I also watched Kings back in the day and I couldn’t fully embrace it. I think the critics in the Vulture article reflect my feelings that it wasn’t coherent and that kept me out.
I’ve been meaning to post a thought about Poker Face and put it off. The post-mortem part of the article answers the question I was going to ask: If Poker Face is such a big deal for NBC, why is it on Peacock and not a network prime time show? Now I know the answer is if the show had to depend on an advantageous time slot and have each episode broken up for commercial breaks, there’s no chance the show would succeed. On Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 9:55 PM PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > First, that article was way too good to be in Vulture. What happened? > > Second, have I mentioned that Jeff Zucker is an asshole? > > Third, while I did not adore Kings as Kevin does, I did like it, and > mourned it’s premature loss, especially as I was teaching an Honors class > at the time that covered in Part the Hebrew Bible’s story of David. Wow, > was that really 14 years ago? > > It is interesting to read that the theory was that it would draw a > universal audience, both conservative religionists who take the source > material literally and secular liberals who just like the drama. That was > never likely. > > David is the most human of all the characters in the Hebrew Bible, and > even if you stick literally to the authorized text you will alienate a lot > of fundamentalists with details of his story. The more seriously you take > the character, even when going beyond the text and geo and temporal > locations of the story, the more you alienate traditionalists. But also, > secularists will have trouble appreciating the complexity of his character > if they rule out a priori that he was a man after Gods own heart. > > Kings was a story aimed at a relatively small intersection of liberal > theists, large enough to support a show on prestige cable or contemporary > streamers, but not broadcast television in the oughts. > > On Tue, 28 Feb 2023 at 11:32 AM Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I adored this series. It was perfect in every way, except that it was on >> NBC at a time when NBC could not figure out what to do with it. It was >> promoted as “What if America had a king?” but that wasn’t what the series >> was. >> >> On Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 9:02 AM Mark Jeffries <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> In 2009, NBC tried to bring Prestige TV to OTA network television, in >>> "KIngs," a big, sprawling, complicated, expensive, challenging drama with >>> BIblical themes set in modern times. It was a longshot, but it may've made >>> it--if not for Jeff Zucker. This is its oral history: >>> >>> >>> https://www.vulture.com/article/kings-nbc-2009-oral-history.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=One%20Great%20Story%20-%20February%2027%2C%202023&utm_term=Subscription%20List%20-%20One%20Great%20Story >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "TVorNotTV" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/8f0a5052-d768-4c8f-9583-7d5b40bbde41n%40googlegroups.com >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/8f0a5052-d768-4c8f-9583-7d5b40bbde41n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>> . >>> >> -- >> Kevin M. (RPCV) >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "TVorNotTV" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKgmY4CZU-w48UKAFg7owwstxv9%3DyfCLm40eJdcATBa0vBqkXw%40mail.gmail.com >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKgmY4CZU-w48UKAFg7owwstxv9%3DyfCLm40eJdcATBa0vBqkXw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- > Sent from Gmail Mobile > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYJp7J4g_HBCQKonYEKmm6qhHAzq0hqK%3D73KZ3Qse4wmNg%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYJp7J4g_HBCQKonYEKmm6qhHAzq0hqK%3D73KZ3Qse4wmNg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiEze5TcwxAV6DiS3rWWg_NCL5tVvpvQ%2BB%3DRodfv_RO_fA%40mail.gmail.com.
