News > HBO tests waters with surfing drama
October 23, 2006
Content taken from TV.com:
HBO has given a series order to Deadwood creator David Milch's surfing drama, John From Cincinnati.
After reviewing a rough cut of the pilot, the premium cable network picked up 11 episodes of the show, bringing the total order to 12 episodes, including the pilot.
John marks Milch's second consecutive series for HBO, following the recently canceled Western Deadwood.
Set in the world of Southern California surfing, John revolves around the dysfunctional Yost family of Imperial Beach and their encounter with contemporary American culture and commerce and other forces.
Milch, who wrote the pilot script with surfer novelist Kem Nunn, noted that John is set at the intersection of land and water and of two countries, the United States and Mexico.
"It is at those crossings that drama occurs, and it's not just geographical, it has to do with generations," he said. "Those are people who seem very much lost. Them finding themselves is an engaging process to watch."
Milch plunged into John right after wrapping the final season of Deadwood. While he was sad to see Deadwood go, Milch said he feels "delighted" that he will be able to wrap the stories on the dark Western in two movies, which made his transition to John much easier.
The Yost clan includes patriarch Mitch (Bruce Greenwood), a former surfing star; his aggressively unhappy wife, Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay); their drug-addicted, dissolute son, Butchie (Brian Van Holt), also a former surfing champ; and his son, Shaun (Greyson Fletcher). They find their lives disrupted by the arrival of the dim but wealthy John (Austin Nichols) from Cincinnati, a savant who has come to take surfing lessons, and Barry Cunningham (Matt Winston), who is returning to Imperial Beach to avenge a wrong done to him by the Yosts 23 years ago.
