Juicy Drama

"Kings" may have been the most audacious series ever to air on television, and I ws fairly blown away by it while it was on.  I flagged, though, when it became clear the show would never (be allowed to?) last, and quit watching.  As much as I liked it; as fascinated as I was that it was ever mounted at all - I retreated in fear when I thought we would lose it, and I told myself I'd find it in my own time.

The entire thing is available on DVD for under thirty dollars, and it's on Netflix to boot.  If you are interested in the strangest soap opera since "Soap" itself - steeped in the Old Testament; filled with astounding, unusual dialogue (some of it exceptionally good, much of it beautifully-functionally declamatory ... no small portion rather badly read - even by a cast, annoying as some of them may be at times, still well chosen to their roles) ... a marvelous looking show, and a pretty amazing surprise, I would very much recommend it.

The thing is Dallas on whatever the Judeo-Christian version of a vision quest might be.  It's earnest beyond most contemporary stomachs, about G-d.  It's remarkably exploitive of Him, too.

But then ... the Old Testament itself rather was.  If we're honest.

But more than anything:  it is drama.  The most incredible, power-packed - crack-addled - drama.  Let's face it, the OT was that and then some, and we love it.



Dallas in "Gilboa" - a mythical, modern-looking kingdom, yet imbued with the most medieval aspects of an monarchy.  iPads and the finger of G-d ... salacious palace intrigue and portents and pronouncements from (Reverend) Samuel(s).

Ohhhhh ... but the drama.

My Lord, kids, this thing DARES.  It does things even J. R. might have never been scripted with.  And revels.  And excels.  This is perhaps the most astounding thing I've ever seen, not for the presence of G-d, the light casting shadows.

It's the things the camera dares to see in those shadows.  Holy cats, this is Grand Guignol.  This is unfettered.

Hell, it stars Ian McShane.  It has to be.

Every uber-angsty goth kid should be buying this.  Every drama or Bible nerd.  Everyone who ever loved Ann Baxter as Nefertiri in "The Ten Commandments" - but thought it was too understated and rife with verissimilitude.  All the addicts of those 1980s nighttime wealth-porn soaps.  (Because this is wealth-porn, every bit as much as all the rest of these things I am gushing about.)


It turns out, I missed some of the most amazing things.  I just bumped across an acre of wrinkles and reversals, only to find something enormous said to have taken place offscreen.

I'm interested to see how true that turns out to be.

I'm enjoying the ridiculousness - the SUMPTUOUS indulgence - rather immensely.  Bravo!