Kings and Sheep

New TV series, if I may have ANY interest whatsoever with the show I will record the pilot and judge whether it is worthy of taking up space on my PVR. Several nights ago I finally had the chance to sit down and watch it while doing my nails. Now when I originally watch it, I was intrigued and interested. In fact I initially gave the show my approval. The whole concept of dealing with a modern day Monarchy with real governing powers is very intriguing. However, sleep and time changes everything. Since they needed to create a fictional country with a fictional governing system with fiction wars, they needed to spend a significant amount of time on "setting" the stage so to speak. But that time was wasted on shallow political intrigue and maneuverings. The King orders an assassination of one of his advisers of 15 years because he stood before the King at the end of a meeting. They launch an offensive in their war to scare the other side into peace. They get the peace, celebrate in the streets, then their king launches another offensive to appease his financial backers.

While it is still interesting, they have gone too far. Maybe it is just because there is no western modern day monarchy to compare it to. Maybe it is because the whole premise of a monarchy is so far removed from my reality, that I cannot accept even an alternate reality where there is a monarchy. Whatever the reason, it remains, I cannot watch a TV show where the "alternate reality" isn't believable. I mean I love X-Files, Stargate and other sci-fi shows that bend the laws of reality in some pretty messed up ways, but the key is they bend those laws in accordance to the laws within the reality they have created. Imagine Stargate where one of the worlds was a cartoon world ala Roger Rabbit. It just doesn't work.

Shows that deal with a signfigant departure from our accepted reality need to put a tremdeous amount of effort into keeping it believing within their context, while also flushing out the culture and enviroment within which the show exists. Shows like Star Trek are successful because there is very little cultural crossover. Kings will ultimately die a quick death because culturally, it appears to be set in a typical, American type, present day culture. It is too close to what we have now, and a Monarchy is too far away that we struggle with merging the 2 in our mind. In order for this show to be successful, it would have to be set in the future 20 years or so. The Kingdom could then be formed out of the ashes left after an North American War that began with this economic crisis as the flash point. This allows present technology and ways of life to be preserved, while setting the stage for a Modern Monarchy that is embrolied in the intrigue involved with nation building, wars, and everything else that surrounds that.

In anycase, they have left room open to allow this enviroment to be created, if they can do that in the next couple of episodes (if they even have them) then I may continue to watch. Having said that I am fairly confident that Kings will never be a permanent fixture of my PVR.

In the mean time I will be staying tuned to this masterful series which is nothign short of captivating.....

Extreme Sheep LED