Three years ago I noticed a bunch of CDs on sale on amazon.ca for 99 cents each. I already had an order that needed a few more dollars to get free shipping and I love music, so I added a few for the sake of curiousity. A few weeks later the order arrived and I immediately started going through the CDs I purchased. The first I opened up to listen to was The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky. Immediately, I knew that I had discovered something amazing. Hidden in this seeming pile of refuse was an album that from its first echoed notes took hold of me and drew me in to a world I had never experienced previously and left me wanting more.

Eight months ago, I walked into a low capacity hall at San Diego Comic-Con for an early morning panel about an upcoming show from NBC called Kings. After a short discussion of the basic premise of the show — an alternate history drama set in a monarchy named Gilboa inspired by the biblical tale of David and Goliath — they screened the first twenty minutes of the pilot episode, and I experienced that same enraptured envelopment into a brand new world that that amazing album had beset upon me. Now, eight months after that initial burst of interest followed by a relative dearth of new information, Kings has finally premiered and my first impression has only been enriched by the complexities I once imagined were possible now made manifest by the remainder of this amazing premiere.

Over at Ain’t It Cool News, they’ve compiled snippets of the many reviews of this show. Some of them are fairly positive, but it seems as though most of them chide the show for having cheesy aspects, or soap opera trappings, comparing it to shows like Dynasty and Dallas. I’m not sure why any show that manages to tell a serious story is immediately a soap opera. Is Battlestar Galactica a soap opera because of its intense dour depiction of life? Of course not. It’s merely a show willing to deal with things seriously, as is Kings. To call the show a soap opera is to call Deadwood, or other such character drama, a soap opera: it’s not disingenuous to do so, but it belittles the show to use such a pejorative. All of the criticisms, though, are not unfounded. But the good, and more importantly the potential for good, more than outweighs what little there is to legitimately criticise.

The main story of the premiere, and likely of the rest of the series, is of David, played by Christopher Egan. Taking his name from the biblical slingshot-wielder, the show begins with David living the rural life as King Silas of Gilboa — Ian McShane in a typically brilliant performance — unveils the shiny new capital, Shiloh, built upon the ashes of the cities destroyed by the years of war that ravaged Gilboa before Silas united the lands in the unification War, a costly conflict that left David fatherless with a disenfranchised mother.

Before the inaugural speech is over, tensions are rising with the neighbour nation Gath and two years later the war carries on with David now at the front lines. When the survivors of an ambushed squad are taken hostage by Gath, David defies the orders and, crossing the front lines, rescues the hostages, including the King’s son. This rescue is no small feat given that the front lines of the war are lined by Gath ‘Goliath’ tanks, a menacing visage to all Gilboan soldiers. And so David returns as the hero who slayed a Goliath and saved the King’s son. That’s the first twenty minutes wrapped up in a few sentences. There’s much more there, but I find that the more I like a show the more I want to detail every nuance of the scene (which is why I rarely write about Lost; I don’t want to end up writing 15,000 words per episode) so I’ll leave the rest to the viewer to relish. I will say however, that those twenty minutes are the best and most effective exercise in world building I’ve ever seen.

This premiere has already established that, while this is an alternate history with kingdoms where America once reigned, this world only diverges from ours in the last two centuries. David’s love of classical piano, and more importantly his playing of a piece by Liszt, underscore an implicit history that will certainly get explored as the series continues. How did the world of Liszt change such that not America but Gilboa and Gath were formed? Hopefully, the writers already know the answer.

Perhaps as impressive as the world building is the character building, with every character having complexity and ambiguities which can be developed and exploited over time. The King’s wife, for example, is a quiet but manipulative woman who publicly expresses a distaste for politics while privately and silently ensuring her family’s skeletons stay in their respective closets. Similarly, his son portrays himself a womanizer to the paparazzi to keep up appearances, despite his homosexuality. His desire for power is clear but he is neither the villain nor the brat in this story. At least not yet.

The King’s brother-in-law, the head of a large corporation, Crossgen, which has bankrolled Silas’ rule for years is the most villainous character introduced thus far. His need for war to ensure quarterly profits impel him to push Silas to war despite peace being offered. It’s not until David, once again defying the will of the King, bravely reaches out to their faceless enemy, as the Goliaths stare him down, and brings about renewed peace talks, that his lust for war is sated. Even then, his plots and machinations continue apace to replace the King and continue the profitable war.

