Archamasse t1_ja91nc8 wrote
Reply to comment by Dancingedleslie in ‘I Still Don’t Know What It Was’ An oral history of Kings, the ambitious, expensive, proudly weird drama on which NBC bet its prestige future and lost. by KalamsLongknife
Absolutely. If a streamer made this now people would go wild for it.
Such a weird, cool concept to have gotten made at all though.
For folks who haven't seen it - it's a very loose rework of the story of the biblical David's rise to kingship, set in a sort of monarchy ruled modern US-esque state. Lots of political manoeuvring and weird omens, with Ian McShane as the current king. Somebody declares war on God and means it very literally.
camwow13 t1_ja9lidl wrote
It's a weird juxtaposition of a network show with a prestige cable/streaming show.
Ambitious and unique premise, decent production values, Ian McShane acting the hell out of everything, and some really interesting plot points. Running directly into network budgets and network trope plot points. There are episodes with incredibly good and aggressively bad writing all in one.
I remember listening to the director commentary for the pilot with a few producers and Ian McShane. They recorded it for the DVDs long after the show was cancelled and wrapped. McShane said he got talked into it by the show runner because it was going to be better than typical network tv drivel. Then McShane keeps saying "should've been on cable, this was too good for a network, should not have been on a network," for the rest of the commentary haha.
Haven't read the article yet but looking forward to it. This is such an odd little known show that I never see enough discussion about.
Archamasse t1_ja9n9xy wrote
The thing that really struck me about it - and made it feel way too weird for Network tv - was that for a clearly biblically infused story, it doesn't really feel like it's trying to sell you a "message" at all. It feels like what those mythologies would feel like to the figures in them. When weird shit happens to you, personally, in the Book of Samuel or whatever, you just have to kind of roll with it, because you live in a world where God himself crowned the king you're paying tax to. It's not a fable, just matter of fact.
It's unusual, because it feels like treating the human, political bible stuff the way shows usually prefer to treat all the angels and demons stuff, or like a big Viking saga or something.
camwow13 t1_ja9pekx wrote
God in the show is extremely subtle yet omnipresent in everything. Everyone accepts it as a matter of fact, yet as a character, God rarely shows up except to tip the scales one direction or the other. He communicates entirely through prophets and signs that aren't too overt and aren't too subtle. The one episode where satan showed up was interesting too since she clearly has the power to rain down curses and make deals with the humans too.
The writing never quite reaches the point where they could adequately explore these themes though. Definitely too high concept for network television writing constraints.
Not that there are actual writing constraints besides content rules, but network TV just almost always feels like it's been tied down to be Basic AF.
dawn_chorus__ t1_jadohvg wrote
I remember back when it was cancelled people were praying that SciFi would pick it up. I think it would have been a good fit for them.
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