Kings (American TV series)

Kings
Kings title card
Genre	Serial drama
Created by	Michael Green
Starring	Christopher Egan Ian McShane Allison Miller Susanna Thompson Macaulay Culkin Sebastian Stan Eamonn Walker Dylan Baker Wes Studi
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	2
Production
Executive producers	Michael Green Francis Lawrence Erwin Stoff
Producers	Erik Oleson (supervisor/consulting) Barry M. Berg (producer) Margot Lulick (producer) Kate Gordon (associate producer) Dara Schnapper (associate producer) John A. Smith (associate producer)
Production location	Fictional "Kingdom of Gilboa"
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	March 15, 2009

Kings is a television drama series airing on NBC and Citytv, based on the Biblical story of King David in a kingdom that resembles present-day United States. Although advance showings received mostly positive critical reviews, the March 15 premiere placed 4th in network television ratings for that evening, with 6 million viewers (1.6 rating / 4 share in the 18-49 demographic).

Characters

Character	Actor	Biblical counterpart
David Shepherd	Christopher Egan	David
King Silas Benjamin	Ian McShane	Saul
Queen Rose Benjamin	Susanna Thompson	Ahinoam
Princess Michelle Benjamin	Allison Miller	Michal
Prince Jack Benjamin	Sebastian Stan	Jonathan
Rev. Ephram Samuels	Eamonn Walker	Samuel
William Cross	Dylan Baker	Joab
General Linus Abner	Wes Studi	Abner
Helen	Sarita Choudhury	Rizpah

Plot

Kings is set in the nation of Gilboa, which technologically and culturally resembles an alternate present-day United States, but with an absolute monarch, King Silas. It has been implied in TV spots that Gilboa is supposed to be an alternate United States, but no world maps have yet been shown.

20 years before the series takes place, the Unification War was fought between three countries. The war is ended by Silas Benjamin, an ambitious and capable man who rose from the rank of common soldier to be leader of one of the factions. As Silas explains later, when the war ended, he stood on the ruins of a great city that had been destroyed during the conflict. A swarm of butterflies flew around him and then landed in a ring on his head exactly in the shape of a crown, a sign that God wanted him to be king of the new unified nation, which was called "Gilboa." For his service in the war and his accomplishment in ending it, King Silas is very popular with the masses. King Silas makes the national flag a white butterfly on an orange background.

The next nearly two decades are spent rebuilding the ruined city into Gilboa's new capital, Shiloh (which resembles New York City). Two year years later, war begins between Gilboa and Gath, a nation on the northern border. This war continues to the present-day story of the pilot episode. It is later revealed that Silas bankrolled his unification efforts with the gold of several war profiteers who are now among his main staff and that he only married his current queen for political gain. He is secretly still seeing the woman he truly loves and has a young son with her.

David Shepherd, a farmer whose father was killed during the Unification War, joins the military alongside his brother (against their mother's wishes). Gath's forces outgun Gilboa's frontline infantry due to advanced "Goliath-class" tanks. This forces Gilboan soldiers to be trapped in trenches, especially because Silas is determined to only respond to Gath incursions by driving them back into their own territory and not going on the offensive. Later, a unit commanded by Jack Benjamin, son of King Silas, is ambushed. Jack is taken prisoner and Silas is in a predicament as he has already made it a point not to negotiate for the release of hostages.

Fighting in the trenches of the Gath frontier, the Shepherd brothers conclude that an enemy tent contains hostages (though they are unaware the King's son is there). Frustrated after months of being pinned down in the trenches by the Goliath tanks, David makes a makeshift anti-tank grenade by taping a mine to a wrench, then goes on a rescue mission. David frees the hostages, but a Goliath tank intercepts them. While the hostages run for the trenches, David covers their escape by turning to face the Goliath. After an RPG has no effect, David desperately throws his anti-tank grenade. On a lucky shot, it detonates the Goliath's fuel tank and destroys the tank. David's run across no-man's land is picked up by a surveillance camera and soon a picture of David standing triumphantly over the destroyed Goliath becomes nationally famous, with headlines reading "David slays Goliath".

David Shepherd becomes instantly famous for saving the king's son and being the first man to take down a Goliath tank single-handed. David is embarrassed, as he hadn't known it was the king's son and had actually been preparing to give up after throwing the grenade, just before it blew up.

