John From Cincinnati Crests And Crashes

Maybe it was the weird and misleading title. Maybe it was the utterly confusing ads that were all over New York back in June. Maybe everyone would just rather see their surfing in Blue Crush for the tenth time. Whatever it was, ‘John from Cincinnati’ has wiped out. Ridded its last wave. Paddled off into the sunset. Found a watery grave.

David Milch’s HBO show, his follow-up to the same network’s cult favorite ‘Deadwood,’ was baffling to begin with. Before it even began its viewers were scratching their heads-- the much-discussed ten seconds of silence that ended the final episode of ‘The Sopranos’ had immediately preceded it. The ten episodes that aired didn’t do much to help-- one character mysteriously levitated, another was from Ohio--or possibly Heaven, and there was lots of magical healing and mysticism to go around.

It’s not all bad news for Milch, as the Hollywood Reporter tells us, as his development deal with HBO doesn’t run out for at least another year. As for HBO, though, the exit of Tony and company has left them with a lot less wind in their sails (sorry, I couldn’t resist another maritime metaphor). Basic cable networks like TNT have gotten major buzz for their groundbreaking dramas like ‘The Closer’ and ‘Damages,’ while HBO’s only other new show, ‘Flight of the Conchords,’ hasn’t quite hit a nerve the way it really deserves to (though this might be because its audience, like everyone I know, is watching the shows online).

It’s been a weird summer for television-- no reality TV shows have been big hits, and some have been outright expensive disasters (who even remembers ‘On the Lot’?), but ‘John From Cincinnati’ probably can’t be seen as a harbinger of things to come. So weird, and so weird on its own terms, it didn’t really represent anything on TV today. Some people may have thought that was a good thing, but to them I just say, wait for ‘Lost’ to come back.