Quint

I can't think of another show that could keep me continuously entertained until its 12th season. In fact, I can't remember another show that I could even watch for that long (except maybe The Simpsons). It's incredible how long the sitcom Two and a Half Men managed to successfully capitalize on virtually the same situations, based on a simple concept of two completely different characters living together under the same roof. With its cheeky humour, it often pushed itself to the limit of what could be afforded on prime-time television. With his relentless meta-humour, it’s not afraid to hit even the personal lives of its own actors, and it was able to cope with the firing of his main star with self-irony (ironically because he led a similarly wild life to the character he played).

Visually lavish and narratively intricate, Carnivale was HBO's first attempt at TV-fantasy, paving the way for the much better known True Blood. The series is a novel combination of Lynch's Twin Peaks, Browning's Freaks and Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Setting its fantastical plot full of mysticism and the occult in a gritty, period-accurate depiction of the 1930s United States, it strangely combines the surreal with naturalism. A series with such an elaborate mythology and evocative visuals was something unprecedented in its time – I know of no other film or series that evokes the dusty atmosphere of the arid plains of the Dust Bowl so well. But Carnivale was too bold an experiment even by the standards of HBO, which delivers more sophisticated series for a more discerning audience. A strange, provocative, complicated, slow-moving and very expensive series for television, which, like Twin Peaks, lived to see only two seasons, which is a great pity.