Why wasn't there more than two seasons?

I just got finished watching all 24 episodes over the last few days and it's been a long time since I have enjoyed a TV show as much as this.

The way things ended, in a away brought some level of closure to a part of the story, but left so many more questions and potential for more good seasons.

CARNIVALE'S BACKSTORY & MYTHOLOGY

I. BELYAKOV

Lucius Belyakov, an Avatar of Light, remained unaware of his
abilities until the birth of his son, Justin (Alexei). A Russian
aristocrat and officer in the Czar's army, he was plagued by dreams
and premonitions of Alexei's true nature and destiny as an Avatar of
Darkness. When Alexei was two, Belykov attempted to kill him, stopped
by his wife, Plemina, and daughter, Iris.

After his wife and children fled Russia in terror, Belyakov
suffered a complete nervous breakdown and was isolated by his family
to their ancestral estate outside Minsk, tended by private nurses and
a psychiatrist.

As is common with mothers of Avatara, the final trimester of
Plemina's pregnancy saw the onset of mental illness that plagued her
for the rest of her life—in her case, chronic paranoid schizophrenia.
Her condition was exacerbated by the attack on her son and their
subsequent escape.

She indoctrinated Iris to believe that her father had an army of
assassins tracking them down with the sole intent of killing Justin.
It would fall to Iris to protect her brother and nurture him to
fulfill his destiny as a great warrior and leader of men.

Plemina brought her children to America, never staying in one
place longer than a few months, living off the proceeds from the sale
of jewelry she secreted away when they fled.

When Justin was four, the family was en-route to California when,
during a storm, a trestle was washed away and their train plunged
into a river, killing all aboard except for Justin and Iris.
Convinced the tragedy was a deliberate act by her
father's "assassins," Iris led Justin downstream through the
wilderness, careful to hide by day, hoping they would be rescued by
the "Man of God" her mother predicted would protect them.

There, they stumbled across an injured man, the only other
survivor of the train-crash. Thinking him to be one of their father's
agents (her erroneous assumption bolstered by the man's fluency in
Russian), they held him captive, questioning him to assess the threat
and proximity of his "confederates." When the man overpowered Iris
and threatened her, Justin used his incipient power to snap the man's
neck, the first and only time he asserted his will as an Avatar until
the beginning of our story in 1934. Subsequently, this traumatic
event was sublimated and forgotten by Justin, but not by Iris.

The children were later rescued by a young Methodist minister,
Rev. Norman Balthus, and raised under his care in a church orphanage.

*******************************

PART II. SCUDDER

Meanwhile, their father, Lucius Belyakov, slowly recovered from
his breakdown, piecing his former life together and returning to his
post in the army. Eventually, he received word that Plemina and his
two children had perished in a train-crash in faraway America. Never
remarrying, he devoted himself to his duties as an officer. Popular
among his men, he was one of the few commanders who weathered the
revolution, retaining a post under the Red Star of Leninist Russia,
albeit with a reduction in rank and the loss of his family's lands
and possessions.

At the commencement of WWI, while entrenched in the battlefields
of Eastern Europe, Lucius again began suffering from visions and dark
hallucinations manifested by the proximity of his spiritual nemesis,
a young American expatriate, Henry (Hack) Scudder.

A habitual petty criminal, Scudder had joined the French Foreign
Legion to escape prosecution in the United States. Expecting a post
in North Africa during a period of relative peace and prosperity,
Scudder found himself, to his horror, assigned to a unit in the
trenches of the Eastern Front. There he focused his energy on
shirking his duty, avoiding the front lines, plundering casualties
(enemy and friendly alike) and evading detection by his superiors.

Prompted by obsession, Lucius deserted his post to seek out his
enemy and kill him. As others fought the temporal war, so Lucius took
it upon himself to stalk and destroy the Dark Avatar who haunted his
dreams and visions, the man named Henry Scudder. He finally found him
cowering in a trench outside Lemsberg. As he raised his rifle, he
heard a roar and was surprised by an escaped circus-bear feeding on
the dead nearby. He was savagely attacked while Scudder made his
escape.

