Kings: Pilot
Guys. If this isn't the best new TV show of 2009, then there is no justice and mercy in the world. That's how much I liked "Kings". Please, please, o' merciful lady of the airwaves, let this be a big hit so that I can watch it forever. Please let the follow-up episodes be just as good as this.
Court politics! I described it in dianora2's journal as a bit like Battlestar Galactica + The West Wing + the Bible with Ian McShane. That's basically exactly what it is.
Ian McShane! So magnificent in this role, as you knew he would be, playing gamemaster. Winging the speech on the balcony in the first scene, he grabs you by the bits and says see what I can do? I dare you not to get chills when he denies God to the preacher: he's playing perfect apostate to Josiah Bartlet. Bartlet in the mirror, the one that scared Toby Ziegler awake at night.
I was worried they would go for a fundamentalist reading and make Jonathan not gay, and then I worried they wouldn't make it explicit, but neither of those is true.
And none of the younger actors suck! I actually find David an appealing character and I didn't think I would since the role requires the sort of wide-eyed ingenue that one really only sees out of slutty young actresses that are described as 'dewy'. He makes it work, and makes you care mainly because there doesn't seem to be a false bone in his body. That must be tough work to act. In fact, I know it is: because otherwise I would never swallow 'and he fell in love with her on sight' without question, but here I absolutely believed it.
How on Earth are they going to make this work? David can't actually kill Silas, because then he wouldn't be on the show anymore! And! Could they ever get to Bathsheba?
I need to watch this again.
Court politics! I described it in dianora2's journal as a bit like Battlestar Galactica + The West Wing + the Bible with Ian McShane. That's basically exactly what it is.
Ian McShane! So magnificent in this role, as you knew he would be, playing gamemaster. Winging the speech on the balcony in the first scene, he grabs you by the bits and says see what I can do? I dare you not to get chills when he denies God to the preacher: he's playing perfect apostate to Josiah Bartlet. Bartlet in the mirror, the one that scared Toby Ziegler awake at night.
I was worried they would go for a fundamentalist reading and make Jonathan not gay, and then I worried they wouldn't make it explicit, but neither of those is true.
And none of the younger actors suck! I actually find David an appealing character and I didn't think I would since the role requires the sort of wide-eyed ingenue that one really only sees out of slutty young actresses that are described as 'dewy'. He makes it work, and makes you care mainly because there doesn't seem to be a false bone in his body. That must be tough work to act. In fact, I know it is: because otherwise I would never swallow 'and he fell in love with her on sight' without question, but here I absolutely believed it.
How on Earth are they going to make this work? David can't actually kill Silas, because then he wouldn't be on the show anymore! And! Could they ever get to Bathsheba?
I need to watch this again.