John from Cincinnati, the Best Show on TV

HBO's "John from Cincinnati" is the best show on television, and that's why it will probably not last.

If Fellini met Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson in a hardscrabble California beach town and they all dropped several tabs of bad acid, you'd have "John from Cincinnati." Pure brilliance.

This is obviously not the stuff that diehard "Sopranos" fans (me included) expected as the replacement series in the same timeslot, but there it was. Unfortunately for the series' very survival, it is not for the average television viewer that uses television mostly as an escape. While "The Sopranos" is a brilliantly acted and superbly written series with an easy point of entry for new viewers prior exposed to 75 years of gangster movies, "John" is a new milieu requiring thought and attention from its viewers.

Imperial Beach

It's the ass-end of the Beachboys' California Dream. I got into the characters immediately. For years, I lived in Ocean Beach, a San Diego beach town similar to Imperial Beach. I knew these people. I was and am these people.

Almost all of the show characters have crashed and burned several times in their lives. Half reside in a seedy motel by the Mexican border. The other half hang out at the only barely surviving surfboard store run by the legendary Yost surfer family.

The Characters

The plot revolves around "John", a magical savant-like innocent who suddenly emerges within this enclave of broken humans. You either get it or you don't, like Faulkner or Joyce. For most viewers, there may not be an easy point of entry.

Except for "John" and 14-year-old Shawny, the rising young surfing star of the Yost family, the characters are thorny and damaged, no one to envy.

The ensemble of incredible character actors includes the always brilliant Ed O'Neill, the ultimate scene-stealer Luis Guzman, the totally smashing Rebecca DeMornay, and Dayton Callie as a thuggish but sensitive drug dealer. Seeing O'Neill and Dayton Callie in the same scene is a thing of beauty. This alone is worth the price of admission.

Genre?

"John from Cincinnati" can't be pegged into a genre. Is it science fiction reminiscent of Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land"? Is it religious allegory? Or is it an insane world view through the eyes of drug-addled losers on one long hallucination?

Unfortunately, the average viewer needs a genre, at least that's what most network suits might think.

The Media

Most reviews from mainstream media critics, many of whom I usually respect, have been negative.

Alessandra Stanley's review in The New York Times stated that "John from Cincinnati" has "many barriers to success, and the premiere episode is almost willfully strange and unlikeable."

"Dead in the Water" is the title of Nancy Franklin's review in "The New Yorker." She said, "It's easy to be unduly disappointed and judgmental when a series isn't everything we want it to be."

To me, the above critics sound like sad "Sopranos" fans still mourning the demise of their beloved series and "John from Cincinnati" is the upstart interloper.

And Tom Shales' Washington Post review is titled "From Cincinnati, 'John' Goes Nowhere."

For me, Robert Abele, film critic for The Los Angeles Weekly, gets it. His review's opening sentence is as follows: "One of the peculiarities of TV series criticism - especially the kind intended to anticipate the debut of a show - is its goal of assessing something inherently incomplete."

My Two Cents

And this is the problem. "John from Cincinnati" is a genius novel and it can't be properly judged chapter by chapter.

My personal message to HBO: move "Entourage", an already popular (also brilliant) series, and make it the lead-in show for "John from Cincinnati." "John's" current placement in the former "Sopranos" slot does it no justice.

SOURCES:

"Something's up and it's not the surf", Alessandra Stanley, New York Times, URL: (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/arts/television/08john.html?ex=1338955200&en=260eaa57e00c1dc2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)

"Dead in the Water", Nancy Franklin, The New Yorker, URL: (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2007/06/25/070625crte_television_franklin)

"From Cincinatti, 'John' Goes Nowhere", Tom Shales, Washington Post, URL: (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/08/AR2007060802892.html)