Stumbling through no-man's land, Scudder ran into Ernst Lodz, a
carnival-performer, searching for his bear, Bruno. The troupe had
inadvertently wandered afield and found itself flanked between
opposing armies. They made their way back to the caravan, where
Scudder stripped off his uniform and finally made good his desertion
from the Legion.

As an Avatar (even one as errant and cowardly as himself), Scudder
demonstrated a number of undeveloped supernatural abilities, among
which was the capacity to peer into other's minds and pluck their
darkest secrets. He was also able on occasion to bend others to his
will.

Lodz recognized and cultivated Scudder's talent, and they left the
troupe to travel together as a team, performing in the decadent
salons of war-torn Europe, soaking their prized marks through
chicanery and blackmail.



PART III. THE AVATARA

Meanwhile, Lucius Belyakov slowly recovered. His wounds were
terrible—the loss of both legs and an arm as well as severe
disfigurement as a result of the attack. If he had been a mere
mortal, he would've died from his injuries, but as an Avatar, he was
able to direct his formidable will and abilities toward sustaining
himself on this plane, obsessed with the righting of his failure. He
devoted himself to the study of arcane and forbidden manuscripts,
bent on learning everything he could about his true nature and
destiny.

His studies taught him that, to each generation, there was born
two Avatars (literal translation: "God made flesh"), one whose nature
was evil, the other, good. This base nature was informed—and
sometimes mitigated—by human free will.

If an Avatar was dedicated to developing and mastering his power,
he could direct it with the precision of a scalpel. Such was the case
with many of the Prophets, with Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed, with
Caligula and Vlad Dracul.

However, it was far more common for the Avatar to live in
ignorance and fear of his abilities, to never realize his potential.
Such a man would move through life, the unwitting instrument of evil
or good, depending on his nature. Great fortune or misfortune would
follow him and those he loved or touched.

Undirected, aimless, their powers would grow fallow and atrophy.
Such men often led lives of desperation and madness, haunted by
dreams and vision of a destiny denied.

Blood plays a role in the creation of an Avatar. The infamous
Borgias are but one example. The mantle usually passes from father to
first-born son. The psychic trauma of carrying such a creature to
term always resulted in severe physical or mental damage to the
mother, sometimes both, often death.

Finally, though Avatara beget Avatara, the base nature of each is
determined at random. A creature of Darkness may father a creature of
Light and vice-versa.

Whether their power is realized or unrealized, the lives of most
Avatars are short and brutal, usually ending in violence at the hands
of their fellow men. Because of their true nature, they are
recognized as "other," and this xenophobic fear often results in
their destruction. Therefore, it is not uncommon for Avatara
bloodlines to see abrupt annihilation. When this occurs, the mantle
is passed on in what appears to be random selection. A child is born
with the mark, good or evil, and a new bloodline is begun.

Like talent, the powers of an Avatar vary. Some may be able to
transmute matter, some manipulate life-force, some can see into the
souls of other men and bend them to his will, some may be able break
free of their prisons of flesh, their spirits traveling great
distances. Some manifest more than one of these abilities. And, again
like talent, the strength of an Avatar's power can be extensive or
limited. In other words, each Avatar is an individual, some strong,
some weak, some focused, some scattered.

Though their powers vary, there is one point they have in common:
all Avatars have visions of the past, present and future, sometimes
literal, sometimes symbolic. This is a plane of pure truth,
accessible by birthright to the Avatara, and, on a limited and
imperfect basis, to a few enlightened mortals through rigorous study
and practice.

A fully developed Avatar can read the entirety of man's existence,
from beginning to end, as easily as a mortal man would read a novel.
He can transmit these visions to others through dreams. Though he has
access to the whole truth, he can selectively choose, edit and twist
the content to manipulate mortals to do his bidding.