David is the archetypal hero. He is a farm-boy turned war hero who doesn’t understand nor desire the world into which he’s been thrown. He quickly falls for the King’s daughter, herself a passionate supporter of improving the nation’s health care much to the King’s dismay. His star rises precipitously, first due the the rescue of the hostages, then later from his part in the reestablishment of peace talks with Gath.

And of course, King Silas himself, around whom all this intrigue revolves, is one of the great draws of this show. Ian McShane, playing a character as conniving as Al Swearengen in a world much more civilized yet just as brutal as Deadwood, is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale network television environment. Silas is a complicated man, a melange of numerous regal stereotypes. His opening speech, and most likely every speech after that, describes a story from the founding days of Gilboa when a flock of butterflies came upon him and perched upon his head in a ring as if they were a living crown. A sign from God. And yet, he has none of the trappings of the typical religiously driven leaders of our time: he knows full-well that evolution is a truth, and devotes a family breakfast to the topic; he accepts his son’s homosexuality as a part of his nature; he is an eloquent leader, who uses his words for both good and ill; he is a brilliant tactician whose military experience lent itself to the political travails of a King. Of course, his religiosity is tempered by his desire for power, and when the Reverend Samuels disowns Silas near the end of the premiere he is more than willing to abandon God. But despite these two conflicting aspects of his larger-than-life personality, beneath it all is a long dormant desire for a quieter life. He is a tragic yet terrifying hero, one we know will eventually fall away for David to rise.

The two weak points of the premiere are the wartime scenes and the relationship between David and the King’s daughter. That Gath would hold hostages just past the front lines of battle, even temporarily, strain credulity. In addition, David’s impassioned speech to Gath asking for compassion and common ground would have likely ended with David brutally destroyed by the numerous tanks trained on him throughout the speech. But I take both of these points in stride because a) this is a different world, with different alliances and territories, strategies and tactics could be slightly different b) David held a white cloth stained in his brother’s blood as he delivered his speech; had Gath fired upon a white flag, there surely would have been international repercussions and c) it is David’s destiny to become King — the final scene where the butterflies land atop his head to signal his coming reign is a sure sign of that — and so I’m willing to accept a few well-timed mistakes on his enemies’ parts; many of the most successful kings and emperors of the past have had such luck in the ascension to power.

The other weak part, the love story, is weak because it happened too easily. There’s no real conflict there, they both seem to already be smitten with each other and in a relationship. I was hoping for it to take a while for their bond to grow before all that happened, but this is a minor quibble as the show could easily still get those things done over the course of the season by introducing conflict. It’s also very daring that the show took what appears to be the only romantic relationship on the show and resolved it so quickly. It’s like if the writers of The Office got Jim and Pam together in the first episode. So I’m willing to believe, for now, that they’ve thought about this and are subverting the stereotypes again for effect.

It’s been a couple days now and the ratings have been tallied and they’re atrocious. Kings had a horrible opening. Kings has already finished filming for the season and I used to think that networks wouldn’t cancel a show with complete episodes ready to air, but Firefly and Daybreak shattered that misconception, so I have to hope that the word of mouth on Kings spreads fast and the ratings improve week-over-week, because this show is a real adventure. It’s an adventure in storytelling, it’s an adventure in world-building, and perhaps most importantly it’s an adventure in broadcasting. It’s the sort of high concept high drama story that’s been relegated to cable television in recent years, and yet here it is on a Big Three network (admittedly the smallest of the Big Three). If Kings becomes a ratings success, as it deserves to be, it could be a catalyst for the networks to reinvigorate the increasingly conservative and middling television they produce.

I loved the premiere. I’m  deeply impressed with the show so far. It’s an achievement in storytelling, and I’m sure the subsequent episodes will be as good if not better.

