The surf’s up

Last year, it was known as “the show they canceled ‘Deadwood’ for.” Now, some say it’s “the show that could replace ‘The Sopranos.’ ”

Expectations are running high for David Milch’s multilayered surf family saga, “John From Cincinnati,” which debuts tonight on HBO.

If the network wants to maintain its reputation for high-quality original programming, it must come up with new programs that reach the critical highs of former heavyweights “Six Feet Under” and “Sex and the City” – not to mention “The Sopranos,” which ends its eight-year run tonight just before “John” begins.

The promise of “John From Cincinnati” derives from its pedigree: The 10-part series was created from an idea by Milch (“Hill Street Blues,” “NYPD Blue” and “Deadwood”), combined with a pitch by flamboyant California surf couple Herb and Dibi Fletcher and input from surf-noir novelist Kem Nunn (“Tapping the Source,” “Tijuana Straights”).

“John” tends to follow a certain HBO formula – an unusual setting, a dysfunctional family, an unconventional narrative and enough creative rope for the executive producers to hang a masterpiece, or themselves.

In the show, the lives of the surfing Yost family start to change in paranormal ways after a mysterious, seemingly mentally challenged stranger named John Monad appears.

As the plot unfolds, characters who seem to be separate find out they’re having the same dreams. Characters surf waves of time and light along with ocean swells.

If you know that a “monad” is the smallest indivisible unit of the universe, and that John delivers lines such as “See God,” you get the picture.

During a break on the set, Milch was asked to boil down the premise of the series. His 20-minute response touched on German philosophy, Sept. 11 and physics.

At some level, he said, the show is about his own sense that all matter, “organic and inorganic,” is part of a single energy source.

“The idea of the separate identity of each individual is an illusion,” he said.

The production has been “crazy as usual” for a Milch project, according to associates. Scripts were written just before shooting began. At least two episodes remained to be shot weeks before the premiere, an unusual situation for HBO.

The series stars plenty of familiar faces.

Rebecca De Mornay (“Risky Business,” “Wedding Crashers”) and Bruce Greenwood (“I, Robot”) play the volatile, verbal grandparents Mitch and Cissy Yost.

Brian Van Holt (“Black Hawk Down”) is their son, Butchie; Ed O’Neill (“Married With Children”) plays family friend Bill; Austin Nichols (“The Day After Tomorrow,” “Deadwood”) plays supernatural stranger John.

Keala Kennelly, a professional surfer who has appeared as herself in films such as “Blue Crush” and “Step Into Liquid,” plays the fictional Kai, who has secret feelings for Butchie.

When the angry, drug-addicted Butchie starts hanging out with the mysterious John, his problems begin to dissipate.

The arc of a man, dead to the world, who starts to live again is a familiar one in Nunn’s novels – and in Milch’s life.

The 62-year-old writer/producer has described a childhood tormented by an adored surgeon father who beat him and later committed suicide. Milch says he was an alcoholic by age 12 and used heroin into his 50s.

“I was loaded every day for 30 years. I did all my work – ‘Hill Street Blues,’ ‘NYPD Blue,’ taught at Yale – when I was loaded,” he says.

“In the day, it was supposed to be hip, it wasn’t much of a problem. Then it stopped being hip.”

Milch got sober eight years ago through “God’s grace,” he says.

“To me, sobriety is taking the world as I find it,” he says. “Trying to glorify it in its complexity, its reality, its beauty, its horror, and not try to judge it.”

Beset with health problems (he has had several angioplasties), Milch says he feels time is precious. Still, he insists he won’t compromise his work by giving people easy explanations.

“I think if you put your work out there, people find a connection to it without being necessarily guided,” he says.

“If that’s (nonsense) – and I’m prepared to believe it’s 98 percent (nonsense) – it’s the lie that I want to live by.”