Carnivàle

''Carnivàle'' () 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.

''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. 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.

Episodes

The two seasons of ''Carnivàle'' take place in the Depression-era Dust Bowl between 1934 and 1935, and consist of two main plotlines that slowly converge. The first involves a young man with strange healing powers named Ben Hawkins ( Nick Stahl), who joins a traveling carnival when it passes near his home in Milfay, Oklahoma. Soon thereafter, Ben begins having surrealistic dreams and visions, which set him on the trail of a man named Henry Scudder, a drifter who crossed paths with the carnival many years before, and who apparently possessed unusual abilities similar to Ben's own.

The second plotline revolves around a Father Coughlin-esque Methodist preacher, Brother Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown), who lives with his sister Iris ( Amy Madigan) in California. He shares Ben's prophetic dreams and slowly discovers the extent of his own unearthly powers, which include bending human beings to his will and making their sins and greatest evils manifest as terrifying visions. Certain that he is doing God's work, Brother Justin fully devotes himself to his religious duties, not realizing that his ultimate nemesis Ben Hawkins and the carnival are inexorably drawing closer.

Production

Conception

Daniel Knauf conceived the initial script for the show between 1990 and 1992 when he was unsatisfied with his job as a Californian health insurance broker and hoped to become a screenwriter. He had always been interested in carnivals and noted that this subject had rarely been dramatized on film. Knauf's experiences of growing up with a disabled father who was not commonly accepted as a normal human strongly informed the story and its treatment of freaks.

Knauf named the intended feature film script ''Carnivàle'', using an unusual spelling for a more outlandish look. Knauf had plotted the story's broad strokes as well as several plot details from early on and knew the story destination until the final scene. However, the resulting 180-page long script was twice the length of a typical feature film script, and Knauf still felt that it was too short to do his story justice. He therefore shelved the screenplay as a learning experience. In the meantime, Hollywood studios rejected all but one of Knauf's other scripts, often for being "too weird."

In the mid-1990s, Knauf met a few Writers Guild TV writers who encouraged him to revise ''Carnivàle'' as a TV series. Knauf turned the script's first act into a pilot episode, but, having no contacts in the television business, he was forced to shelve the project again and return to his regular job. A few years later, after realizing that his insurance career was not working out, he decided to give his screenwriting efforts a last chance by offering the ''Carnivàle'' pilot on his website. The script was subsequently forwarded to Howard Klein by Scott Winant, a mutual friend of the two men. After several meetings and conversations, Klein felt confident that ''Carnivàle'' would make a good episodic television series that could last for many years. Klein brought it to the attention of Chris Albrecht and Carolyn Strauss of HBO, who were immediately receptive. The network deemed Knauf too inexperienced in the television business to give him full control over the budget, and appointed