For saving the king's son, David is taken to Shiloh where he is quickly promoted to the rank of Captain and made a military media liaison. King Silas recognizes that David has become a popular figure in an increasingly unpopular war and wants to use him to his advantage. With soldiers now consider David a hero wish to follow his example, so Silas orders a new offensive, hoping to hurt Gath forces badly enough that they leave. This does not sit well with Reverend Samuels, the king's chief religious figure.

At court, David meets the king's daughter Michelle and there is an obvious attraction between the two. Silas' son Jack is deeply upset that David is getting all the glory while he is being court-martialed for negligence due to his unit's ambush. Jack maintains that the air cover that was supposed to be there for his unit was inexplicably gone. Silas is fed-up with Jack for his constant negligence and unwillingness to accept responsibility. He is also upset by Jack's public displays of drunken womanizing, knowing that his son is actually a closeted homosexual and thus will not provide an heir to the throne in the future.

The new offensive ordered by Silas is a success and Gath asks for a cease-fire. However, as much as Silas wants peace, his war profiteering financial backers threaten to take away their funding if he doesn't break the truce and continue the war. Reverend Samuels is furious with Silas for going back on his word with the peace treaty and casts him off.

In the new conflict, David's brother is mortally wounded on the front lines and dies in a field hospital when David comes to visit him. Distraught, David walks out into no-man's land alone, waving his brother's bloody sheets and asking if this is enough blood to satisfy Gath or if they'd like to take his own as well. David says each side wants to stop the killing and if they want peace they can talk to him. Amazed at his display, a Gath commander meets with him and David is able to achieve peace with Gath, this time directly.

Furious with his financial backers for making him disastrously break the peace treaty the first time, Silas tells them off and agrees to the new peace. Despite this, Rev. Samuels says that God no longer supports Silas and will have to find someone else suitable to be king. Silas' peace agreement doesn't sit well with the war profiteers, and they start yanking out their gold from his treasuries while also attempting to groom Jack to become their new puppet-king.

Although his mother and the farm need him, David Shepherd decides he can do more good for his old military unit and for the country as a whole by staying in Shiloh and helping Silas. As Silas watches David stand in the palace gardens, a swarm of butterflies flies about David and lands on his head in a perfect circle resembling a crown. The rest of the series follows the lives and political manipulations of the characters.

Episode list

#	Title	Writer(s)	Director	Airdate
1	"Goliath"	Michael Green	Francis Lawrence	March 15, 2009
In this special two hour premiere episode, battles between the neighboring nations of Gilboa and Gath rage. One soldier named David Shepherd, takes action when he sees prisoners of war taken. After crossing enemy lines to rescue them, he is told he just saved the king of Gilboa's son. His life forever changes in that moment.
2	"Prosperity"	Michael Green	Francis Lawrence	March 22, 2009
A peace treaty signing ceremony could be jeopardized when the leader of the Gath military inquires as to why David Shepherd isn't there. Tensions mount as King Silas and General Abner come up with a plan to get rid of David, while William plans to get rid of King Silas
3	"First Night"	TBA	TBA	March 29, 2009
Tempers flare as King Silas leaves Queen Rose's first royal ballet event, so he can tend to his sick secret illegitimate son. Jack and Rose try to make David look to be evil in front of everyone.
4	"Insurrection"	TBA	TBA	April 5, 2009
TBA

Development

On November 5, 2007, NBC ordered the two-hour pilot of Kings; the last pilot NBC ordered before the 2007 Writer's Strike. Michael Green (Heroes, Everwood) penned the script and Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) was set to direct. When Green pitched the series to NBC, he told them, "I want to take one of the classic stories that no one has ever retold and find a way to re-conceive it while still being faithful to the original material but at the same time exploring the themes, modernizing it in every way." (The story has, in fact been [many times] throughout the centuries.) NBC officially ordered the show to series on May 19, 2008. Green has already planned out the entire first season, which will consist of thirteen episodes.

The series is currently being filmed partially in New York City at the New York Public Library,the Time Warner Center, and the Apthorp building, on Broadway between 78th and 79th streets, the Brooklyn Museum, on Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue, as well as in and around the The Capitale Building in Downtown New York City on Grand Street and Elizabeth Street, and soundstages in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Filming for the pilot was also done at Hempstead House, part of the former Guggenheim estate at Sands Point Preserve on Long Island. The script for the first episode, "Goliath," was leaked some time prior to broadcast.