Though Avatara have access to great wisdom, all share a common
blindness: unless in close physical proximity, an Avatar cannot
detect or identify his opposite beyond sensing his existence. The
Avatar reveals himself to his opposite when he draws upon his power.
This is evidenced by physical weakening or pain and a powerful
feeling of dread, and may be accompanied by visions or dreams of the
opposing Avatar.

He can, however, detect the existence of an Avatar of like kind,
and is capable of locating him over great distances with an
astonishing degree of accuracy. When an Avatar exercises his power
his opposite can sense it, often manifesting itself as physical or
psychological distress.

The duty of the Avatar is to acknowledge and submit to his nature,
to develop his power(s) to the best of his ability and to use it to
realize his destiny as a link in the chain to mankind's Nirvana or
Armageddon.

This may involve the detection and destruction of his opposite, as
in the case of Lucius Belyakov. More often, however, it entails
inspiring others to rise up and embrace or repel the evil that is
man's true nature.


PART IV. PURSUIT

Belyakov's studies led him to realize not only what he was, but
also how thoroughly fate had compromised him. Only through an iron
will and every fiber of his Avataric powers had he survived the bear
attack. His body was a frail, misshapen cage. He was subject to the
ceaseless pull of the light beyond the veil of mortal existence. As a
man fights the inexorable current of the tide, so had he battled
death's relentless pull. And like that man, he knew that his efforts
would eventually be vain, that he would inevitably weaken and die.

Consequently, over the next decade, Belyakov was able to do little
more than track Scudder's movements. To destroy him or—more
importantly—to use him to identify any other living Avatars of
Darkness, would necessitate the assistance of another Avatar. His
predecessor (the mad monk, Rasputin), had been murdered years prior,
and Belyakov's own son was long dead. Therefore, the ascendant Avatar
would not be born by sanguinity, but by random, and his presence had
thus far not been revealed.

So it was that Belyakov, using private investigators and his
contacts in the Russian émigré community, tracked Lodz and Scudder as
they made their larcenous tour of Europe, fleecing and extorting the
rich, the famous and the well-born. Well acquainted with the arcane
arts, Lodz had trained Scudder, helping him develop his abilities as
a mentalist and healer. It didn't take him long to realize that he
and Scudder had only begun to scratch the surface. Why, after all,
play to Kings when they could be the Kings.

Meanwhile, Scudder gradually became aware of his adversary's
pursuit, suffering dreams and disturbing visions whenever Lodz drew
close. He insisted on remaining in hiding, fleeing cities just as
they were beginning to establish themselves. To quell his paranoia,
he turned to chemicals, cloaking his fearsome visions behind a thick
blanket of alcohol and morphine.

Soon, Lodz became impatient with Scudder, angry at
his "eccentricities." When Scudder finally decided to end their
partnership and flee to America, Lodz exploded. "You fool," he
roared, shaking his drunken partner like a rag-doll, "What I wouldn't
give for only a small measure of the power you possess!"

In that one heated moment, Scudder gifted Lodz with his mind-
reading ability, taking in exchange his sense of sight.

Several months later, in a dank Venetian alley, Belyakov located
the once proud, handsome Professor Lodz: blind, broken-down and
acutely absinthe-addicted. The exchange of sight for inner-sight had
forged a bond between Lodz and Scudder, a bond that gave Lodz a
unique ability: to intuitively track Scudder from afar. Lucius, in
desperate need of such a human bloodhound, promised to restore Lodz's
sight if he helped find Scudder. And so the two formed an uneasy
alliance to track down and destroy the devil who was, even at that
moment, settling into contented domestic bliss on a small Oklahoma
farm.

