rm | Kings

Goodness, this show is an interesting mess.

First, deeply arbitrary bitching:

- Whoever hemmed the slacks for most of the male cast (especially David) needs a talking to. Way too long and looking really stupid and pooling excessively on the dress shoes. Really. There's (at least) a good inch too much length on David's uniform trousers. What gives?

- Speaking of uniforms. This is like the coolest costuming task ever -- designing uniforms, because in doing so, you get to create a language and narrative of status. But this didn't happen and the uniforms don't denote rank or circumstance in any consistent way. I was annoyed.

- And here's another thing -- who the fuck has a soldier change out of uniform and into a tux while he is an active member of the military and is there to be honored for his military deeds. It makes no sense from any perspective. Bad bad bad. DRESS UNIFORM. HELLO?

- Franz Liszt? Really? Okay, I realize this show has had to do major contortions, modernizing the story, making it set in 2009, turning NYC (so conspicuous, ugh) into the kingdom etc to make it work. But I think mentioning historical figures not related to the source is a bad plan. The second they mentioned Liszt I felt like I needed to know if there is also a US in the world of the show, and that's just a distraction. Bad fucking move.

- That said. David. And the piano. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Second, less arbitrary bitching:

- This show seriously has no idea what it wants to be doing. Is it a trashy OC/Gossip Girl rip-off? Is it a shameless attempt to make crazy religious America watch prime time drama? Is it seeking to be this deeply literary heightened reality? I have no idea, and it made the first script really uneven.

- That said, wow, they have some actors who can seriously do some shit, Ian McShane foremost among them. The problem is Ian McShane can do that stuff in his sleep, and the script (as well as some of the other actors) has trouble keeping up with him. But when the show is political, verbal and menacing, it's very, very good.

- Race and gender and sexual orientation. Complicated animals in this landscape, and I have to give the show credit for _trying_ but PoC are mostly servants or preachers, women are (necessarily thanks to the source, I suppose) very traditional in their roles and appearance, and of the many directions they could have taken queer content in the show, did they have to go for the sniveling, spoiled brat version? Homosexuality as the upper class's inconvenient vice? Really? I like how they've scripted Silas's attitude towards it (he gives this speech at Jack that I could have fucking written and may have in some fiction or other), but I have no patience for the show's broader view of queerness thus far.

- David and the king's daughter? Could I possibly care any less? The show is hot when it's political and a yawn when it's trying to be sexy (although Jack staring at some boy while pretending to be all into the girls crawling all over him was hot in a problematic way).

I'll keep watching. The show is broken enough to be a good venue for fanfiction. And it's got the potential to be verbally and theatrically exciting. But I may throw a shoe at it.