An ocean wave, many physicists will tell you, is the perfect illustration of how nature — or God, if they are adaptable physicists — holds everything together. Surfing, by extension, is our own meek attempt to manage something we know we cannot control. Atop the violent unpredictability of a wave, an absolutely precise balance of energy and resistance allows us to skim the surface, channeling the force of nature through our bodies and on to safe harbor.

So if God had a metaphorical bent and were trying to impart his plans for us, he might use surfers — as opposed to, say, politicians, clerics, or teachers — as his conduits. Make that self-hating, drug-addicted surfers — you know, just for effect.

If that doesn’t make any sense, then welcome to HBO’s messy, absorbing, and almost fatally contrived new drama “John From Cincinnati,” which makes its premiere Sunday night after the series finale of “The Sopranos” (of course, you could be watching the Tony Awards instead, but, nah …). If it does make sense, then you’re in no need of an introduction to the series’ creator, David Milch, who wrote “Hill Street Blues” and “NYPD Blue” before scoring on HBO with the beloved “Deadwood.” For his new show, Mr. Milch seems to have been charged with the task of blending the two dramatic elements that elevated HBO to the zenith of television drama: family crises and magic realism.

Tony Soprano found ducks in his pool; Mitch Yost levitates. It’s probably not a coincidence that the series HBO hopes will fill the tremendous void left by “The Sopranos” begins with a patriarch in crisis. But Mitch (Bruce Greenwood) is even less likely to turn to psychology, preferring instead to assume he has a brain tumor and leave it at that.

Imagine what a genetic splice between Frankie Avalon and the Dalai Lama would look and act like, and you might come up with Mitch, a 50-something revered exsurfer whose tranquil demeanor belies his inner rage — at the injury that ended his career 30 years ago; at his worthless, deadbeat son and the people who made him that way; at his failing marriage; and, perhaps most of all, at whatever is suddenly causing him to float two inches above the ground without warning.

Mitch’s son Butchie (a firebreathing Brian Van Holt) is perhaps even more revered than his old man, for having “changed the way people think about surfing,” according to one character. But drugs, not injury, have rescinded his godly status. Butchie spends his time either shooting heroin in a dingy motel or driving around in a vulgar mood looking for more dope. It isn’t until at least an hour into the series that he displays even the slightest redeeming quality.

Aside from revolutionizing surfing, the only worthwhile thing Butchie ever did was father Shaun Yost (Greyson Fletcher), who, at 13, is looking like he’s going to be the greatest surfer of all time. Shaun is the legal ward of his grandparents, Mitch and Sissy (a splendidly harrowed Rebecca De Mornay), and is the embodiment of the innocence that the older Yost men tossed away years ago in favor of crude self-pity. It is Mitch’s mid-life mission to see that Shaun does not wind up like Butchie.

As for John (Austin Nichols) — you know, the title character — it’s pointless to try to describe who he is, because after watching three hour-long episodes of the show, I still have no idea. What does seem clear is that when John — who appears out of nowhere, has supernatural powers, and is more likely from heaven than Cincinnati — spouts chestnuts at random moments like “the end is near” and “Mitch Yost should get back in the game,” he should be believed. What “the game” is, or what “the end” constitutes, is more mysterious.

Any one of these men (but not poor Sissy, whose youthful good looks have been ravaged by the selfloathing, in-fighting, and cruel fates that surround her) may or may not be an extension of God, or at least an instrument of His will. By virtue of their ability to walk on water (with the aid of a board), Mitch and Butchie have been deified by the surfing community, which may explain why, when taken in conjunction with the aforementioned Tao of surfing, where there are Yosts, death is not what you understand it to be and life is more a dramatization than a drama.

But to what end? Mr. Milch, a former junkie himself with a cutting eye for the compulsive itch and a poetic ear, probably has a very clear idea of where these characters are headed, and how their saga will affect the course of mankind. So don’t expect any tangential episodes exploring the marginal characters of Imperial Beach, the run-down, sunburned California village on the Mexican border where this tale unfolds. He has a plan.

That’s probably why all of the characters in “John From Cincinnati” — from the Yosts, to a neurotic attorney named Meyer Dickstein (Willie Garson); a gruff Vietnam vet (Jim Beaver) who escorts illegal aliens across the border for a modest fee; a slimy surfing promoter (Luke Perry), and a warmhearted, senile ex-cop (Ed O’Neill) who fills his apartment with birds (in cages, naturally) — feel like characters rather than human beings. Any great work of fiction will use characters to personify types and emotions, but the somber realism that has made HBO’s family dramas so touching, so approachable, is conspicuously absent from “John From Cincinnati”; each character is his own burning bush. That gives the show a scattered, uneven feeling, as if Mr. Milch is the only person who could possibly understand how it all adds up.

Nevertheless, like the “ordinary” humans who have played critical roles in religious texts throughout history, the martyrs and marauders in “John From Cincinnati,” though frequently unsavory, to say the least, are just as frequently compelling to watch. Though Mr. Milch has made it difficult to see how the residents of Imperial Beach connect to one another, he has also made it clear that the answer will have something to do with how we all connect to one another, and how that, in turn, connects us to nature in the form of the perfect wave.