John From Cincinnati Is Terrible, But Proves HBO's Creativity

The HBO television show John from Cincinnati just ended. Nancy Franklin wrote a fine review for the New Yorker entitled "Dead in the Water". It was a long seven weeks. I am not adverse to new age, old age or any other kind of spirituality, and enjoy a good aliens or flying saucer movie (indeed, I was an X-Files fan for many years). I also enjoyed David Milch's Deadwood on HBO, which employed several of the same actors as John from Cincinnati. In general, John from Cincinnati's acting was competent except for Greyson Fletcher (Shaun Yost) who is hard to take (unless you're a pederast) and Rebecca De Mornay, whose anger quickly became monotonous.

Milch attempts something different and something creative in John from Cincinnati, and HBO and Milch deserve credit for taking risks and exercising imagination. For every home run there needs to be several strikeouts. John from Cincinnati is a strikeout both for the talented Milch and for HBO. The fact that HBO was willing to air something this bad and this different shows that its creative juices are flowing. I hope that the program's failure does not end Milch's opportunity to hit more home runs, such as his NYPD Blue and Deadwood.