Tulsa World: New take on Bible stories

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New take on Bible stories
NBC's 'Kings' a modern David-and-Goliath tale

King Silas Benjamin (Ian McShane, left) handsomely rewards David Shepherd (Chris Egan) for his heroism in saving his son in the new drama "Kings." ANDREW ECCLES/NBC

By RITA SHERROW World Television Editor
Published: 3/15/2009 2:28 AM
Last Modified: 3/15/2009 5:14 AM

If you're expecting a religious experience with the new NBC drama series "Kings," think again.

Sure there's a David and a Goliath, but it's religious like "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," not "The Ten Commandments," according to creator-executive producer Michael Green.

"It's a show where religion is as much a subject as politics is," said Green, who recently shared a teleconference with star Ian McShane. "So we drew from a lot of different sources, and we just let the story take us wherever it was going to take us."

Where it will take viewers Sunday night is to the kingdom of Gilboa, with its squeaky-clean capital of Shiloh — sort of a modern-day Manhattan plunked down in a parallel reality. A kingdom with its own language — part Gilboa-speak and part ordinary-speak.

King Silas Benjamin is a well-entrenched corporate king with suits of silk instead of a crown of thorns. Goliath is a tank, and the young man who faces it down while performing a heroic act of saving someone is named David Shepherd. Get it? Oh, and Silas, too, takes his orders from a higher power.

"I think things happen to people," explained Golden Globe winner McShane, who mesmerized audiences as Al Swearengen in HBO's "Deadwood." "I think if I'd go into the back story, I'd see Silas as somebody who was rebellious in the ranks but rose through personal lunacy or heroism — they're closely aligned, those two — and became a leader and then became king because, you know, God told him that he should be king. It just happened to their family, the Benjamins as we call the alternate type of the show 'Meet the Benjamins.' "

For McShane, the transition from playing a foul-mouthed, black-hearted schemer with a secret heart of gold to a portraying man "who has been king too long" was easy.

"I think it's, if you like, a natural progression from Al — Mr. Swearengen — to being made king. They offer the same. Leaders have their fallibilities and they have their moments of great clarity and they have their moments of down."

In the pilot, the king is dealing with rising tensions between his country and Gath, its neighbor. When a young soldier defies orders and crosses enemy lines to save prisoners of war, he has no idea that one is the son of the king and that his life has been changed forever by that act. Chris Egan ("Eragon") plays David Shepherd.

The king offers him anything, including half his kingdom, for saving his son. But was that a wise move?

"I think the story is fantastic, of a king with a young guy who he thinks could be a protégé (his son is viewed as weak), could be an enemy, could be a rival, who knows? But he takes a chance with him.

"And, of course, it's ordained by somebody else. It's got nothing to do with what Silas does in the end. It's far greater forces at work like fate, kismet, Sanskrit, karma, whatever you want, whatever language, whatever religion or whatever you can refer to.

"We all have things in store for us that we don't know about."

Rita Sherrow 581-8360
rita.sherrow@tulsaworld.com

KINGS

When: 7 p.m. Sunday

Where: NBC, channel 2, cable channel 9 By RITA SHERROW World Television Editor

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