I blogged last summer, after coming back from Comic-Con, about an upcoming NBC  TV series that really blew me away. Kings is finally beginning its run mid-March and looks to be slotted for Sundays, so I thought I’d use my extremely minimal clout to get the word out once more. Take a look at one of the sneak peaks below:

The show is introduced with the fairly banal concept of redoing the story of David and Goliath in a modern day society, but this is as accurate as saying Lost is about a plane crash. Within the first episode — I’ve still only seen the first twenty minutes of the two hour premiere — this premise has been established and the story moves onto the consequences of the battle.

I can’t say much beyond that, primarily because I haven’t seen much more beyond that, but what I have seen has left me with a lot of optimism about the show, if not its future given our increasingly serialized-storytelling-averse society. For some reason, most of the promotional material is a little pop-rock montage heavy but the real footage I’ve seen establishes a much more epic story being told, one where pop music is unlikely to fit in.

I wish I had more to offer about this show, mostly because that would mean I had seen more and I wouldn’t have to wait until March, but I don’t so this is just a friendly reminder to everyone out there to give the show a chance. And PVRs are great, but ratings still matter, so try to watch it live. Especially if you have a Nielsen box. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: too many shows have died too early because of people waiting to see if the show will turn out good. Don’t let Kings be one of them.

I don’t have any strong feelings regarding Coldplay; I generally enjoy their music, but I’d never consider them a favourite of mine. At the same time, I would have to have a discussion with someone who said they hated Coldplay to see why. If only because their music is so gentle and innocuous that disliking them is like disliking water.

That said, their newest song, Viva La Vida, is quite stuck in my head but it’s not because of the song but what it makes me think of.

Kings is a new show which looks to be coming to NBC in February and while it claims it’s a modern retelling of the classic tale of David and Goliath — with David played by a young man named David, and the part of Goliath being played by a fucking Tank — it seems much more likely from the footage I’ve seen that David’s triumph is merely a kicking off point for a show that will explore many themes ranging from Love and Devotion, both to family and country, to War and Fanaticism.

So what does this have to do with Coldplay? Well, at the end of the Kings panel at Comic-con they showed us a trailer which was most likely cobbled together from the pilot episode set to Coldplay’s song Viva La Vida. And there was something about the interleaving of the song and the show that stuck out to me. It also goes to show how ineffectual Coldplay really is, something a friend of mine noted a few weeks ago, that a trailer for a show that I had never heard of an hour before I saw it left a greater impact than the song itself.

Before the trailer, there was a discussion with the producers and some of the cast, though Ian McShane was stuck in traffic and didn’t make it to the panel, which talked in very broad terms about where the show was going and the kind of support they’re receiving from the studio and none of it was particularly revelatory or insightful so I’m fine with not dicussing it further. But before that they showed us the first twenty minutes of the pilot to give us a taste of what the show will be like.

I really wish that I had seen the whole pilot or at least had the chance to watch what I was given a couple more times because I don’t want to jump the gun on this and overhype the show. At the same time, I’m seriously majorly intensely excited about this show. What I saw was really impressive; the scope of the show is epic, pardon the pun, with the story beginning as a war-torn nation (or city-state, it’s not quite clear) is finally opening their new capital of Shiloh after years of hardship and struggle. Opening is obviously the wrong word because the city has been lived in as it was being built but with construction complete, an inaugural celebration is at hand.

After this brief introduction to the world and people of this tale, we jump ahead a year and a half to the war of their fathers born again. It’s here that David goes up against Goliath, the name of the type of tank that their adversary lines their front lines with, and by defeating it frees the captive hostages on the other side, one of whom is the King’s son.

I’m leaving out a lot of nuance and storytelling here because when I sat down for the Kings panel I didn’t know what to expect, so I wasn’t mentally prepared to analyze and record it in great depth. But what I saw was enough. This show could be “Carnivàle” good, which is really really fucking good in my books. The acting from everyone was really good, the story drew you in, and you can tell a lot of care has been taken by the creators to develop this world.

I don’t know if this is overhyping it because I’ve seen so little but I’ve been burned before by not hyping shows. I sat by and let my friends not watch Firefly when it first aired, I didn’t push anyone I know to watch Journeyman even though I knew it was one of the best new shows of the year and needed the audience. I’m sick of my favourite shows dying before their time. So if my choices are to overhype a show which might end up sucking, or not offer my support for a show which needs a fan base as it develops, I’ll take the former. Watch it. Make it through a full season. If you hate it, leave it be, but give it a real chance.

