HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- With elements of mystery, magic and myth, "Carnivale" takes a journey far from the intense, contemporary 21st-Century worlds of "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under" and "The Wire."

This is HBO moving into a vastly different sort of storytelling terrain.

"Carnivale" -- the serpentine odyssey of a fugitive youth with repressed supernatural talents who is taken in by a carnival traveling around the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico in the 1930s -- pitches its tent for 12 Sunday nights on HBO starting Sept. 14.

A costume drama set in the Great Depression? That's HBO's next big thing?

"For HBO, you've got to have something that's out of the ordinary, something that's worth paying for," says Chris Albrecht, chairman and CEO of HBO, who Thursday was hyping the show for a gathering of TV critics.

HBO hasn't become television's signature network for consistently adventurous, high-quality original programming by playing it safe.

The pay cable heavyweight has earned widespread critical acclaim, numerous Emmy awards and the cranky admiration of its competitors by brilliantly flouting conventional TV wisdom.

"What we try to do is look for somebody who has a strong point of view about something interesting and relatable to the human experience," says Albrecht, who was instrumental in saying yes to the extraordinary creative visions of "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under" and such quirky comedy classics as "The Larry Sanders Show" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

Frequently, television executives on the major networks flee from any series that expresses a vivid point of view.

"A lot of times in entertainment, you're afraid a point of view may alienate people," says Albrecht. "The mistake is that you're often left with something that doesn't have any depth or meaning to it."

"Carnivale" fulfills two of Albrecht's primary rules for original programming on HBO. It possesses a strong point of view. And it's way, way "out of the ordinary."

Think "Twin Peaks" meets "Freaks." Carolyn Strauss, executive vice president of HBO original programming, says the show seems "part Steinbeck, part Fellini."

"After the ultra-gritty and contemporary world of 'The Wire,' for our newest drama series, it is incredibly thrilling for us to take a big swing with an epic, magical period piece," she says.

The ambitious "Carnivale" is the surreal creative vision of Daniel Knauf, an affable, ample man with longish, prematurely white hair and a twinkle in his eye. Knauf's most prominent recent TV credit was as a writer on "Wolf Lake," a short-lived werewolf fantasy that lasted only a few episodes on CBS two years ago.

But Knauf sold HBO on his passionate, classic tale of good versus evil in which that mysterious young fugitive with the carnival (Nick Stahl, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines") is set on an apocalyptic collision course with a strange, charismatic, California preacher (Clancy Brown, "The Shawshank Redemption"), a man of the cloth on a mission from God. Or is it the devil?

In the three hours of "Carnivale" that critics have seen, Knauf and his fellow producers conjure up a visually rich social history of America during the Great Depression merged with a dreamscape morality fable.

There is also a strong theme of religion woven throughout the series. But although carnival worker Ben Hawkins (Stahl) grapples with his otherworldly power to heal people, this is not "Touched by a Carny."

"What we're talking about is hearts and minds and people trying to really gather souls," says Knauf. "And you can't do that without some sort of religious subtext."

Americans have long been familiar with mythologized portrayals of the Old West, from dime novels to John Wayne to "Lonesome Dove." But the myth-making potential of much of the 20th Century has so far been overlooked, says Knauf, adding, "I think the '30s was ripe for this kind of mythological treatment."

Will such Big Themes seem portentous or poetic?

That's for the viewers to decide starting in September.

It may be a tougher sell than instant HBO sensations like "The Sopranos" or "Sex and the City." In that respect, Albrecht is heartened by the evolution of "The Wire," the complex, downbeat Baltimore crime drama that first arrived rather quietly on HBO in the summer of 2002.

"We put 'The Wire' out there and people didn't know what to make of it the first year," says Albrecht. "But it built toward the end of the year. It got great press this second year. And now it's really building.

"Good shows take time. You have to have patience. It's not easy to have this stuff come out of the box and be great from the start."

But with HBO, great expectations are now the rule.

Everything the network touches seems to turn into television gold.

Hey, maybe Chris Albrecht made a deal with the devil. That's certainly a supernatural conspiracy theory his jealous rivals at Showtime, NBC and beyond could embrace.

Originally posted by grunter
The "auteur" in charge of "Carnivale" was responsible for that werewolf abortion "Wolf Lake."

Originally posted by RyoHazuki7
Well since I dont have HBO Ill have to wait till a dvd release and one of you poor bastards convices me that ,despite the fact that our tastes might be completley different, I need to own this dvd.