Kings: Bizarre Ingredients, Brilliant Results (New Series, Alternate Universe, US, NBC)

Watching Kings is like seeing a world-class chef combine some grody ingredients and create an amazing gourmet feast.

I had to grit my teeth and force myself to sit and watch. I’m so glad I did.

An alternate universe set in a present-day version of the biblical Book of Kings with a butterfly as the central symbol seems like a kooky idea for a network television show. I would have loved to see how the creators of Kings successfully pitched this one. Of course, there are polygamists showing over on HBO, so maybe it's a religion-fest in show biz land.

On viewing the two-hour premiere, I have to say that Kings is sweeping in just as Battlestar Galactica is swooping out. While Battlestar Galactica was sci-fi thriller, and this is an alternate universe with touches of magic realism, both series combine intelligent and immersive world-building with excellent writing and compelling acting. I do think that BSG is the ever so slightly better series, but it's only a matter of a tiny difference the size of a butterfly wing. Pushing Daisies makes magic realism work as well as it can, but the butterfly symbolism in Kings felt tacked on. But that's a minor quibble in an otherwise frakkin' awesome feature-length series premiere.

The acting is really top-notch. I raved about Ian McShane in Deadwood when that was on. What that man can do with a facial expression! For the first few scenes of Ian McShane as King Silas Benjamin, I kept hoping that he would break out into a stream of eloquent cussing. But of course, he didn’t.

Chris Egan, who looks like the result of gene-crossing Paul Newman and Matt Damon, is David Shepherd (get it, get it? groan!), a young farmer and soldier who becomes the “David” of our set piece. Luckily, he has some of the best acting chops I’ve seen in new male TV actors this year. Acting opposite Ian McShane without having your scene stolen is a pretty impressive feat.


There are many other excellent character actors in the background, although I found the rest of King Silas’s family less compelling but still quite good. The son is gay, and there is an ambivalent scene between him and his father about his identity, which is one of the son’s more interesting scenes.

I was very leery about this one, because I'm leery about any show steeped in a religious concept. I think this show is going to fight and uphill battle. I think the religious right will tune in thinking it is something it’s totally not, and tune out just as quickly, believing that it's blasphemous. The rest of us will be hinky about it and have to make and effort to look past the premise.

Alternate universes are difficult to create, and, I think, are fairly rare in network television. They can be artificially conceptual and prone to visual and situational puns. Of course, I heart that sort of thing very much. If that makes your teeth ache, then be assured that those touches mostly kept to the background.

The alternate-reality shows that I can think of are usually set in a dystopian future/near-future. Doctor Who is set in contemporary London, but it's campiness undercuts any immersive quality. Doctor Who strikes me as a show that is uncomfortable with it's own world, like the writers don't really believe that their world could have real and scary aliens — "Look we have aliens, ha ha isn't that silly?"

Kings brings something that I think is totally unique — a present-day, urban world combined with an ancient world from a religious text. This world feels completely contemporary, and, more or less, takes itself seriously. It is both utterly familiar and remotely alien, which is the goal of most alternate universes.

One of the only parts of the world that gave me pause were the military tactics. The plot and dialogue hints that technology has been held back. The sets and personal tech are bang-up-to-the-minute. The war looks like Iraq-meets-Passchendaele. I'm guessing, and this is just a guess on my part, that this is a world where nukes have not been developed, and battles are primarily fought on the ground in a tank/trench configuration, with air mostly as support or for when the action heats up.

The other thing that drew me away from the world was the “we’re doing a modern version of Shakespeare here” feeling that some of the writing and dialogue gave me. Messengers run to the king with messages written on pieces of paper, just so the king can hit them and berate them as he would have in the olden days. However, in this day and age, most people would send the bad news through cell phone or e-mail, so that felt a little artificial.

I think it’s because I have that religious background (I'm not religious now), I heard the echoes of the biblical stories and texts that the writers drew upon. In the writers’ defence, they really know and understand these passages, and they do an intelligent, non-religious reinterpretation of the book of Kings as a character study and a set piece for backroom, high-level politics. I feel like they are treating the text like it’s Homer, and not the voice of god. I really liked this approach. The writing has a very, very similar voice and diction to Deadwood.

OK, this post is getting way too long, so I just want to say: please, please watch this show. You won’t regret it.

The Listener is Not All "Aww Shucks We're Canadian". Thank Freakin' Goodness. (New Series, Supernatural, CDN, CTV/NBC)

For once, we have a Canadian supernatural show that doesn't look like CTV scrounged under the sofa cushions for a budget. The Americans even like it! NBC has picked up The Listener for their spring lineup.

If you liked Roswell, Buffy/Angel, Kyle XY and Dark Angel, you'll like The Listener.

It's about a paramedic from Toronto (although they play refreshingly coy about the setting) who can hear people's thoughts, à la Sookie Stackhouse. But this show is more like Medium (soft police procedural), and Kyle XY (soft sci-fi/YA). It's all about a young man trying to figure out how his special gift works while helping others, placing this show firmly outside the horror genre and separating it in tone, structure and subject from True Blood.

The Listener is an interesting mix of bilsdungroman, scooby doo'ing, and ESP, especially since I haven't seen Canadians do YA without trying to be all after school special meets Degrassi High. There is a pleasant lack of the irritating moral lessons lodged into most Canadian shows like an axe into a corpse. The Listener is just straight up drama-lite, attractively shot with bright colours and warm lighting. There is no Vancouver look here! Plus, did I mention Colm Feore plays his mentor?

Of course, our hero Toby Logan (no, not Colm Feore) also has a mysterious and tortured past and doesn't know much about where his powers came from, but he is going to use his powers to help the people he encounters as a paramedic. The show creators aren't pushing the boundaries of this type of story at all, but I'm just happy that CTV has done a good job of doing a straight up eye-candy-does-supernatural show. Also positive is that the lead is not a private detective, journalist, cop or boy genius.

I didn't know anything about The Listener when I started watching. I didn't even know it was Canadian until, of course, the lead said "eh" and the lead and sidekick took a break from their paramedic duties to go for a double-double (is there a hospital in Canada that doesn't have a Timmy Ho's?). So that part was a bit obvs., but you'd never guess this was Canadian from the production values, or more importantly, the casting.

This is a show with a early-twenty-something lead, Craig Olejnik, who has quirky, arty-boy good looks. My beef with most Canadian shows is that most of the male actors look like they're from small-town Ontario and have played amateur hockey since they were three. It's a perfectly fine look, but it's always the same look for every show. All you Canadians know what I'm talking about. My only other beef is that the CTV website has very little information about this show, so you'll have to troll for local listings.

I'm definitely adding this show to my regular watching lineup.