From Cincinnati, 'John' Goes Nowhere

Austin Nichols as the mysterious title character in "John From Cincinnati." (By John P. Johnson -- Hbo Via Associated Press)

Watching "John From Cincinnati," an abstruse new drama series premiering tomorrow night on HBO, flashed me back several decades to a New York Film Festival -- in particular, to an afternoon screening of a French movie called "Celine and Julie Go Boating."

After watching Celine and Julie prattle, jabber and putter about for two hours or so, but failing to see even the slightest glimpse of a boat, I put on my coat, slipped back into my loafers and tippy-toed up the aisle toward the beckoning red sign that said "Exit."

In "John From Cincinnati," a very small band of characters mill about a tiny beachside surfing community in Southern California and mull about their plights in life and how they could be improved, or something. At least two of the characters are expert surfers, but you never saw surfers do so little surfing in your life. Not until the last 10 minutes of the show do we finally get to see some fancy wave work, and unfortunately very little about the 40 minutes that precede this refreshing footage manages to make any appreciable sense.

John, the one from Cincinnati -- he's played with a constant look of confusion by Austin Nichols -- arrives in the beach community and exhibits certain angelic properties (unearthly or otherworldly at least). He tends to repeat what other people say, and instead of getting a sock in the puss for that, the tolerant folk tend to find it cute.

Far stranger is the fact that ever since John showed up, a bitter and wrinkled old surfer dude (Greyson Fletcher) discovers that every now and then, for no apparent reason, he suddenly and mysteriously levitates several inches off the ground.

He hangs there for a short while and then returns to earth, finding this kinda weird, kinda cool and maybe even kinda groovy. It's also, however, kinda pointless, at least so far, and there's no indication how many episodes of this series will have to be watched before any of it starts making sense. Come to think of it now, "For No Apparent Reason" would be a good title for the series -- at least as good as the self-consciously precious one it has.

The sight of Rebecca De Mornay is nothing to complain about, not even when her hair looks like one of those strange substances in old sci-fi films that eventually grow so big that they threaten to take over the world (Brian Donlevy might have to be called in, as in "The Quatermass Xperiment," or perhaps a young Steve McQueen, as in "The Blob" -- two movies both more rewarding and way less pretentious than "John From etc.").

Each character tends to embody a single trait, so that the wrinkled old surfer is always grouching and kvetching about his brain tumor (he speaks of it as if it were a hangnail, so it's hard to get very concerned). Ed O'Neill -- who has put on so much weight since his days on "Married With Children" that he could play conjoined twins -- instead plays a cranky salt whose bird keels over in an early scene and then pops back to life again, another sign that John possesses and radiates unusual powers and is from somewhere other than Cincinnati, no matter what he says.

The show is from the usually provocative mind of Hollywood maverick David Milch (and associates), whose TV work has included "NYPD Blue" and, on HBO, "Deadwood." Here, he seems to be dealing not with dead wood but dead air. The first hour is so maddeningly uneventful and cryptic that as I watched, I actually began to long for the sight of Celine and Julie again, boat or no boat.

This time, though, I didn't have to tippy-toe up an aisle. Shows like "John From Cincinnati" are why the good Lord made remote-control clickers.

John From Cincinnati (one hour) debuts tomorrow night at 10 on HBO.