clarification and elaboration on the show's mythology. HBO announced that the show had been cancelled on May 11, 2005.[47] HBO's president Chris Albrecht said the network would have considered otherwise if the producers had been willing to lower the price of an episode to US$2 million; but the running costs for the sizable cast, the all-on-location shooting and the number of episodes per season were too enormous for them.[48]
The cancellation resulted in several story plot lines being unfinished, and outraged loyal viewers organized petitions and mailing drives to get the show renewed. This generated more than 50,000 emails to the network in a single weekend.[48] Show creator Daniel Knauf was unconvinced of the success of such measures, but explained that proposed alternatives like selling Carnivàle to a competing network or spinning off the story were not possible because of HBO owning Carnivàle's plot and characters. At the same time, Knauf was hopeful that, given a strong enough fan base, HBO might reconsider the show's future and allow the continuation of the show in another medium; but because of the amount of unused story material he still had, Knauf did not favor finishing the Carnivàle story with a three-hour movie.[49]
Knauf did not release a detailed run-down of intended future plots to fans, explaining that his stories are a collaboration of writers, directors and actors alike.[50] He and the producers did, however, answer a few basic details about the immediate fate of major characters who were left in near-fatal situations in the final episode of Season 2. Knauf additionally provided in-depth information regarding the underlying fictional laws of nature that the writers had not been able to fully explore in the first two seasons. June 2007 however marked the first time that a comprehensive work of detailed character backgrounds was made public. Following a fundraising auction, Knauf offered fans a so-called "Pitch Document," a summary of Carnivàle's first season. This document was originally written in 2002 and 2003 to give the writers and the studio an idea about the series' intended plot, and answered many of the show's mysteries.[40]
Marketing and merchandise[edit]
Pre-broadcast marketing[edit]
HBO reportedly invested in Carnivàle's promotion as much as for any of its primetime series launches. The series' unconventional and complex narrative made the network deviate from its traditional marketing strategies. Teaser trailers were inserted on CD-ROMs into Entertainment Weekly issues to draw attention to the show's visual quality. 30-second TV spots were aired in national syndication, cable and local avails for four weeks before the show's premiere instead of the usual seven days. The historical context of Carnivàle was deliberately emphasized in the show's print art, which depicted the 17-member cast surrounding a carnival truck. This image was accompanied by a tagline of the show's good versus evil theme: "Into each generation is born a creature of light and a creature of darkness." These measures were hoped to be backed up by positive critical reviews. To give ratings an initial boost, HBO placed the premiere of Carnivàle directly after the series finale of the successful Sex and the City. The series continued to receive extensive online advertisement for almost its entire run.[51]
Games[edit]
Personalized and interactive online games inspired by tarot divination were created for Carnivàle's internet presence.[51] The official HBO website collaborated with RealNetworks to offer FATE: The Carnivàle Game, a downloadable game made available for trial and for purchase.[52][53]
DVDs[edit]
Carnivàle: The Complete First Season was released as a widescreen six-disc Region 1 DVD box set on December 7, 2004,[34] one month before the premiere of the second season. It was distributed by HBO Home Video and contained three audio commentaries and a behind-the-scenes featurette. The outer slipcover of the Region 1 set was made of a thick cardboard to mimic a bound book. The same set was released with less elaborate packaging in Region 2 on March 7, 2005,[54] and in Region 4 on May 11, 2005.[55]
Carnivàle: The Complete Second Season was released as a widescreen six-disc Region 1 DVD box set on July 18, 2006,[36] in Region 2 on August 7, 2006,[56] and in Region 4 on October 4, 2006.[57] Each of these releases was distributed by HBO Home Video and contained three audio commentaries, on-stage interviews of the cast and producers, a featurette about the mythology of the series, and four short "Creating the Scene" segments about the concept, inspiration and execution process.[36]
Reception[edit]
Ratings[edit]
Carnivàle aired on HBO on a Sunday 9:00 pm timeslot during its two-season run between 2003 and 2005. "Milfay", Carnivàle's pilot episode, drew 5.3 million viewers for its premiere on September 14, 2003. This marked the best ever debut for an HBO original series at the time, caused in part by the established HBO series Sex and the City being Carnivàle's lead-in. This record was broken on March 21, 2004, by HBO series Deadwood, which debuted with 5.8 million viewers as the lead-out of The Sopranos.[2][58]
Viewership dropped to 3.49 million for Carnivàle's second episode but remained stable for the remainder of the season. The final episode of season one finished with 3.5 million viewers on November 30, 2003. Season one averaged 3.54 million viewers and a household rating of 2.41.[4]
Viewership for the second-season premiere on January 9, 2005, was down by two-thirds to 1.81 million.[59] The ratings never recovered to their first-season highs, although the season two finale experienced an upswing with 2.40 million viewers on March 27, 2005. Season 2 averaged 1.7 million viewers, not enough to avert an imminent cancellation.[60]
Lawsuit[edit]
On June 9, 2005, a lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California by Los Angeles writer Jeff Bergquist. He claimed that the creators of Carnivàle did not originate the idea for the show, but rather stole it from his unpublished novel Beulah, a quirky drama set amid a traveling carnival during the Depression that Bergquist had been working on since the 1980s. Bergquist sought both monetary damages and an injunction preventing HBO from distributing or airing Carnivàle any further. HBO and Daniel Knauf denied the claims of copyright infringement as having "absolutely no merit."[82]