*****************************************

PART V. JUSTIN AND IRIS

Raised in a church orphanage, Justin demonstrated an uncanny talent
for memorizing and interpreting scripture. At 17, with the
encouragement and financial support of his surrogate parents, Rev.
Norman Balthus and his wife, Clara, he left to attend seminary in
Kansas City, MO, accompanied by his sister, Iris, who took a job in a
the typing pool at H.K. Sloan & Co, a local manufacturing concern.

In his first year, Clara Balthus was diagnosed with stomach cancer
and Iris returned to assist Norman in caring for her during her
protracted illness. Separated from his sister for the first (and
only) time in his life, depressed by his foster-mother's illness and
stressed by academic demands, Justin began skipping classes, spending
ever more time exploring the tenderloin district. There, he was
vicariously excited by the tawdry pleasures available to "sporting
men"—liquor, gambling and rampant prostitution.

Upon word of Clara Balthus' death, Justin began sampling these
pleasures himself, his brief, manic fall from grace culminating in a
month-long binge. One night, drunk, seething with anger and lonely
for company, he was drawn to a sign outside a row of tenements
advertising "Palmistry and Fortunes Told." He entered the brownstone
and there met Apollonia, a young Gypsy. Enchanted by her beauty, he
agreed to a sitting, hoping the stories he'd heard of loose Gypsy
trollops was true.

******************************


PART VI. APOLLONIA AND SOFIE

For her part, Apollonia found the seminarian attractive, flirting
with him as she drew his Tarot cards, ultimately seducing him into
her bed. An inebriated Justin later staggered out into the night,
continuing his binge until a week later—sleeping in a gutter,
battered and stripped of his valuables—he was found by his sister,
Iris. Together, they returned to California where Justin resumed his
studies at the Woolson Seminary in Oakland.

Apollonia, meanwhile, is pregnant with Justin's child. In the
final trimester, she begins suffering from hallucinations and
visions. Her health fails, and the trauma of the birth renders her
catatonic. The baby is a girl—the first female Avatar, the prophesied
Omega, the Destroyer, sometimes called the antichrist.

Apollonia names her Sofie.

She commits herself to avert her daughter's destiny. A psychic
bond was forged between mother and child during the pregnancy, and
Apollonia will use it to shield her daughter from self-knowledge. She
will build a psychic fortress around her precious child, impenetrable by evil, keeping the demons at bay with every ounce of her power.


PART VII. SCUDDER AND FLORA HAWKINS

Upon his arrival in America, Scudder had set out West, intent on
escaping the nightmare existence he left behind in Europe. He found
himself in Milfay, Oklahoma, where he met a local girl, Flora
Hawkins. The two fell in love and married, Scudder using the last of
his ill-gotten fortune to purchase a small piece of land the young
couple christened "Big Sky Farms." For an all-too-brief period,
Scudder experienced the joy of simple love and the fruits of honest
labor. Flora soon became pregnant with their first child, a boy to be
called Ben.

As is common in women who carry an Avatar to term, Flora began to
slowly lose her mind, her delusions manifesting in a twisted
obsession with Christian theology. She became convinced that her
husband was in league with Satan, and that the child she bore would,
without fervent prayer and discipline, grow up to become the
antichrist. Scudder watched helplessly as the bright, healthy, clever
woman he married slowly shriveled into a fearful, ranting hag. Again,
he turned to drink, letting their fields go untended, the crops
withering under a relentless sun.

Bad turned to worse when he began again feeling the cold shadow of
pursuit, the sickening presence of the unnamed nemesis he'd evaded in
Europe. One night, without as much as leaving a note, he fled his mad
wife and their infant son, abandoned his rotting fields to escape his
pursuer. For, indeed, Belyakov and Lodz had arrived in America, and
were even then scouring the cities and towns for a man named Scudder.

For his part, Scudder traveled aimlessly throughout the country,
misfortune hard on his heels. As he descended into chronic
alcoholism, he lost the small measure of control over his power he'd
attained under Lodz's tutelage. Tragedies, small and large, seemed to
dog anyone he came in contact with, culminating in the cave-in at the
Esmeralda Lode in Babylon, Texas, and the strange curse that lay upon
the land and those who died there.

