I am – Hercules!!
A nighttime soap set in an alternate reality from writer-producer Michael Green (“Heroes”), “Kings” stars “Deadwood’s” Ian McShane as a flatscreen-age monarch ruling over something called Gilboa, which is at war with neighboring Gath. Because Gilboa feels very much like modern America, with its skyscrapers and neckties and combat gear and SUVs and TV news, it’s easy to compare it to “Battlestar Galactica’s” Caprica: a pretend place very much like the United States save for some very important differences. Sadly the “Kings” universe does not make as much sense as the one Bill Adama and Laura Roslin inhabit. The ease with which David rescues King Silas’ son makes Gath out to be an improbably inept opponent, and another scene in which David precipitates a truce by making a speech to a bunch of enemy tanks The reason to root for “Kings,” easily NBC’s best new show of the season, is it’s difficult to dislike many of its characters. David Shepherd, the humble farmboy, surprises with his mechanical, battlefield and musical acumen, and exhibits a winning candor at key moments. McShane’s Silas Benjamin exudes a engaging Sopranoesque gangster persona. He’s smart and fair but not above smacking around associates when events pile on the stress. I’m also quite taken with Eamonn Walker (remember Kareem Said from “Oz”?) as what passes here for the prophet Samuel, Dylan Baker (the “Spider-Man” movies) as the war profiteer who bankrolls Silas’ kingdom and Allison Miller (“Boston Legal”) as the Gilboa’s idealistic princess. I even like “Gossip Girl” import Sebastian Stan as the snotty, insecure prince. I anoint “Kings” worthy of sampling, but I wouldn’t blame any viewer for abdicating the enterprise if it can’t put aside its sillier elements. Time Magazine says:

Is it better for a TV show to be consistent or surprising? Is it worse for it to be ridiculous or boring? NBC's unorthodox new drama Kings comes down solidly on the latter side of those questions. Some viewers will say it's fascinating. Others will say it's pretentious hoo-ha. Allow me to split the difference: Kings is fascinating pretentious hoo-ha.… It's easy to overlook these faults — and Kings' taste for melodramatic cheese, slathered with an overheated operatic score — when McShane is onstage. But Egan's David is an upstanding stiff, and when Egan gets a McShanian monologue at the end of the two-hour pilot, he sounds ridiculous. The subplots involving Jack and Gilboa's gilded nightlife play like a bad marriage of The Tudors and Gossip Girl. …

Entertainment Weekly says:

… Kings asks — well, McShane's Silas commands — you to enter its world; so far, that universe is pleasingly treacherous, though not wholly formed, a work in progress that's worth seeing through to completion. …

USA Today says:

… Kings doesn't quite work and probably won't last, but it's not recycled trash like Knight Rider and Kath & Kim, or cheap flotsam like Crusoe.Kings may have manifold flaws, but being run-of-the-mill is not among them. … a mess, but for a few weeks, anyway, it promises to be a fun, fascinating mess, the kind of "can you believe they're doing it" show you want to discuss the next day. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… an interesting muddle of a show, smart and silly by turns. It's corny, ponderous, literary, ambitious, obvious and, at the beginning at least, as slow as molasses, but continually re-energized by Ian McShane … It can all get a little pretentious. Green's language slips into King James Bible cadences and poetic word inversions. Sometimes it gets away from him completely, as in David's peacemaking speech to the Gaths, overwrought and overwritten and, in any case, delivered to an audience too far away to hear him, even if they weren't sitting inside tanks. Though they somehow do. …

The Chicago Tribune says:

… Happily, this generally well-told tale of a modern-day king and his restive court has more going for it than a charismatic performance from the dependably wonderful “Deadwood” star. … But without McShane and his hooded eyes, which make the king’s courtiers quake with fear, “Kings” probably would have been a less interesting work. …

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… there's something compelling and odd about what the producers are trying to achieve. … If "Kings" wants to mine the Bible for more stories or continue on the David and Goliath path, that might be interesting. So are the Shakespearean elements. So is the odd clash of "Gossip Girl" meets "Masterpiece Theatre" moments. There are quirky bits of humor in "Kings." It's visually engrossing. Then it goes oddly flat in parts, only to kick-start itself with another clash of tones. …

The Newark Star Ledger says:

… I can't help admiring "Kings" more than I actually liked it. … almost always interesting but never quite as engaging as I wanted it to be.

The Seattle Times says:

… doesn't have enough fun with its imaginative concept or make it dramatic enough. … "Kings" looks elegant and ambitious, but in the end, this emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

The Boston Herald says:

… A royal bore … a snoozer that wouldn’t satisfy the lowliest court jester. … McShane could read the Congressional Record and make it sound like Shakespeare. Even his skill can’t bring this royal soap to a lather. …

The Boston Globe says:

… very odd, kind of cool, and probably totally doomed. … "Kings" does dip in and out of predictability, when familiar Spelling soap operatics and political machinations break through the show's unique surface. But it still is a fascinating effort. …

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… It takes an utterly straight-faced and painfully earnest approach to the kind of broad nighttime soap opera that once fueled "Dallas" and (especially) "Dynasty" through the 1980s, but to watch something so anal-retentive and full of itself in the new century can't help but play as unintended farce. This wildly broad serialized series from NBC leaves you actually shaking your head … The fact it has Ian McShane making self-important pronouncements and coded threats only adds to the empty-headed vibe of creator/executive producer/writer Michael Green's two-hour opener …

Variety says:

… Viewers will have to survive a rocky, at-times jarring first hour before the series begins coalescing into something interesting -- flawed but unpredictable, with a characteristically intense Ian McShane at its core. …

8 p.m. Sunday. NBC.

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