I learned a few things the hard way on my first comic-con pilgrimage. In this ongoing series I’ll be documenting the things I did wrong and how you can avoid them should you ever go to comic-con. (Or maybe I’ll never write one of these again; I’m fickle that way.)

One of the first mistakes I made was over-scheduling the various panels of interest without taking into account the other events that go on at comic-con: most especially the exhibit hall. The exhibit hall is where you go to see all the booths set up by various exhibitors. If you want to see the latest collectible busts of Hellboy, you can head over to the Sideshow Collectibles booth; if you want to buy 30 Rock t-shirts and Dwight Schrute bobble heads, you head over to the NBC booth; and a quick stroll through Artists’ Alley gives you a broad look at a large range of artistic abilities and sensibilities. I went to the exhibit hall every day of comic-con for at least an hour, usually more, and even though I’d walked the length of it numerous times I saw something new every time I walked the aisles. You could quite easily go to comic-con and simply explore all the exhibit halls have to offer for the duration.

But even exploring briefly in between panels results in a multitude of choices, and all of them tantalizing. Here’s the problem. I went to comic-con vaguely aware of the exhibit hall, but I had my mind set on seeing the panels. That said, I went there with 500 USD in my wallet planning to spend every penny and maybe more, but as I strolled the exhibit hall aisles I realized that didn’t have any room to bring this stuff back with me.

In my zeal to bring every awesome shirt I had to prove my geekiness to other geeks, I packed a duffel bag packed nearly to the brim for a four day trip. I could probably shove it full of any trade paperbacks I purchased on the floor, but comics are much more fragile and would likely get crumpled along the way. No bag and board would solve this problem.

Then let’s factor in other purchases like posters, and movie props, and statues, and even original artwork. They’re all too big or to fragile to withstand being shoved in with my clothes for a plane flight, especially when your bag gets remanded to airline security for a random security check where the word “gentle” is not in their vocabulary (but that’s a story for another time).

So I ended up not buying all that much. Oh I still spent hundreds of dollars buying trade paperbacks, but I couldn’t pick up any of the comic-con exclusive versions of comics I like or posters or prints. That said, I did pick up a great print of art by Mike Sosnowski called The Culprit for my niece because I thought she’d like it, but by the time I got my bag back from airport security, the print was horribly crumpled and I would have been better off ordering it from his website.

So if there’s anything you do in preparation for comic-con, you should plan for the swag. Bring an extra piece of luggage for your gifts that you can bring as carry-on to ensure its safety on the flight, or be willing to swallow the costs and ship your purchases to yourself in well packed boxes. Whatever option you choose, one proferred here or one of your own devising, just be aware of the problem before you go or it could put an unnecessary restraint on the reckless spending inherent in an event such as this.

After seeing this comic over at Cyanide & Happiness, who I hope to hunt down during comic-con and thank for hours of disturbing humour, I immediately googled “Masturbating Snowman.” Amazingly, there was only one truly relevant result (though it’s a good one).

If this comic doesn’t tickle your funny bone, or at least two other smaller bones in your body or of those in your possession, well clearly it was not meant to be.

Well, the final schedule for the San Diego Comic-Con (or “Comic-Con” as it is known among certain circles) has finally been published. I haven’t written about it here, since my dedicated readership is ostensibly me, but I’m going to Comic-Con so this is a pretty big deal for me. Comic-Con is an epic event in the world of comics, film, television, sci-fi, fantasy, and it’s branching into mainstream entertainment as its fame grows. It’s a Mecca for geeks.

I’ve only given the two big days, Friday and Saturday, a cursory glance, but from what I’ve seen I’ve got a huge challenge prioritizing the various panels and events that I’ll be going to. Already I’ve run into a few painful decisions because of the sheer quantity of events. It’s rare that I run into situations such as these with a multitude of temptations. With the advent of PVR and bittorent, my TV watching habits have become much more open. Where I once stopped watching one show because a better one was on at the same time, now I simply watch the lesser of the two later on. I’ve gotten so used to the asynchronous nature of my media consumption that this schedule was quite a blow to me.

Now I need to go figure out what makes the cut. Wish me luck.