Carnivàle (2003–2005)

created by: Daniel Knauf
directed by: Rodrigo García, Jeremy Podeswa and others
written by: Daniel Knauf, Dawn Prestwich, William Schmidt, Nicole Yorkin and others
cast: Michael J. Anderson, Adrienne Barbeau, Clancy Brown
imdb

Although being from the golden era of the HBO (Oz, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire...), Carnivàle is, with Oz, the less known of all of them, something absolutely unfair with this great series. 

Carnivàle has a wonderful (vintage) photography and original music score. The art direction is simply gorgeous. But Carnivàle is not only visually astounding, but it is also masterfully written and directed, especially when combining the everyday life with the supernatural evets.

Set during the Great Depression, it depicts the life and whereabouts of the members of a traveling carnival. All this with the background of a fight between good and evil. Both levels are wonderfully embedded.

Canivàle will take you to the Great Depression classics (The Grapes Of Wrath) but remind you also of, obviously, Tod Browning's Freaks, and Twin Peaks, not only because of the atmosphere but also because of the impressive work by Michael J. Anderson, who plays Samson, and he also became one of the most recognizable faces from Twin Peaks, playing the man of the red room. But non only him, the rest of the cast is also perfect.

The screenplay is impressively solid: depiction of characters, dialogues but also the mangement of development of the plot, that's simply gorgeous. Each Carnivàle episode tells something that makes the plot go forward; there isn't filling episodes and others full of action, which is one of the greatest criticisms that one can make to almost any television show (even some of the greatest).

I have seen only one of the two seasons of Carnivàle, and I know it was cancelled after the second season. I only hope it doesn't end abruptly. If not, and if the second season is as good as the first, Carnivàle surely stands as one of the ten (probably less) top television shows of the last twenty years.