As noted before, the Avatar in control of his power can wield it with
surgical precision while the one who lacks discipline is doomed to
discharge it with the random fury of a bomb. Such was the case with
Scudder.



PART VIII. CARNIVÁLE

Seeking the familiar anonymity afforded by the life of an
itinerant carny, Scudder joined the Hyde & Teller Company, a small
carnival working the southeastern circuit. There he came in brief
contact with Samson and a handful of our regulars, including Clayton
Jones and Possum, Lila, Ruthie and Gabriel.

After traveling under their banner as a sideshow geek for just
under a year, he sensed danger and once more fled, again for good
reason, for even then Lucius Belyakov had located him through Lodz
and was negotiating the purchase of the Hyde & Teller Company from
their owners back east.

Scudder was long-gone by the time Lodz and Belyakov arrived to
assume control of the show. Lucius assumed the title of "Management,"
shuttered inside a trailer away from prying eyes, using Lodz as a go-
between to deliver his orders to the troupe. It was an odd
arrangement to be sure, but carnies are used to such eccentricities.
Changing the name of the troupe to "Carnivále," they prospered even
as they provided a cover for Lucius to travel and pursue Scudder in
anonymity.

By now, Lucius sensed the arrival of his Ascendant with the birth
of Ben Hawkins. Never having learned to fully trust Lodz, Lucius kept
this knowledge a secret, biding his time until the boy attained
adulthood.

In the meantime, they continued their pursuit of Scudder, who they
finally located in St. Louis. Lucius dispatched Lodz and a handful of
hired thugs to apprehend him, but Lodz failed allowing Scudder to be
spirited away by agents of the Order Templar.

CARNIVALE'S BACKSTORY & MYTHOLOGY Part II

IX. THE ORDER TEMPLAR

The Templars, a fraternity of fellow travelers, are a contemporary
offshoot of an ancient order of warriormonks originally charged by
the Roman Catholic Church with locating and aiding the Avatara. At
the end of the 14th century, the order was unjustly accused en masse
of heresy, most of its members arrested, tortured and burned at the
stake. The few survivors of the inquisition went into hiding, bonding
together as a secret society, their safety assured by blood-oaths,
cemented by arcane rituals.

Over the centuries the Order Templar gradually evolved into a
Fraternal Lodge, its holy mission forgotten by all but a select few.
By the time of our story, the organization was largely a social club
devoted to "community service," its "Temples" providing its members—
mostly middle-class merchants and businessmen—with an open bar,
companionship, card-games and a welcome respite from their wives and
children.

However, there still existed in its membership an inner-circle—
powerful industrialists, politicians and intellectuals—that covertly
carried on the original mission of the Order, seeking out and
identifying latterday Avatara, ascertaining their base nature, aiding
those of Light and opposing those of Darkness. But no matter how
rich, how powerful, how enlightened, the inner circle of the Order
Templar is made up of mere men, each subject to his own ignorance and
prejudices.

Over the years, more often than not, they have failed to arrive at
a consensus, quarreling among themselves over who is and who is not
an Avatar, which is Dark and which is Light. As often as not, they
have thrown the full weight of their support behind charlatans and
pretenders and, on the rare occasions they have actually succeeded in
identifying a true Avatar, they were as likely to lend aid to those
of Darkness as those of Light.

These mistakes have haunted them over the years and, as a result,
by the beginning of the 20th Century, the inner-circle has become
over-cautious and slow to act, seriously compromising their mandate,
rendering themselves impotent and irrelevant. It was only by the
virtue of a handful of enlightened members that they located Scudder
in St. Louis. Since then, he has been imprisoned in isolation until
The Order can arrive at a consensus as to his true nature.