Casting

The role for King Silas was originally written for Ian McShane, but Green thought that it would be unlikely to get him to play the lead. McShane was sent the script and enjoyed it, and was very open to returning to television after the critically acclaimed HBO series Deadwood. "Probably two or three hundred" actors auditioned for the role of David Shepherd, before producers came across Chris Egan, "who was a real find," stated Lawrence. Allison Miller was also cast late in the process, joining Sebastian Stan and Susanna Thompson. Brian Cox will be joining the series in a recurring role, playing a rival to King Silas. Macaulay Culkin will also appear in a multi-episode arc, playing King Silas's nephew, who was exiled for mysterious reasons. Miguel Ferrer (Crossing Jordan), Michael Stahl-David (The Black Donnellys), and Leslie Bibb (Crossing Jordan) have also been booked for multi-episode arcs.

Reception

An early review of Green's pilot script called the show "bold, bizarre, fun." NBC pre-released the first four episodes of the series to critics and garnered mostly positive reviews. Edward Douglas of ComingSoon.Net stated that "the writing is sharp and the acting is excellent, as Green has assembled a cast that's almost unprecedented for a television show. Ian McShane is as riveting in the role of King Silas as he was as Al Swearengen, giving the sort of loquacious speeches that he's great at giving." Brian Ford Sullivan of The Futon Critic commented that "Kings is ultimately a show you're either going to dismiss as silly and pretentious or fall in love with because of its silliness and pretentiousness. I find myself in the latter category because I'm always a sucker for swing-for-fences serialized shows like this, especially when it looks ... and feels unlike anything on television right now." In a glowing review of the series' pilot, Heather Havrilesky of Salon.com praised the series' themes, scope, art direction, cinematography and Ian McShane's performance, concluding: "The dialogue is just so artful and poetic, the characters are so appealing, the whole damn package is so original and daring and lovely, that after watching the first four hours, it's impossible not to feel inspired and cheered by the fact that a drama this ambitious and unique could make it onto network TV." Young adult book author Brent Hartinger said, "The new NBC series Kings ... is top-notch television — smart, original, and thoroughly engrossing — and it will end up reshaping the television landscape in much the way fantasy-esque shows such as Lost and Buffy the Vampire Slayer did." (However, writing for gay-themed website AfterElton.com, Hartinger argued that the show "de-gayed" the romantic aspect between David and Jack — David and Jonathan in the Biblical telling — as well as turning Jack into a rather stereotypical villain.)

Other reviewers were less positive. In a scathing review, Ray Richmond of The Hollywood Reporter said that Kings "takes an utterly straight-faced and painfully earnest approach to the kind of broad nighttime soap opera that once fueled Dallas and (especially) Dynasty through the 1980s, but to watch something so anal-retentive and full of itself in the new century can't help but play as unintended farce." Nancy deWolf Smith of The Wall Street Journal also compared the series unfavorably to the work of Aaron Spelling, and accused the series of "deadening pretentiousness" and "a failure of imagination". However, many reviewers, while criticizing the drama's stylized dialogue or calling its Biblical themes "pretentious", praised Ian McShane's kingly performance and the show's ambitions.

The March 15th, 2009 NBC premiere of Kings "was the lowest-rated program between 8 and 11 p.m. on a major broadcast network", garnering a 1.6 rating/4 share, below ABC, CBS, and Fox. This was significantly lower than the ratings for NBC's programming on the previous Sunday, a Saturday Night Live clip show and a segment of Celebrity Apprentice. Mediaweek magazine noted that "one year earlier in this block, the second half of a two-hour edition of Dateline and a repeat of Law & Order was considerably stronger at an average 6.3/10 in the overnights." TV.com speculated that NBC underpromoted the show causing the lackluster pilot episode rating. However, Television Week described (in detailed interviews with NBC executives) an innovative three-phase marketing push on behalf of Kings, and stated that NBC was "going out of its way since November to market Kings to so-called cultural tastemakers, hoping they’ll help spread the word to the masses."

Due to the unexpectedly rocky start, several media commentators have speculated that Kings will be canceled or have the already-filmed episodes "burned off" on another night, such as Saturday. However, NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman was optimistic about the series' prospects:

I’m hoping because intent [to view] went up and awareness went up after it aired, clearly people responded to it, and it grew over its two hours. That gives me some hope. It's just hard to launch things that are not obvious. We may get nailed for it, but I'm proud of the show, and we need to keep taking chances like that.

External links

• Official web site
• Kings at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com
• Kings Wiki