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kateelliottThis is a new NBC show, a kind of alt history thing based on the stories of Saul and David from the Bible. I will admit my biases up front.
They would have had to do something amazing or actually edgy and provocative for this to work for me, because I have strong ideas about the story already. This basically means they either have to play it pretty straight in terms of what is already a convoluted emotional and political story with great depths and heights and interpersonal relationships and no single villain--even Saul is not actually a villain--OR they have to do some crazy sidewise kind of interpretation that opens up a new view of the material.
First, the show is too non-colored for my taste these days (David is blond--of course), and while there are PoCs sprinkled here and there in the background, what very very few minimally speaking non-white characters there are, are underlings. God, please explain to me why Hollywood still can't do better than this in the 21st century.
I suspect the future Bathsheba character is an assistant of color, because, dude, the temptress character must be different from the so very white and thin Michal (uh, Michelle), Saul's daughter. The prophet Samuel is, naturally, black (and male, that goes without saying), because then he gets to be, you know, magical, but he doesn't have any of the actual gravitas and serious cred that the prophet Samuel has in the Bible. Samuel was one cranky powerful say-what-I-think king-making dude, more powerful than Saul in the ways it matters in the narrative (like, you know, with God, which is what the narrative is about).
So.
The "fight" with Goliath? Oh so lame. A Goliath is a tank, and Dvd uses something that looks suspiciously like a rocket launcher. So, um, if a rocket launcher fired by an individual soldier can destroy a tank, why are the tanks Goliaths? Wasn't the entire point that no one could possibly even dream of defeating Goliath except this shepherd kid? Me no understand.
I finally gave up when it became clear that Jonathan, one of the few truly noble and selfless characters in the Bible, is going to be played as a bitchy playboy privileged rich son-and-heir-of-the-king self-centered prolly jealous of David at first but also sexually attracted to secretly in love with him dude who is, omigosh, gay (did you see him eyeing the other closeted gay boy at the rich kids' bar where J is pretending to make out with two girls?). Edgy! Edgy! I don't care if any retelling plays the Jonathan and David relationship as lovers or as selfless masculine noble friends, but at the moment it looks powerfully like D is innocent farm boy total straight while J is bitchy and nasty and shallow. No, just no.
If I hear better things after, say, 6 eps, I might give it a chance. Otherwise, maybe I should just stick to HBO programs.
They would have had to do something amazing or actually edgy and provocative for this to work for me, because I have strong ideas about the story already. This basically means they either have to play it pretty straight in terms of what is already a convoluted emotional and political story with great depths and heights and interpersonal relationships and no single villain--even Saul is not actually a villain--OR they have to do some crazy sidewise kind of interpretation that opens up a new view of the material.
First, the show is too non-colored for my taste these days (David is blond--of course), and while there are PoCs sprinkled here and there in the background, what very very few minimally speaking non-white characters there are, are underlings. God, please explain to me why Hollywood still can't do better than this in the 21st century.
I suspect the future Bathsheba character is an assistant of color, because, dude, the temptress character must be different from the so very white and thin Michal (uh, Michelle), Saul's daughter. The prophet Samuel is, naturally, black (and male, that goes without saying), because then he gets to be, you know, magical, but he doesn't have any of the actual gravitas and serious cred that the prophet Samuel has in the Bible. Samuel was one cranky powerful say-what-I-think king-making dude, more powerful than Saul in the ways it matters in the narrative (like, you know, with God, which is what the narrative is about).
So.
The "fight" with Goliath? Oh so lame. A Goliath is a tank, and Dvd uses something that looks suspiciously like a rocket launcher. So, um, if a rocket launcher fired by an individual soldier can destroy a tank, why are the tanks Goliaths? Wasn't the entire point that no one could possibly even dream of defeating Goliath except this shepherd kid? Me no understand.
I finally gave up when it became clear that Jonathan, one of the few truly noble and selfless characters in the Bible, is going to be played as a bitchy playboy privileged rich son-and-heir-of-the-king self-centered prolly jealous of David at first but also sexually attracted to secretly in love with him dude who is, omigosh, gay (did you see him eyeing the other closeted gay boy at the rich kids' bar where J is pretending to make out with two girls?). Edgy! Edgy! I don't care if any retelling plays the Jonathan and David relationship as lovers or as selfless masculine noble friends, but at the moment it looks powerfully like D is innocent farm boy total straight while J is bitchy and nasty and shallow. No, just no.
If I hear better things after, say, 6 eps, I might give it a chance. Otherwise, maybe I should just stick to HBO programs.