{"id":2626,"date":"2009-02-24T10:00:21","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T10:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html"},"modified":"2009-02-24T10:00:21","modified_gmt":"2009-02-24T10:00:21","slug":"david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html","title":{"rendered":"David vs. Goliath on &#8216;Kings&#8217;: NBC&#8217;s New Must-See-TV Show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"kings.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/imgs\/kings.jpg\" width=\"198\" height=\"241\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span>Recently, I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at NBC&#8217;s 2-hour premier of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbc.com\/Kings\/about\/index.shtml\">Kings<\/a>&#8220;&#8211;a new television series that begins on March 15th. &#8220;Kings&#8221; is not only epic in feel and style, but its storyline takes up an epic of Biblical proportions: a retelling of the life of King David. The series begins with the classic &#8220;David and Goliath&#8221; standoff and reaches forward toward the soap-opera-like life of David (and company) that follows this event, with writer\/producer Michael Green (of &#8220;Heroes&#8221;) giving this ancient story a post-apocalyptic, futuristic, urban feel.<br \/>\nThis show will surely rival &#8220;Battlestar Galactica&#8221; in terms of its layered, religious themes. Though, as &#8220;Battlestar&#8221; plays with polytheism vs. monotheism, and religious innovation beyond most of our imaginations, &#8220;Kings&#8221; is sticking pretty closely to the Old Testament stories since, according to Green, the story of David provides enough material to shape at least several seasons of excellent television.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nSo not only did I <em>love<\/em> what I saw&#8211;I left the premier wishing to watch it again, and determining that I was committed to the entire first season already&#8211;but the cast is fantastic both on screen and in person, too. Though I&#8217;m saving my official review of the premiere for the week it airs, I thought I&#8217;d comment briefly on the panel following the premier screening, led by Michael Green, which included Susanna Thompson (Queen Rose Benjamin), Allison Miller (Michelle Benjamin), Eamonn Walker (Reverend Ephram Samuels), and a hilarious Dylan Baker (William Cross, King Silas&#8217; brother-in-law).<br \/>\nThe upshot of the discussion&#8211;in addition to many, many laughs provided by Baker who, incidentally, plays the villain in the series&#8211;was that viewers interesting in themes of faith, divine right, religious monarchy, miracles, etc., etc., are going to be served up a veritable feast with this new series. Green is not at all shy about reveling in the kind of drama his show&#8217;s religious roots has to offer and I&#8217;m betting viewers are going to be pleased&#8211;whether they are looking for romance, war, fantasy, or courtly (and therefore highly political) drama. Plus, we found out Macaulay Culkin is joining the cast mid-season.<br \/>\nMore soon on &#8220;Kings.&#8221;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/macaulay-culkin\/26958\" target=\"_top\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/macaulay-culkin\/26958\/351x85_belief.gif\" alt=\"Macaulay Culkin at LocateTV.com\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at NBC&#8217;s 2-hour premier of &#8220;Kings&#8220;&#8211;a new television series that begins on March 15th. &#8220;Kings&#8221; is not only epic in feel and style, but its storyline takes up an epic of Biblical proportions: a retelling of the life of King David. The series begins with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>David vs. Goliath on &#039;Kings&#039;: NBC&#039;s New Must-See-TV Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"David vs. Goliath on &#039;Kings&#039;: NBC&#039;s New Must-See-TV Show\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Recently, I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at NBC&#8217;s 2-hour premier of &#8220;Kings&#8220;&#8211;a new television series that begins on March 15th. &#8220;Kings&#8221; is not only epic in feel and style, but its storyline takes up an epic of Biblical proportions: a retelling of the life of King David. The series begins with&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-24T10:00:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/kings.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Freitas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"David vs. Goliath on 'Kings': NBC's New Must-See-TV Show","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"David vs. Goliath on 'Kings': NBC's New Must-See-TV Show","og_description":"Recently, I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at NBC&#8217;s 2-hour premier of &#8220;Kings&#8220;&#8211;a new television series that begins on March 15th. &#8220;Kings&#8221; is not only epic in feel and style, but its storyline takes up an epic of Biblical proportions: a retelling of the life of King David. The series begins with&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2009-02-24T10:00:21+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/kings.jpg"}],"author":"Donna Freitas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html","name":"David vs. Goliath on 'Kings': NBC's New Must-See-TV Show","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/kings.jpg","datePublished":"2009-02-24T10:00:21+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-24T10:00:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/59a2667b18839bc220bd4c3c2d2ed70a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/kings.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/kings.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/02\/david-vs-goliath-on-kings-nbcs.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"David vs. Goliath on &#8216;Kings&#8217;: NBC&#8217;s New Must-See-TV Show"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/59a2667b18839bc220bd4c3c2d2ed70a","name":"Donna Freitas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/3bb\/3bbee96f022df7191e7ff477ca6c7f09x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/3bb\/3bbee96f022df7191e7ff477ca6c7f09x96.jpg","caption":"Donna Freitas"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/dfreitas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}