So, okay, I've been paying attention to Kings on the slim chance that NBC can program an imaginative drama instead of reality shows. Since it has Ian McShane, it has its interesting bits, but this week it turned the corner from mildly amusing and lyrical Biblical allegory into media critique.
This week Jack, the decadent bisexual son of the King (who considers Jack evil not because of the decadence (which the frigidaire Queen stage manages) but because of that one 'boy' Jack can't quit, yet), accepted the gift of a cable news network from his uncle William Cross, CEO of CrossGen (Cheney, Geithner and Erik Prince combined). Both Jack and Cross decided that 'change was in the wind', and that the King needed a critical public voice. That switch neatly paralleled the way the wind blew away from Vichy, when MSNBC turned during the DNC.
Of course, Jack will control that criticism, and regain the attention of his dad, which comes in handy when the Princess walks into a hostage situation when the rebellious Point Pleasant peasants defy the King and protest their province's ceding to Gath, to end the war....
So, okay, it's soap opera, but it's the most honest soap I've seen in decades. Instead of CEOs and Congressmen and the trappings of representational democracy, we have that typical populist lip service surgically removed. America exists in all but name, with diversity, urbanity and technology intact, but with a ruling family of amoral thugs who beat out other warring gangs to secure its place as a constructed peerage only one generation deep. It's such a potent construction that I can forgive its sloppiness with the Biblical narrative (like Jonathan loved David, and vice versa, with no Fallon Carrington character to prove David's hetero bona fides).
It's still awkwardly done, and it probably won't last the season, but it's bracing to see how The Village
sees itself, idealized. It's like Dynasty for the rest of them. I loved this episode for this line alone.
Courtier (to King Silas, regarding Cross' conspiracy against him): We have no evidence. Should we have some manufactured?
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So I guessed right to pass on it
having seen the real thing since 1994 unfold first in Texas then with ugly spangles across the whole US of A....
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
The point is: When we look back at this era,
will we concentrate on only the Zarah Leander level of entertainment -- American Idol, Lost, NCIS -- or what shows actually commented on the time as it happened?
If we can whoo-hoo Rachel Maddow when she gets a step up, no matter how compromised she'll become, then we can notice works like this.
y'know, for a cop show, NCIS has treated some big issues
and while it's no surprise Bellisario has been very kind to the Navy and the Marine Corps (he was less kindly-disposed toward the Navy, at least, when he was at the helm of Magnum, p.i. But even that show ended with the protagonist re-upping. During Quantum Leap and JAG the attitude toward the Navy was quite venerating. In NCIS we get to see the hairy seamy nasty imperfections underneath of all those crisp white uniforms, and I think that's good) it's also true that flaws in contracting and operations have been shown to be the reason sailors and Marines were needlessly killed, as well. Fraud's been a theme, too. So yeah, I'm gonna stick up for (SOME) "level of entertainment" -- the procedurals, starting with ER and proceeding through NCIS, have been enlightening. (Did you know kids are actually doing better in science classes since the CSI franchise became popular? Yeah, I know; amazing. Sad that it took Gil Grissom and Lt. Horatio Caine to get kids into science when Bill Nye was so much more fun (and hands-on). But it's the "McGyver" effect, I guess ... all in the packaging and results on tv rather than in the process and science for its own sake. Oh well. I'll take it. ER inspired more med students overall, and more trauma and emergency med students in particular. I'll take that, too.)
Wait, I'm defending tv? how did that happen?
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
well, if you want to go there....
in Kings the war with Gath was ended through David's moral force -- through battling the Goliath tank, then offering himself as a sacrifice when his brother dies on the battlefield. CrossGen threatened to take its gold out of King Silas' treasury and bankrupt the country, because CrossGen hadn't made enough bank on weapon sales, yet. Sound familiar?
So Silas restarted the war... and David stopped it again, by taking a public stand that interrupted the King of Gath's departure. As punishment, Silas is ceding Point Pleasant to Gath. Point Pleasant is where David's family lives and where his dad died, defending it for Silas... which brings us to yesterday's episode.
The series has been on the side of the soldiers, and skeptically depicts the men who profit from war. Not Bellisario-strength jingoism, but respectable in its own right.