"See God Kai" [RIP John From Cincinnati]
“I don’t know Butchie, instead”,
This blog is in response to and in harmony with this. Which is in turn in response to this.
The summation of those this(es):
John From Cincinnati is cancelled.
I almost vomited when I was told that John from Cincinnati was canceled. For 10 minutes I hoped I was being fucked with. For another 10 I repeated ‘are you sure?’ several times to the person who told me. For around 30 minutes my evening/life was ruined.
I’ve recovered, but the next HBO television season is definitely void of a promising and entertaining show. I do enjoy well-done television and am always sad to see a good creative franchise disappear.
As is true and as has been said before, the show was doomed from the start. It was rather high concept, featured some unknown and somewhat hard to like actors/characters, was hard to pick up without watching from the beginning, and it always presented a hazy big picture, not answering many questions (questions that you learned to understand, through watching, were better filled in by the imagination and conjecture rather than hard plot points).
... and a rather important problem, it is a hard show to explain the jist of or sum up, or, in other words, it was hard to market. That most likely was the fatal flaw for JFC (also not of help was programming the show in the much hallowed Sunday night slot/lineup recently vacated by The Sopranos).
Cause you know… Citizen Kane’s tagline really did zing. That’s what matters… right.
Viewers do not have much patience, something the show required; viewers need some mystery gratification, something the show offered little of; and apparently the show just didn’t jibe with some viewers and critics.
It’s just kind of surprising to me that HBO allowed one of their shows to go without letting it at least flower fully in a second season. Once they choose a project, they seem to be at least somewhat generous and forgiving. Presumably John From Cincinnati cost far less than the money sink that Carnivale apparently became (another HBO show I loved and was sad to see go [also leaving the airwaves with no plot closure]), and it would be surprising if the ratings weren’t at least as good as what Carnival pulled in. Maybe they over shot with their ambitions; maybe it was truly a ratings disaster.
Who knows I’m not a marketing guru or a buzz-meter, I generally like what I like without testing general public opinion. I’m also not a lineup programmer. If I had to guess though, I’d blame those two departments with the failure of JFC, not any of the creative team.
Let’s get back to the problem, but really, the beauty of this show.
Back to ‘mystery gratification’, by this I mean pay off or at least clues given about what exactly is happening with the show’s big central question, mission, or puzzle.
The X-Files entertainingly (not that I faithfully paid too much attention, I didn’t have a DVR then) prospered for around five or six seasons (and floundered for three more) by giving seldom clues about the big mystery, “What happened to Fox Mulder’s sister?” This question being the backdrop for smaller questions such as “An Alien baby?”, etc. Granted these are far different television shows in content and format. A more modern and slightly more applicable comparison may be Lost, which week to week can offer little to no answers, but the small nibbles of information keep people interested. You think you’re getting closer; they’re feeding you more and more.
John From Cincinnati offered almost none of that.
There was superficially one big question, “Who is John Monad, what does he represent, what is he the harbinger of?” Many other questions existed, “Why does Mitch Yost float?” “Why isn’t Shaunie dead?” “Who’s that corpse, why is it moving?”, etc.
These all artfully led back to the main question, but after being confronted with confusion there is really no other question to be asked other than, “What the hell’s happening?”
The answer was, it doesn’t matter.
Give up, trust a little, life’s a journey. The show’s a look at a family’s life.
Or how I’d probably present it to you, if asked:
“It’s a million dollar television show in the ex-time slot of one of the most successful shows ever on cable television. HBO saw a good story and show in John From Cincinnati.
Watch it!”
Not that I fully trust a network, but come on.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt and entered into the viewing experience with high hopes, and, personally, I wasn’t let down.
John From Cincinnati worked, or at least it did for me, not because it was a mystery a minute, cliffhanger, what happens next kind of show. That was there, it did keep me starving for more every week, but ultimately it worked because of the family.
It worked because it was a slice of life drama, featuring a family placed against an interesting and seldom seen backdrop, surrounded by unconventional circumstance, and each character faced with a crisis of faith. I may sound like I’m over-extolling the virtues of this show, but this show had beautiful qualities, I saw them and I liked what I saw, maybe the show just didn’t work for most other people.
The main question or mystery could be answered, or put aside, by saying “it’s about god and shit” or possibly “it’s some kind of alien stuff.” That question, that mystery, however, is, in the end, irrelevant.
In the show, the town rallies around the folk heroes of the Yost Family, and in the end that’s all the show is about.
The question or mystery was intriguing and kept you guessing, but it only mattered because of who it affected.
God, Jesus, Aliens, or Cthulhu. Whatever lurked on the horizon was important only because they were affecting the Yost family and the colorful denizens of Imperial Beach. It was a great season of television, that really only flowered enough to be a great origin story.
The big picture in the character’s lives was never fully resolved or explained, but since when has anyone clearly understood life’s big picture.
