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Bleak and confounding 2007 HBO TV series about the Yost family, a fictional and largely dysfunctional three-generation California surfing clan, and their paranormal out-of-town visitor. "

 might be the strangest show ever produced for American television," 

 said in its review. "An HBO drama that makes 

Created by David Milch, celebrated showrunner for HBO's 

, and presented as a Sunday night replacement for the just-wrapped 

 became being one of the most critically savaged shows of the decade, and was canceled the day after its Season One finale.

Although HBO insisted the resemblance was coincidental, the Yosts seemed to be loosely based on Herbie Fletcher's family—indeed, Herbie and wife Dibi were both consulting producers; smacked-out surfing genius Butchie Yost is an obvious stand-in for Christian Fletcher, and Grayson Fletcher [Christian's son] plays a surfer-skater prodigy on the show.

 is set in the south San Diego County town of Imperial Beach, just a few hundred yards from the US-Mexican border. Problems in the Yost family include hard drugs, marital strife, and possible incest. John materializes in the middle of all this to announce, repeatedly and in monotone, "The end is near."

 cast includes Rebecca De Mornay, Bruce Greenwood, Brian Van Holt, Luke Perry, and Ed O'Neill. Big-wave charger Keala Kennelly plays a surf shop employee. Stand-in surfers include Dan Malloy, a barely-adolescent John Florence, Shane Beschen, and Herbie Fletcher, with Brock Little as stunt coordinator.

Surf noir novelist Kem Nunn was hired as a writer, as was former SURFER editor Steve Hawk.

 at first earned a tentatively positive reception from members of the surf media, who by and large are suspicious of Hollywood's surf world renditions; an early SURFER magazine review reported with approval that "the actors speak and act like surfers, carry their boards like surfers and get in and out of the water like surfers."

The reviews from mainstream sources, however, were almost uniformly savage. 

, in a review titled "Dead in the Water," said 

 was "stunningly dull." From the Hollywood Reporter: "Watching the Yost family is only slightly more enjoyable than a root canal." Nobody seemed to understand what the show meant, least of all the show's creator. The first question host Craig Ferguson asked David Milch, when he appeared on the 

 know what it's about?" Milch danced around the question for a few moments, then confessed. "The answer is no."

As a consolation prize, everybody agreed that 

 credit sequence, filled with quick-edit surf shots old and new, was amazing. "It’s sumptuous and eerie and joyous," the 

 gushed. "It evokes exquisite pangs of nostalgia even if you’ve never set foot in southern California, [and] makes surfing look like the most beautiful and spiritually fulfilling thing you can possibly do. It is the best thing about the show by orders of magnitude."

John from Cincinnati (TV series)

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