Pilot scripts for a bunch of new shows, including Kings, Ron Moore and Michael Taylor's Virtuality, and David Milch's Last of the Ninth, and pilot drafts for Caprica and Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, are
online thanks to daet.
NBC's Kings is a retelling of the Old Testament story of King Saul and King David (supposedly the author of the book of Psalms), and the prophet of the Lord, Samuel, all set in a pseudo-contemporary kingdom called Gilboa.
Despite a pretty predictable first act, which any version of the David and Goliath tale will spoil you for, I found myself more and more caught up in the show as it went on, going beyond the bare bones of the Sunday School story, fleshing out its characters and adding its own inventions and subplots. Is it confusing, as some early reviewers said? I didn't think so, but passing knowledge of the Bible (not the books of Kings 1 and 2, funnily enough, but
Samuel 1) probably adds to the suspense - a bit like watching The Tudors and knowing what's going to happen to Henry's wives. The analogy fits in more ways than one, because Kings too is about the monarchy, religion and politics. But where the pilot truly grabbed me is the way it creates a world where prophesy and destiny (hence, a God) are accepted without comment (yet...), but where the irrational is in harmony with "real science" - chaos theory (the ever-present butterfly motif, emblem of King Silas and sign of God's blessing) and evolutionary theory. Silas has a terrific monologue about the chicken-egg paradox that is loads better than any of
Mohinder's brain-numbing speeches, and that I cannot wait to hear Ian McShane deliver. His lightly spoken words about the mother hen that accepts her more evolved offspring will grow in significance as the themes of change, competition and resistance get play out.
What also caught my interest was how heavily the show focuses on war and its effects on a nation.
TV shows about the age of terrorism-in-the-West, like 24, Spooks and Sleeper Cell, have been praised for their timeliness, but how long has it been since we've had an English-language series about a war with real relevance? Does The Unit count? (Someone who watches it might be able to tell me.) Or do we have to go back to MASH and the 1970s? If you're like me, and are of the opinion that science fiction/fantasy can hold a mirror to our present with a kind of brutal honesty that realism can't get away with (unless you're HBO), you might offer up the new Battlestar Galactica as THE best war drama on television right now. It's too early to tell, but I think Kings has the potential to be as challenging and confrontational as BSG is.
Because the conflict between Gilboa and its neighbour, Gath, can scarcely avoid being analogous of the war between the Israelites and Philistines/Palestinians, it might not be as easy for the writers of the show to sidestep questions about the politics of the show itself, as BSG's producers have done from the start, but I look forward to seeing how they'll handle it. Certain developments in the last act left me literally gasping. There is such a strong vein of anti-war sentiment and critique of the
military-industrial complex in the pilot that a part of me thinks that it can only go down-hill from here. I hope that part will be proven wrong.
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Kings premieres March 19, 2009. The show is written and executive produced by Michael Green and directed by Francis Lawrence. It stars Christopher Egan as David Shepherd, Ian McShane as King Silas Benjamin, Susanna Thompson as Queen Rose, Allison Miller as Michelle Benjamin and Sebastian Stan as Jack Benjamin. Brian Cox, Macaulay Culkin, Miguel Ferrer, Michael Stahl-David, and Leslie Bibb will guest-star in the first season, according to
Michael Ausiello.
Visit
UNNreports, a news website for the fictional country of Shiloh, with articles and video clips. There are some photos at
Seat42F.