Entries tagged with “Kings” from Things You Don't Care About
If you haven't heard of this show, it's NBC's latest attempt at something ambitious that will probably be canceled within a month - a modern-day retelling of the story of the Biblical David (of David and Goliath), starring Ian McShane (of Lovejoy and Deadwood fame) and Chris Egan (of nothing I've ever seen). Set in the fictional Kingdom of Gilboa, the show appears to take place in an alternate universe of some sort, which the show is dropping hints about slowly as it goes on.
If you know me, you probably know alternate universe sort of stuff pushes a lot of my buttons, and so far, Kings has been doing a good job of putting things together, with a lot of tantalizing leads dangled out there. I've enjoyed the first two episodes; the writing is pretty good so far, though considerably more theatrical than say The West Wing, which is the closest comparison I can really make. Considering the subject though, that seems somewhat appropriate.
The religious stuff has, so far at least, been pretty subtle -- another bit I like. David, protected by divine favor, is basically just really lucky so far, though there is one moment in the first episode where it's a bit more heavyhanded. That moment is set up well, however, and I was willing to give it a pass and just go with it. If the show sticks to this sort of thing, and doesn't try to make itself a retelling of the Biblical story with the serial numbers filed off and instead uses that as a general idea and goes in its own direction, I think I'll be pretty happy with it.
The show does suffer from one issue, and that is that the lead, Egan, is a bit of a weak link in the acting of the show. Considering who else is on the show, that may be forgiveable -- McShane is an acting juggernaut, Eamonn Walker and Dylan Baker are both regulars, and Brian Cox and Miguel Ferrer guest-starred this week -- but hopefully he'll grow into his role as the weeks go on.
Fortunately, they have already shot the full 13 episodes of the series, so if nothing else we should get a decent miniseries out of it -- but I hope NBC gives it a chance to survive. I encourage you to watch if it sounds at all interesting -- you can find all the episodes here on Hulu.
If you know me, you probably know alternate universe sort of stuff pushes a lot of my buttons, and so far, Kings has been doing a good job of putting things together, with a lot of tantalizing leads dangled out there. I've enjoyed the first two episodes; the writing is pretty good so far, though considerably more theatrical than say The West Wing, which is the closest comparison I can really make. Considering the subject though, that seems somewhat appropriate.
The religious stuff has, so far at least, been pretty subtle -- another bit I like. David, protected by divine favor, is basically just really lucky so far, though there is one moment in the first episode where it's a bit more heavyhanded. That moment is set up well, however, and I was willing to give it a pass and just go with it. If the show sticks to this sort of thing, and doesn't try to make itself a retelling of the Biblical story with the serial numbers filed off and instead uses that as a general idea and goes in its own direction, I think I'll be pretty happy with it.
The show does suffer from one issue, and that is that the lead, Egan, is a bit of a weak link in the acting of the show. Considering who else is on the show, that may be forgiveable -- McShane is an acting juggernaut, Eamonn Walker and Dylan Baker are both regulars, and Brian Cox and Miguel Ferrer guest-starred this week -- but hopefully he'll grow into his role as the weeks go on.
Fortunately, they have already shot the full 13 episodes of the series, so if nothing else we should get a decent miniseries out of it -- but I hope NBC gives it a chance to survive. I encourage you to watch if it sounds at all interesting -- you can find all the episodes here on Hulu.
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