KINGS

Everyone loves biblical stories, but can a modern retelling of David vs. Saul enrapture the same mass audience that salivates over Dancing with the Stars and CSI? A sombre political drama at best, KINGS seeks to educate us on the perils of leadership and special interest groups, with religion playing a central role.

As KINGS unfolds, King Silas is standing over the masses in the beautiful capital Shiloh, complete with a replica of Central Park and pigeons. Our monarch lovingly recounts the day where a swarm of butterflies flitted around his head and anointed him king (We get to see the little creatures in action later) and makes an inspirational speech about the rebuilding of Shiloh. However, all is not well in our powerful US-like Galboa, which has been at war with neighboring Gath for an interminable period of time and where factions are not so quietly stirring.

The young farm boy David enters the war and decisively changes the dynamics by rescuing the King's poncey son Jack and standing down a (drumroll) Goliath, a ten foot tall giant...tank. Like the rest of this show, I'm not sure if this specific reincarnation of a passage from the bible was clever or really stupid. King Silas thrusts David into the center of Galboan politics and makes him the military's press secretary. While the king is clearly a hard and complex person despite his penchant for making his children omlettes, David is simply naive and filled with goodness in his heart. The king's humanitarian and sweet daugher Michelle is attracted by David's angelic qualities (and angelic looks), setting herself up for a world of heartbreak.

King Silas doesn't really have it easy either. He hasn't done anything heroic for a while, and he's being pressured by the new kid in town, his ice-cold queen, rapacious brother-in-law, and failure of a son. Ian McShane gives a nuanced spin to the role, but it's difficult to overcome the major hurdle of the series, which is the incongruity of a monarchy in an alternate New York. In the last episode, Michelle, a modern woman with modern attitudes, mournfully tells David, "You think I'm just a stupid princess who doesn't know her place." The fantasy is too difficult to swallow. There are too many familiar elements in place that make the power structure completely ridiculous. A military dictatorship would be somewhat feasible, but an entire family brimming with kings, queens, princes, and princesses is laughable.

Despite the oversized cast, not much happens in this little kingdom. There is an awkward syncopated feel underlying the scenes, but little action. Almost everyone talks and negotiates, but few actually see action in the trenches. In a series where military positioning plays such a crucial role to the plot, there needs to be a counterbalancing action (violence). KINGS does not strive towards the purely political as in The West Wing. Rather, there is tension (or supposed to be tension) among all of our players and an undercurrent of violence that unfortunately neither builds nor expresses itself. In reality, we would prefer negotiations over bloodshed. TV demands something more of the men and women in charge.

The show also falls in its portrayal of religion, which is a very tricky topic on TV. Once again, the show tries to juxtapose old world religion and values among a complex, highly modern government and society. Given these highly 'evolved' people, religion has no place among them. Also, religion on the tube is more acceptable if it is not the cookie cutter Christian kind, which this one is. Polytheism is welcome, and even some magic-worshiping cults. In KINGS, religion simply feels like an artifact, trampled down by power struggles and the meanness of humanity. Overall, the show isn't terrible, but it does feel a bit like watching paint dry...a spectacularly strange blob of paint that can't make up its mind on where to go.