Like a cross between TWIN PEAKS and THE GRAPES OF WRATH, HBO's acclaimed television drama CARNIVALE sets an allegorical fable about the mythic battle between good and evil against the surreal backdrop of a Depression-era traveling circus. Having lost both his farm and his mother to the 1930s Dust Bowl, prison escapee Ben Hawkins (Nick Stahl, IN THE BEDROOM) joins an itinerant carnival in a desperate bid to escape poverty, the police, and his own discomfort with his miraculous healing powers. Ben's story is juxtaposed with that of California preacher Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION), whose evangelical ministries with his sister, Iris (Amy Madigan), take on increasingly sinister overtones and hint at an eventual confrontation between himself and young Hawkins through the mysterious figure of former circus showman and WWI veteran Henry Scudder (John Savage).

As the main story arc builds to its apocalyptic showdown, the series takes dramatic detours into the daily lives of th...