After months of waiting, we finally got a look at Kings on Sunday night. It’s an ambitious undertaking, the modernizing of the story of David and Goliath. Just hearing the idea, it really sounds like it could go terribly wrong. You know, like remaking Romeo & Juliet, setting it in the porn world, and calling it Skin. Thankfully for us, this one went the other way. They’ve managed to balance the original story with the modern underpinnings in a way that makes the new locale, Gilboa, feel very real. That same twist is also applied to all the familiar characters, making for the best debut NBC has had this season.
Watching the premiere, two things really stood out to me. First, and foremost, Ian McShane is still awesome. If you loved him in Deadwood, you should tune in to Kings just to listen to him speak. That’s not to say McShane is alone in this endeavor. Dylan Baker, Susanna Thompson, and Eamonn Walker are all quite good as well. And second, the show just looks fantastic. I know that New York is standing in for Shiloh, but the added CGI gives it all an original feel. Combined with all the other small things, the flags, the King’s chamber, and the language that is just not quite our vernacular, it’s very engaging to watch.
The other fascinating part of the whole thing is the original story, and just how it is going to fit into this new telling. Clearly, some of it is coming directly onto the screen.
“And Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him and had departed from Saul.”
That’s just what we saw at the end of the premiere, with the conversation between Samuels and Silas, and Silas watching David with the butterflies. But there are parts of the story that don’t quite fit this new cast of players. For example, so far it looks like King Silas only has one daughter. That rules out the Merab/Michal shenanigans. And, given her name, probably tells us quite a bit about where Michelle and David are headed. The story also hints at quite a change from what we saw between Jack and David tonight, as well as more to come between Samuels and David. It almost becomes its own mystery, trying to piece together just how the bits from the original story will influence and shape this story.
Too much discussion of that will probably go off the rails rather quickly though, so we’ll save it for when we get a little deeper into the tale and have more to work with. For now, Kings is a very original show with a ton of potential. Whether or not it lives up to that potential, only time will tell. It’s certainly good enough at this point to stick around and find out.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Mar 16, 2009 @ 11:01 EST5EDT
Overall I liked the premiere alot. The butterflies over his head at the end was a little cheesy, but It was ok.
I missed the first hour, but I enjoyed what I saw in the second hour. As usual with a series premiere a ton of stuff was thrown at us. Hopefully the creators can sort it all out within the context of future episodes.
Rich, You can always catch up on hulu.com
I’ve been looking forward to this premier for a long time, and after watching, I’ve got to say my thoughts are all over the place.
First, I’ll agree that there were several standout performances. I was not nearly as impressed with McShane as others were. I thought his performance was fairly pedestrian, but I realize that I’ll probably be in the minority there. However, Walker and Thompson were outstanding, as was Wes Studi as Abner. We didn’t see as much of Dylan Baker as I’d hoped, but he’s a William and Mary grad, so I’m sure he’ll do outstanding (Nope, no bias there. I swear).
After a fairly unimpressive beginning, I was also impressed with Sebastian Stan, specifically the scene on the steps with his father.
Production values were also a mixed bag. The cityscape worked, but the war zone stuff was outstanding mixed with mediocre.
The prologue was added since the script that I read. Originally the story started with Jack and Ely on the front. For the most part, I don’t think the addition worked (I enjoyed the scene with Michelle’s petition much more when we hadn’t quite made the connection that she was Silas’ daughter until mid-scene), the exception being Jack and Rev. Samuels.
I’m not as up on my biblical history to know all of the details of David, but will be following up on that soon to compare the names as Brett mentioned.
I REALLY want to like this show… I love the exploration of a variant political and religious structures, but the writing will need to catch up to the performances of the actors and other production aspects if this show is going to last.
Only partially related to the post, but since I know you have an iPhone, Dorv… If you get Amazon’s Kindle app, they have a free bible available for it, as well as some nice sci fi titles.
That being said, I agree with the rest of you. The show isn’t great out of the gate, but has a lot of potential, and I’ll keep watching. And I’m also concerned about the premiere ratings.
I used Wiki as a stop gap until I get back home. Looks like Samuel will be the source for most of what I’m looking for, eh?
*POST AUTHOR*
Yeah, Samuel adds a whole other layer to the show.
I liked it quite a bit. Perfection? No, but a nice foundation to start a series on. Too bad the ratings were not very good.