We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming to Bring You This Special Announcement
Hola, people of earth. Welcome back to Lost & Found – the column that dares to resurrect and reappraise the cancelled television shows of yesteryear. For those who came in late, we’ve just finished watching Carnivale, HBO’s hourlong magical mystery tour of Great Depression-era America/tale of Ancient Struggle Between God and Satan.
Long story short: I liked it, and I found a great deal to write about as I watched the episodes. Carnivale definitely isn’t for everyone (if you’ve a strong aversion to incest, horror, spiritual ambiguity or molasses-paced narratives, steer clear), but its audacity, intelligence and level of craft make it well worth seeking out. You can read my musings/weekly attacks of prose diarrhea by clicking this link.
This space was supposed to contain a column focused on Carnivale‘s pitch doc, mythology, and hypothetical future. Instead, I’m pleased as punch to report that Daniel Knauf, creator, writer and co-executive producer of Carnivale, has agreed to an interview.
I’m looking forward to posing a few specific questions to him, but I’d be a fool not to ask you good folks out there to submit potential questions of your own. And so we come to another Audience Participation segment here at Lost & Found. What questions would you like me to ask Mr. Knauf?
Here’s the caveat (there’s always a caveat): in past interviews, Knauf has said that he can’t divulge too much about whatever Carnivale‘s future might have held; the show was his initial creation, but the episodes that resulted were the fruit of a collaborative process. Any future the show would have would depend, he said, on the same sort of collaboration. Seeing as that’s the case I’d like you to steer clear of questions about the show’s future and focus on the episodes that exist, and the themes/characterizations/plots/mythos that already exist. What would you like to know about them? What have you noticed, wondered about, wanted an answer to?
Post your questions in the comments section, on the boards, or @M_Morse on Twitter. I’ll select some and pose them to Knauf when we speak.
Once I’m finished I’ll post the interview along with the promised column on Carnivale‘s pitch doc, giving you double for your money (which, considering that the site is free, means you’ll get zero times two but you get the point…). I’m grateful to Daniel Knauf for agreeing to field some questions, and thanks in advance to all of you for coming up with some of them.
10 comments
Oh, this is a great opportunity–thanks so much! Here’s a question. Mr. Knauf has told fans that in Season 1, when he and Ron Moore were co-showrunners, there were occasions when they “compromised,” and he later realized it would have been better to have EITHER man’s idea for the episode play out as he’d envisioned it. Would he be willing to give us a concrete example of that?
Here’s mine: I understand that any future scenarios for the show cannot be answered because the show, outside the initial creation, was a collaborative effort. Be that as it may, has there been any thought given, or maybe even sought out at one point, for continuing the show in maybe written form? I know that other showrunners have done this in comic book form with their shows; Whedon and the show Angel, and Aronofsky with The Fountain when it initially fell apart.
I wanted to know if the series’ original pilot would ever become available for viewing, either on DVD, HBO Go, Blu-ray, etc.? It gave a considerably different take on what the show was and I think it would be interesting to see what might’ve been.
And if perhaps Dan Knauf could discuss what changes to the series’ mythology occurred from pilot to series, other than the addition of Iris Crowe and the regression of Justin’s character?
For example, Henry Scudder was originally named Thomas LeBlanc, while Lucius Belyakov was Lucius Crowe, names that suggest that Ben’s father was a prophet of light and Justin’s conversely – the prophet of darkness. Was the backstory altered considerably?
As a fan, I can answer this. Mr. Knauf hoped to bring Carnivale back in graphic novels, and one publisher wanted to do it. But HBO owns all the rights, and wouldn’t agree. Of course, we can still hope the situation may change! Mr. Knauf actually writes graphic novels; the last I knew, he and his son Charlie(?) were a team writing for the Iron Man series.
1. How would Justin’s character arc in season 2 have been different if HBO had not requested to make him more evil?
2. Did Justin in Season 1 remember raping Apollonia, or was that something he made himself forget, like the man he killed as a kid? If he did remember, were any of his actions in the first season influenced by what he did?
3. Finally, do you know if there are any plans for a future Blu-ray release?
Thanks, I loved Carnivale. It was by far the best show on television in my opinion.
Say, I’ll also risk asking more than one question! I’d like to know in what ways Season 2 would have been different if they’d been allowed the originally planned number of episodes. Was it 16? The story as presented never seemed rushed to me, though it did to some viewers.
We know Mr. Knauf wanted some standalone episodes that wouldn’t have tied in to the main story. The Evander Geddes episode–including Ben, of course–was originally meant to be one of them, and there would have been another in which Ben would meet a barnstorming pilot who’d turn out to be a ghost. Were there standalone episodes planned for Justin as well?
I remember reading at some point that Season 2 was originally intended to feature a storyline involving the scientists working on the atomic bomb. So perhaps that’s something that was dropped when the episode order was cut down… I think we also would have seen some more of Sofie’s journey after leaving the carnival, rather than just having her stay behind at the end of one ep and pop up in Justin’s living room an episode or two later.
Re: LeBlanc and Lucius Crowe… as I recall, in the backstory from the original pilot, LeBlanc was “Management” (and Ben’s father), and Lucius Crowe was actually Justin’s real name… he had been Management’s adversary, rather than Ben’s, and his daughter, Sofie, was actually intended to be Ben’s opposite.
This was changed in order to set Justin back in his evolution and make him more of a central character in the series, so Scudder was created to fill the void left by Justin’s “re-imagining.” As to why the relationships between the characters were switched around (Management becoming Justin’s father, Ben’s dad being a creature of darkness and so on), I would guess it was just to add an extra layer of intrigue to the proceedings.
I may be wrong, but I think the Thomas LeBlanc and Lucius Crowe names/characters were in a much earlier version of the story, perhaps when Knauf was imagining it as a screenplay.
I think the first HBO pilot was based on a later version. The “villain” was Justin Crowe, the backstory probably not too different from the final one. But Justin was much further along in his ministry and development as an “evil” character than in the subsequent, revised version.
As far as I know, the original episode order was 13, instead of 12. HBO gradually went away from 13-episode seasons and I distinctly recall Knauf stating in an interview they had 13 hours. The episode guides at the time listed New Canaan as episode 13, but then changed it to 12.
This actually makes sense, given that Ben’s murdering of Management, a major development that would typically go down right in the middle of a season occurs not in episode 6, but 7 in season 2.
Hey Morse… just wondering why the DK interview/pitch document analysis never materialized. I’ve read a lot of interesting stuff about the evolution of the show on message boards over the years, and I was really looking forward to reading your take on a lot of it. Anyway… hope you get around to posting it one of these days.
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