brian van holt

Fresh off of Deadwood (does anyone else think that left the air too soon?), David Milch and the cast presented their new surfing drama John From Cincinnati to the TCA. Most surprising was the fact that there are some mystical elements to the show ... although they weren't really elaborated on at the panel. The clips offered up contained scenes of levitation and a bird seeming to come back to life, but seeing them out of context makes us unsure to label them just yet.

Milch did get a bit esoteric though, and said that the show takes place on "the edge of the coordinates of reality." It has a vague aura of Six Feet Under around it, even though the subjects are entirely different, and I tend to like shows that aren't laid out for you in black and white.

When all that controversy was going on with Deadwood, one of the reasons that David Milch gave for the show not returning (other than the problems he was having with HBO) was that he was preparing a drama titled John From Cincinnati. Now that show is coming together quickly. Rebecca De Mornay has just been added to the cast, which includes Bruce Greenwood (she'll play his wife), Austin Nichols (he's John and he's from Cincinnati), and Brian Van Holt (from Threshold).

The HBO show is about the surfing world in southern California. Nichols is a rich guy who comes to the area to take surfing lessons, and Matt Winston plays another guy who is coming back to the area to get even with someone for something that was done wrong to him long ago.