Just before Kings was cancelled, the fifth episode aired and I found the initial love affair I had with the show dwindling; the characters weren’t as fully developed as I’d have liked, the stories often resolved themselves too easily, and overall the show didn’t seem as good as it once did.

I think that, should I go back and watch the series anew at a later date, I’d find that the quality had not dissipated but rather the realization that the show is “almost brilliant” had simply been delayed.

In robotics there is a term for that eerie feeling we all get when we see a robot that almost duplicates a perfect human being but has very slight flaws and discrepancies. It’s called the Uncanny Valley. These slight discontinuities jar the mind and make us feel at unease. We don’t feel that unease when looking at a robot like C3PO or R2-D2 or WALL-E because they are not human and the differences are notable and numerous. They become a sort of living cartoon, something we accept as a human analog because we can cobble together empathy based on the few anthropomorphic cues available.

I believe that there is similar valley that exists in the world of television. Most television exists before this valley; the characters are entertaining and endearing, but not wholly real. Then there are the special few shows that exist beyond the valley; those shows have such a well-defined universe, such believable characters, that we are enveloped by the show, taking it in as more than mere entertainment. Kings, unfortunately, existed in the abyss betwixt.

Kings was a show that was too good but not good enough. The early comparisons I made to Carnivàle were a sign that the show was attempting to achieve the greatness that lies beyond the valley; where a show will be talked about and analysed for years after. But it didn’t make it there. Maybe Michael Green didn’t have the writing chops to match Daniel Knauf, or maybe the show would have achieved that greatness over the course of the series. Either way, in my mind, Kings sits somewhere in that valley, reaching for more, and not getting the chance it deserves.