I was totally lost watching this show so I considered it a waste of time and never bothered to watch the 2nd season.
New to Carnivale
- Thread starter Mr Light
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Fix that. The source material is infinitely superior to the poorly-adapted film. The comic is more of a refined character study than a stupid "Whodunnit?".
^^^Well, yes, knowing the good guys are going to win does rather decrease the excitement. Movies like Raiders or Star Wars don't get people invested by their suspense over the ending---they get them hooked by the plausibility of the FX or by nostalgia or by being wildly imaginative or by making the morality of the story a recreationally easy black and white.
^^ Currently watching the final season of The Shield, and I honestly haven't got a clue how that's going to pan out! 
There are always ways around predictable outcomes anyway. Enterprise and The Sarah Connor Chronicles are two examples of shows where we already know the future history, yet both came up with ways to circumvent that knowledge.
I don't think that this affected Carnivale too much to be honest. Certainly not from my perspective. Yes, I was sure that the apocalypse would be averted, but I had no idea how.
There are always ways around predictable outcomes anyway. Enterprise and The Sarah Connor Chronicles are two examples of shows where we already know the future history, yet both came up with ways to circumvent that knowledge.
I don't think that this affected Carnivale too much to be honest. Certainly not from my perspective. Yes, I was sure that the apocalypse would be averted, but I had no idea how.
OK, maybe I should have said 99% of shows, rather than implying you only have a 1% chance of not being sure of how the show will end.^^ Currently watching the final season of The Shield, and I honestly haven't got a clue how that's going to pan out!
There are always ways around predictable outcomes anyway. Enterprise and The Sarah Connor Chronicles are two examples of shows where we already know the future history, yet both came up with ways to circumvent that knowledge.
I don't think that this affected Carnivale too much to be honest. Certainly not from my perspective. Yes, I was sure that the apocalypse would be averted, but I had no idea how.
^I know, but reading back what I said I realised that I didn't exactly say what I meant.
But I agree with what you were saying, I don't think knowing something will happen is all that important when you don't know how and why it will unfold that way.
But I agree with what you were saying, I don't think knowing something will happen is all that important when you don't know how and why it will unfold that way.
I should finish the series today, I'm halfway through the penultimate episode. These final six are definitely excellent stories and I'm anxious to see how it ends, though I still think the first season wasn't very good.
I was really surprised when all of a sudden Scudder starts using all his superpowers to escape Justin's camp. I was assuming he didn't have any powers at this point since he hadn't used them at all till now... why didn't he use them to escape Stroud earlier? Was he drugged the entire time?
Also, Justin being Sofie's father was surprising to me as well. Maybe I don't remember the pilot well, but I thought that Justin was a good little priest before he started getting his evil-flashes in the pilot? Why was he raping Apollonia?
I was also thrown when Ben healed Jonesy's gimp leg. Somehow I never managed to connect those two things, that he had a bad leg and Ben could have healed it. Too bad he didn't do it earlier. Hell, he could have snuck up behind him, coldcocked him, then dragged him out into the desert to heal it, and Jonesy would never have known it was him.
I was really surprised when all of a sudden Scudder starts using all his superpowers to escape Justin's camp. I was assuming he didn't have any powers at this point since he hadn't used them at all till now... why didn't he use them to escape Stroud earlier? Was he drugged the entire time?
Also, Justin being Sofie's father was surprising to me as well. Maybe I don't remember the pilot well, but I thought that Justin was a good little priest before he started getting his evil-flashes in the pilot? Why was he raping Apollonia?
I was also thrown when Ben healed Jonesy's gimp leg. Somehow I never managed to connect those two things, that he had a bad leg and Ben could have healed it. Too bad he didn't do it earlier. Hell, he could have snuck up behind him, coldcocked him, then dragged him out into the desert to heal it, and Jonesy would never have known it was him.
OK, I'm done! Good ending. I thought it gave pretty good closure. Ben killed Justin, who was then reborn inside Sophie his secret daughter. This was a nice little twist I didn't see coming. As the one DVD feature I watched explained, this is why Apollonia has been harassing and tormenting her dear daughter; to drive her to suicide so she can't become the devil! Yikes. The ending with the gang going after Justin was satisfying, I liked the tactic of sticking him up in the ferris wheel to neutralize him.
The only real hanging question I felt was what the hell is the deal with naked scamping Lodz possessing the snake lady to have relations with the bearded lady. By which I mean, how come he gets to live on after death?
One dumb question, if Ben and Justin, by killing Management and Scudder respectively, got the blue blood invincibility, why can they kill each other? Is it that they're invincible from everyone but each other? Or is it that magical dagger? And why was Justin only vulnerable at that specfic point on his chest tattoo?
The only real hanging question I felt was what the hell is the deal with naked scamping Lodz possessing the snake lady to have relations with the bearded lady. By which I mean, how come he gets to live on after death?
One dumb question, if Ben and Justin, by killing Management and Scudder respectively, got the blue blood invincibility, why can they kill each other? Is it that they're invincible from everyone but each other? Or is it that magical dagger? And why was Justin only vulnerable at that specfic point on his chest tattoo?
Knowing there will be a happy ending does take away a dramatic element.
It's true that it's not the only dramatic element and it's quite possible to enjoy something where you know the outcome. It's possible to enjoy historical fiction and drama, after all. But there's a reason historical fiction and drama are not that popular. Hollywood's commitment to the happy ending does tend to detract from the product. The old stereotype that European movies was partly based in the perception that unhappy endings were more acceptable.
Who says just because you avert "the apocalypse" you have a happy ending? You might have an ending that doesn't destroy the world, or an entire way of life, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's happy for the people involved, nor does it necessarily mean the outcome is still a "good" one. I mean if averting the apocalypse means dropping a nuclear bomb on another country and killing thousands of innocent people is that a happy ending?
Plus Band of Brothers and all the other war movies and TV shows, From Earth to the Moon, Apollo 13, all the political movies and biopics... yeah, I see what he means, not popular at all.
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