“The zeroes and ones make the Word in Cass's camera”,
Davidb
This blog is in response to and in harmony with this. Which is in turn in response to this.
The summation of those this(es):
John From Cincinnati is cancelled.
I almost vomited when I was told that John from Cincinnati was canceled. For 10 minutes I hoped I was being fucked with. For another 10 I repeated ‘are you sure?’ several times to the person who told me. For around 30 minutes my evening/life was ruined.
I’ve recovered, but the next HBO television season is definitely void of a promising and entertaining show. I do enjoy well-done television and am always sad to see a good creative franchise disappear.
As is true and as has been said before, the show was doomed from the start. It was rather high concept, featured some unknown and somewhat hard to like actors/characters, was hard to pick up without watching from the beginning, and it always presented a hazy big picture, not answering many questions (questions that you learned to understand, through watching, were better filled in by the imagination and conjecture rather than hard plot points).
... and a rather important problem, it is a hard show to explain the jist of or sum up, or, in other words, it was hard to market. That most likely was the fatal flaw for JFC (also not of help was programming the show in the much hallowed Sunday night slot/lineup recently vacated by The Sopranos).
Cause you know… Citizen Kane’s tagline really did zing. That’s what matters… right.
Viewers do not have much patience, something the show required; viewers need some mystery gratification, something the show offered little of; and apparently the show just didn’t jibe with some viewers and critics.
It’s just kind of surprising to me that HBO allowed one of their shows to go without letting it at least flower fully in a second season. Once they choose a project, they seem to be at least somewhat generous and forgiving. Presumably John From Cincinnati cost far less than the money sink that Carnivale apparently became (another HBO show I loved and was sad to see go [also leaving the airwaves with no plot closure]), and it would be surprising if the ratings weren’t at least as good as what Carnival pulled in. Maybe they over shot with their ambitions; maybe it was truly a ratings disaster.
Who knows I’m not a marketing guru or a buzz-meter, I generally like what I like without testing general public opinion. I’m also not a lineup programmer. If I had to guess though, I’d blame those two departments with the failure of JFC, not any of the creative team.
Let’s get back to the problem, but really, the beauty of this show.
Back to ‘mystery gratification’, by this I mean pay off or at least clues given about what exactly is happening with the show’s big central question, mission, or puzzle.
The X-Files entertainingly (not that I faithfully paid too much attention, I didn’t have a DVR then) prospered for around five or six seasons (and floundered for three more) by giving seldom clues about the big mystery, “What happened to Fox Mulder’s sister?” This question being the backdrop for smaller questions such as “An Alien baby?”, etc. Granted these are far different television shows in content and format. A more modern and slightly more applicable comparison may be Lost, which week to week can offer little to no answers, but the small nibbles of information keep people interested. You think you’re getting closer; they’re feeding you more and more.
John From Cincinnati offered almost none of that.
There was superficially one big question, “Who is John Monad, what does he represent, what is he the harbinger of?” Many other questions existed, “Why does Mitch Yost float?” “Why isn’t Shaunie dead?” “Who’s that corpse, why is it moving?”, etc.
These all artfully led back to the main question, but after being confronted with confusion there is really no other question to be asked other than, “What the hell’s happening?”
The answer was, it doesn’t matter.
Give up, trust a little, life’s a journey. The show’s a look at a family’s life.
Or how I’d probably present it to you, if asked:
“It’s a million dollar television show in the ex-time slot of one of the most successful shows ever on cable television. HBO saw a good story and show in John From Cincinnati.
Watch it!”
Not that I fully trust a network, but come on.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt and entered into the viewing experience with high hopes, and, personally, I wasn’t let down.
John From Cincinnati worked, or at least it did for me, not because it was a mystery a minute, cliffhanger, what happens next kind of show. That was there, it did keep me starving for more every week, but ultimately it worked because of the family.
It worked because it was a slice of life drama, featuring a family placed against an interesting and seldom seen backdrop, surrounded by unconventional circumstance, and each character faced with a crisis of faith. I may sound like I’m over-extolling the virtues of this show, but this show had beautiful qualities, I saw them and I liked what I saw, maybe the show just didn’t work for most other people.
The main question or mystery could be answered, or put aside, by saying “it’s about god and shit” or possibly “it’s some kind of alien stuff.” That question, that mystery, however, is, in the end, irrelevant.
In the show, the town rallies around the folk heroes of the Yost Family, and in the end that’s all the show is about.
The question or mystery was intriguing and kept you guessing, but it only mattered because of who it affected.
God, Jesus, Aliens, or Cthulhu. Whatever lurked on the horizon was important only because they were affecting the Yost family and the colorful denizens of Imperial Beach. It was a great season of television, that really only flowered enough to be a great origin story.
The big picture in the character’s lives was never fully resolved or explained, but since when has anyone clearly understood life’s big picture.
“The zeroes and ones make the Word in Cass's camera”,
Davidb