‘KINGS” is a little bit “Dynasty,” a little bit Biblical, even a tad Shakespearean.
Canst thou dig it? I can.
NBC’s expensive and ambitious new drama, created by Michael Green, imagines an alternate reality – a kingdom where contemporary New York City is “Shiloh,” a wicked but charismatic king named Silas (Ian McShane) rules his dominion from glass skyscrapers and people use words like “vouchsafe” and “daresay.”
During a long, depressing war with the neighboring land of Gath, a baby-faced soldier, David Shepherd, slays a “Goliath” tank, indicating there’s something anointed about this rube. He becomes a tabloid sensation and the new face of the kingdom, especially when he makes a bold move that could finally end the endless war.
King Silas often claims that he rules by divine right – a swarm of butterflies once settled on his head, in the shape of a crown – but now the butterflies are crowning young David.
Chris Egan, a cross between Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, plays David with a surplus of innocent charm that is the perfect antidote to McShane’s broody supremacy, though the character’s halo might come to seem insufferable in future episodes.
The king carries no such risk of one-dimensionality thanks to the titanic presence of McShane. Even as the king scrambles the assassins to stop David before he becomes a threat, McShane’s bulldog swagger is irresistible.
The show has still more going for it. Secret plots point in every direction.
The queen (Susanna Thompson), who boasts that she “designed” the monarchy from the flags to the plates, pulls every string backstage, and she could form a potentially devastating alliance with the court’s corporate tool/death merchant – her brother-in-law (Dylan Baker).
Her son the prince (Sebastian Stan), an underachieving party boy, seethes at his father’s contempt and at David’s rise.
So anybody might try to destroy anybody. Throw into the mix David’s flirtation with the king’s feisty liberal daughter (a sly and radiant Allison Miller), who is forever petitioning her father for health care for the serfs, and you’ve got plenty to keep this kingdom busier than Act V of “Hamlet.”
But “Kings” may be too campy for some, not campy enough for others.
“Dynasty” didn’t weigh down its audience with a lot of allegory about, say, the moral exhaustion of the Israeli-Arab conflict. One kingdom calls a key city the Port of Prosperity; its rival says no, it’s the “Port of Sorrow,” which sounds like kind of argument you’d hear in Jerusalem today.
The show sparkles with imagination, though, as you try to figure out just how our reality differs from the kingdom’s, as you gaze upon a digitally-enhanced New York City (the king’s palace is the Apthorp building on the Upper West Side – maybe he lives in Nora Ephron’s old apartment?) that suggests the terrible mysteries of power.
McShane can command legions by floating an eyebrow. More than a few viewers will come away thinking, “I know he’s evil, but at least he knows what he’s doing.”
I’m just gonna throw it out there – Silas for king in 2012? At least we wouldn’t have to worry about any more election seasons.