David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Getting Milched up an orifice
Here’s all you need to know about what HBO thinks about David Milch’s new series, “John from Cincinnati:”
It’s not sending out screeners of episodes, beyond the initial three, to critics.
What this means: HBO sends pretty much everything out. Every episode of every series. The last time they bailed on a show, if memory serves, it was on “Lucky Louie,” which died after its initial season under the oppressive weight of incessant critical excrement.
I was one of the very few critics who liked, for all its artful obfuscations, “John from Cincinnati.” Clearly, I might've been able to more convincingly convey to viewers the show's positives had I access to whatever it Milch was smoking when he created the show. (An aside to David: Got Milch? Just sayin’.)
The more pressing issue for Milch fans, of course, is what will become of those proposed “Deadwood” films should HBO ignominiously cancel “John From Cincinnati,” as well. HBO’s conundrum is: They want to hold on to Milch, but they don’t want to air the kind of recherché material he’s become keen on. (Arcane material only going so far, yet jettisoning “John,” to suits’ minds, automatically means no “Deadwood,” and they know they can’t boast about that.)
This sort of became apparent during HBO’s recent TV Press Tour executive session, when recently installed co-Presidents, Michael Lombardo and Richard Plepler, circumnavigated the issue of a “Deadwood” reunion:
Plepler: “We’re just finishing ‘John from Cincinnati.’ David [Milch] is, needless to say, exhausted. We haven’t had a conversation with him. It’s always been our intention to do them, but it’s complicated. We don’t have a hold on the actors anymore. But we’ll know more after we know what the future of ‘John’ is. It’s definitely something we’re interested in doing.”
Lombaro: “We have to bring back an array of actors, many of who have gone on to a variety of projects. … It’s doable. But it’s daunting.
“We haven’t talked to David since ‘John’ has wrapped. If David’s game for this and we can figure it out, we’ll figure it out. … If we pick up ‘John,’ David will have to go back to working on that immediately for next summer. … We’re in business with David Milch and we intend to be in business with David Milch for the foreseeable future.”
Pleppler: “It depends on whether or not the actors can be pulled together and whether David is fully committed to the project. … You could probably put it at 50/50.”