PART X. SAMSON

Furious that Lodz had failed, Lucius banished him from his trailer,
choosing Samson as his confidant and right hand. The partnership is far
from ideal—for his own and Samson's safety, Lucius keeps him on a need-
to-know basis, sharing precious few secrets. Despite this, over the
years, "Management" (as Samson knows him) has consistently helped the
troupe find prosperity and avoid disaster, earning Samson's absolute
dedication, discretion and loyalty.

Over the years, the Carnivále plied its trade, taking on new acts
such as Sofie and her mother, Apollonia, the Potter Twins, Gecko the
Lizard Man, The Dreifus Family, assorted sword-swallowers, fire-eaters
and giants. Samson ran the show, counseled by Management, assisted by
Jones. And embittered Lodz, the prodigal son, patiently awaited the day
when Lucius would once again recognize him as an invaluable ally and
restore him to his former position. So it was as a score of years
passed, and the day came when Management decided the time was ripe to
collect Ben Hawkins, the Ascendant Avatar of Light.


PART XI. BEN HAWKINS

As a child, Ben grew up under the care of his mentally unstable
mother, Flora, the two eking out a meager living at Big Sky Farms. At
four years of age, Ben became attached to a stray kitten. When it
died, he was inconsolable. His mother buried it in the yard and put
the boy to work. Three days later, Flora found him on the kitchen
floor, cradling the kitten's carcass. Horrified, she took it
away from him, only to find the animal had been miraculously revived.
Convinced her son was a tool of the devil, she drowned the kitten,
and from that day forward refused to touch the boy or allow him to
touch her.

Resurrecting the kitten resulted in the withering of their meager
crops. The land became dry and barren. Flora was reduced to taking in
laundry for neighbors. Mother and son lived in abject poverty, their
home little more than a shack, broiling hot in the summer, freezing
cold in the winter. Ben grew up loathed by his mother, subjected to
hateful rants from his mother punctuated by scripture-readings that
would sometimes last for days at a time.

At 16, Ben left his home in Milfay, moving to Houston, Texas,
where he fell into a life of petty theft and burglary. While there,
he befriended another young transient, Robert "Bobo" Chinaski. An
inept attempt at a bank robbery resulted in their capture and
conviction to 20 years in the state prison-farm, serving on a chain-
gang.

Ben received a visit from a former neighbor, who informed him of
his mother's plight. She had fallen into destitution and was dying
from dust-pneumonia. Unable to secure a release, he grew
uncooperative and combative toward the guards and fellow convicts.
His belligerence only served to earn him a long stretch in solitary
confinement. Focused on escape at any cost, Ben changed tactics and
toed the line, passively following the rules until he was accepted as
a "trusty" on the chain-gang, ladling water to his fellow inmates and
acting as the guards' gofer.

Ben accompanied a prison-guard, Emmett Johansson, on a run into
town to secure gravel. While on the road, Ben attacked him, forcing
him to veer the truck into a ditch. Dazed, Johansson managed to draw
his service revolver, but before he could subdue his prisoner, Ben
turned the gun on him, killing him with three shots to the abdomen.
He then made good his escape, determined to return to his family farm
to help his mother.

HBO's story was that it was too expensive. They wanted to cut the budget in half to continue.

In reality, Carnivale was produced at the agreed-upon budget. However, the second season viewership dropped off because it was shown up against the Golden Globes, the Super Bowl, and the Oscars, and the numbers didn't include people who recorded Carnivale and watched the other shows. Also, HBO spent a FORTUNE on Rome and wanted to take the money back from Carnivale. The second season was cut in length from (I think) 16 episodes to 12, which is why the last few seem a little rushed.

As others have said, the show was intended to run in 6 seasons, 3 sets of 2.

Such a rich story that never got the chance to be fully told!

People assume it was the budget, but in an interview I read on AVClub with the creator Daniel Knauf he states it was because of poor ratings, and in fact HBO were very supportive of the show during its run but couldn't justify continuing with it seeing as hardly anyone was watching it at the time.