As expected, HBO has confirmed that the David Milch co-created drama John from Cincinnati won’t be back for a second season.
John debuted on June 10, 2007 and told the somewhat confusing story of a mysterious young man and his affect on a community of surfers. The series premiere followed The Sopranos series finale but retained less than a third of Sopranos’ 12 million viewers. The subsequent episodes of John have averaged just 1.2 million. As a result, HBO has cancelled John after 10 episodes — the first time that the pay-per-view channel has dropped an hour-long series after a single season. The John finale aired this past Sunday and ended on a cliffhanger.
Despite Milch’s reputation, critics almost universally disliked John. It also didn’t help that many viewers resented the show before they even saw it. HBO’s pickup of John from Cincinnati was often cited as a factor in the cancellation of Milch’s popular Deadwood series.
Now that John has been cancelled, does this mean that Milch will finally get around to making the Deadwood wrap-up movies? After all, HBO execs recently indicated that Milch’s commitment to John was at least partly responsible for the movies’ stall. There may be more to the story than that.
Milch is said to be extending his present development deal with the premium cable network past 2008. He is reportedly working on a number of new projects for HBO but the Deadwood movies don’t seem to be among them. Milch is keeping mum on the subject these days and seems disinterested when he does talk about them.
In a time when HBO has lost much of its “must see” programming, it would make sense for them to make the Deadwood movies to help hold onto subscribers. But, with the likely high cost of reassembling the Deadwood cast and Milch’s seeming desire to move on, the demise of John from Cincinnati may not be enough to get them made. Stay tuned! 
JFC was quite entertaining and more interesting than the majority of crap force fed to the masses. Thank the cable series gods for Breaking Bad, Weeds, United States of Tara, Nurse Jackie. In my opinion AMC and Showtime picked up where HBO almost took us. Actual entertaining thought provoking writing and acting that is not just formulated bullSh*t. Where is HBO now? Not on my screen lately.
Well, though I am adding my comments nearly a year after the last, and nearly 4 after the show was ended, I have to say this: Deadwood, as stupendous as it was, was given an unthinking to-the-elbow a$#f*(^ing by its creator. It is clear his holiness got bored, and then got good and c%#tstruck by his new idea. No, it wasn’t network c#*ks@(kers who did this show in – it was smothered in its own f%@king crib by his holiness. No worries about his viewers and cast and crew – he’s run the f@#k off and was busy h%@ping the… Read more »
Glad I didn’t waste time watching JFC. Got it from the library this weekend. A show that is so peppered with **** this and **** that it was really difficult to listen to. A story line that meandered and was truly awful. Watched the first three episodes, no more. The only entertaining character was the bird.
Big & Huge, that is how great of a mistake that this ill-fated decision really is? From a writer/actor’s point of view I haven’t seen such a paranormally character-driven dynamic that compounds the power of suggestion and segregates the captive audience into every charecter’s emotionally unbalanced acceptance to witnessing phenomenon in Force’s revealed and at work on a higher plain, despite the motives or intentions that the charecters posessed! This would have been a rock solid platform for progressing the story’s absolute draw to intellectual and philisophical viewers. I couldn’t get enough of investigating every clue to john’s communications, powers,… Read more »
I agree completely with Carol about loving John From Cinci despite its confusion! Its craziness is what made it so captivating and this is coming from somenone who spends her life seeking peace in all areas so for me, it was an odd show but mesmerizing nonetheless. By the way, Betty P. Miller, I think you’re a piece of crap to judge a show that you never saw! Dumbass. If you can’t make intelligent comments based on informed opinions, make none at all. I can understand your ire again Milch but I personally enjoyed JFC and thought Deadwood sucked, and… Read more »
I hated the very idea of JFC!! I hated that I had to lose my beloved Deadwood for that JFC piece of crap!! I never saw it and I’m glad it bombed. Because of what he did to Deadwood, I hope everything Milch does turns to crap!
JFC was the most entertaining and thought provoking show I’ve seen in years. That none of us understood it just made it that more fun !