My condolences to the staff and fans of HBO's exceedingly strange show John From Cincinnati, which was not renewed for a second season. There's a fine balance to be had between exciting mystery, and downright confusion, and apparently John couldn't toe that line enough get second digs.

[The] Cancellation marks the first time in modern era that HBO has canceled an hourlong show after its first season.

[The] Cult series, which blended supernaturalism, family drama and beach culture, earned plaudits from a small group of devoted followers.

But it remained elusive to wide auds -- numbers in many weeks only barely climbed above one million total viewers for the initial airing -- while also drawing bafflement from some critics.

Now see that's actually strange given that Showtime seemed really happy with the ratings that the third seasons of Weeds debuted to last night, and new series Californication. Weeds didn't cross the 1 million mark and David Duchovny's new series just barely scraped by with half a million. Perhaps that's the difference between Showtime original programming and HBO. I don't know what kind of ratings that Stargate: SG-1 got on Showtime before it moved, but it bounced between 1.4-1.8 million I'm pretty sure, for the broader cable audience.

Don't worry though, I'm sure John From Cincinnati will hit DVD eventually. It's practically a no-brainer for making back some of those costs.

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