HBO’s New Oddity: John from Cincinnati

June 7, 2007, by Ed Martin, The Huffington Post

” …There is no way to describe this show, which premieres Sunday after the series finale of The Sopranos, without using words like “meditative” or “contemplative” or “challenging” (or “boring”). Beyond that, I’m at a loss for words. Perhaps it’s best to let Milch explain what he’s getting at here. He appeared (along with co-executive producer and co-creator Kem Nunn) at the January Television Critics Association tour to introduce John. Here are some of his comments from that press session:

Asked about Mitch the floater and Zippy the life-restoring bird, Milch replied, “There are mystical components [to the story]. In terms of what’s going on, that’s sort of an unfolding question . . . I think that one man’s mystical is another man’s day-to-day.”

In response to a question about the themes running through the show, Milch said, “To my mind reality is a shifting and elusive condition. It redefines itself constantly . . . This is a story that takes place on the margins of things. The attempt to identify the coordinates of reality is itself a kind of problematic and conditional effort. It’s changing all the time. Where are we when we sleep? What is our sense of reality at the moment? Science now suggests to us that what has been perceived as matter for a long time is, in fact, energy. That what looks solid, in fact, is constituted in waves. That Einstein’s beautiful mathematical equations that depict the nature of reality don’t apply at certain levels. I think that’s true as well about what constitutes the natural and the supernatural. It depends on what foxhole you’re in.”

And about the analogy between surfing and faith in the show, Milch explained, “The first thing to say is I don’t have the vaguest idea about surfing in terms of having lived the experience. But by the same token, I didn’t live in Deadwood in 1876, either. You know, I’m from Buffalo, New York. There’s a wonderful parochialism freedom [coming] from [the] rust belt, not huge cities. Freud wrote an essay called “The Narcissism of Perceived Difference”. There’s a certain narcissism of perceived difference that pertains in the surfing world too, which is, if you don’t surf, impossible to understand. We used to say that in Buffalo. “If you’re not from Buffalo . . . you really don’t get it.” You say, “Well, he’s from Rochester. What can he know?” As time goes on, you come to realize what seemed to be chasms of difference that cannot be bridged turn out not even to exist.”

What all that has to do with birds, boning, bowel movements and levitation, I don’t know. What I do know is that John from Cincinnati is not the show HBO needs right now to restore it to the glory it enjoyed in recent years with The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Deadwood and Sex and the City. But who knows? Milch is nothing less than a force of nature. There’s no telling where this show is going to go.

Austin Nichols, the actor who portrays John, also appeared (along with co-stars Bruce Greenwood, Rebecca De Mornay and Brian Van Holt) on the TCA panel, and was asked by one critic “how the hell” he plays his bizarre character. “[Milch] turns me around in circles and then sends me off,” Nichols replied. “It’s mystifying.”

Viewers will relate.”