HBO's "Carnivale" Season 2 premiere tanks in the ratings

[nobody]

Does anyone here watch HBO's "Carnivale"?
This news about the show was taken from scifi wire:

"The Jan. 9 season premiere of Carnivale drew only 1.8 million viewers, compared with 5.3 million for the September 2003 first-season premiere, Zap2it.com reported."

I'm a huge fan of "Carnivale" but I've got mixed feelings about this "bad" news. It makes me happy in a way... assuming that the ratings drop was brought about by viewer protest.

First, it took HBO forever to deliver a second season. The first season ended in November 2003. We're just now getting new episodes in January 2005? That extra long hiatus is completely uncalled for. I know a lot of people would be quick to say, "But you want the show to be good, right? Let the writers take their time." Only I'm not buying that defense- seeing as how the first season of "Carnivale" was only 12 episodes long to begin with... I've never heard of a TV show having such a short season before. Having to write another 12 episodes for season 2 shouldn't have taken so long. And HBO should've asked for 24 episodes (an actual FULL season's worth of episodes) to begin with.

And that leads into my second (and final) complaint- for a show with only 12 one-hour long episodes, how on earth do they justify selling the DVD box set for $89? Hell, in some places it costs a lot more. I saw it in Borders bookstore for $99.99!

I really hope that the drop in ratings sends the clear message to HBO that viewers can only take so much jerking around. Perhaps this second season of "Carnivale" will be it's last...
...my wallet (and patience) can only hope "the end" is truly near.

Go Brother Justin!

[JohnL]

>I really hope that the drop in ratings sends the clear message to HBO that
>viewers can only take so much jerking around.

No, the execs will just think that people lost interest in the premise of the show. That's the only thing they can understand.

[Max Gardner]

That's a shame. Carnivale was the only thing on TV worth watching after Farscape was canned. Here's hoping the ratings pick up enough to at least merit a proper ending. I had been waiting so long for the first season to come out on DVD I'd forgotten about it. Needless to say, I was surprised to see it in the store today.

[Mr_Vindictive]

I actually never really liked Carnivale.  I watched all of the first season, but only because my wife loved it.  I could never really get into the "feel" of the show.

But then again, I'm not very fond of most series on premium channels.  About the only ones I made a point to watch were Curb Your Enthusiasm and Dead Like Me which has now been canned.

[odinn7]

"...and Dead Like Me which has now been canned."

Say again? Dead Like Me was canceled? I love that show and I've been keeping my subscription to Showtime in anticipation of the new season. Tell me I read this wrong or you made a mistake. Why the Hell didn't they say something about this on their website last month when I checked...oh, I'm so p**sed.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Odinn7,

Nope, afraid not.  Seems that the ratings for season 2 were less than satisfactory.  The last that I heard, they were not doing a 3rd season......... :(

[Mr_Vindictive]

Here's the original article from Cnn.com:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/21/television.showtime.reut/

[odinn7]

Those sons o' b***hes...Guess I'll be dropping Showtime and getting one of the other packages.

[nobody]

Taking this thread WAY far away from it's original point... hey, Max, it's always nice to meet another Farscape fan :)

...only 4 more days until the Farscape miniseries comes out on DVD!

[Mr_Vindictive]

I'm with you Nobody.  Never can find enough Farscape fans.

My wife has yet to see an episode.......

[blkrider]

I could never get into Carnivale either.  I guess I'm more used to the more traditional story-oriented shows like Oz or the Sopranos where they always had something going that kept you tuning in week after week.  Carnivale had a lot of style but I just couldn't get into the story.  I quit watching after a few weeks.  

Showtime is probably the worst of all the premium channels.  For some reason we get it for free, and it is literally the same seven or eight movies played repeatedly for weeks.  And most of the time they aren't even good movies--a lot of them are direct to video.  Occasionally they'll play something cool like THE BEAST WITHIN or BLUE SUNSHINE....that's the only thing that keeps me tuning in.  

But we don't pay for our cable so I can't complain too much.

[Phantom187]

They need to show more Henry Skutter flash backs

[Phantom187]

This show looks llike somthing out of Ray Bradberry's Head

[JohnL]

>Dead Like Me which has now been canned.

What is it with Showtime cancelling shows??? They made fans wait a year to see the rest of the episodes of Jeremiah and Odyssey 5, then they cancelled both. Now they're cancelling Dead Like Me?

Even worse, the page at TV Tome, Dead Like Me claims the cancellation has less to do with ratings than it does with the president of Showtime's opinion of the show! It says that other sources are looking at continuing the show, including the WB, however unless they also produced an uncensored version for DVD, I don't think the show would have the same spirit on a commercial-based network. Part of the show's humor, at least for me, is George's foul mouth.

This really sucks!

[odinn7]

"Part of the show's humor, at least for me, is George's foul mouth."
I hear you on that one. I don't think the show would be nearly the same if they had to clean the language up. I was so anoyed by this cancelling that I changed my Directv subscription to drop Showtime and I took Cinemax instead. Showtime doesn't have much to offer so good riddance to 'em.