This show could have been good edutainment. It could potentially bring deeper understandings to the struggles of everyday Arab people, give them names and human faces, and shine a torch on the ills of stubborn feudal system, and how the rulers - even those with good intentions - continue to self-sabotage and cause blood shed every power transition or at the slightest foreign meddling. Yes it did all that. But an honest and balanced presentation, this story is not.
Art direction is superb. I particularly like the theme song: epic, somber, deep, emotive, beautiful and austere. But the "key story voice" is anything but. Overall the producing, writing, directing are disappointingly SHALLOW given the available ingredients and excellent human resource they have at their disposal.
The actors do try their best, but there're just too many 'pander to mainstream American sentimental clichés' and cringe-worthy moments. Cringe-worthy, because the writer/director think their viewers are idiots, and the producer think "audience are lured in by either bloody visual violence or crying/seductive female baits". They must hit every VERY HARD on every points like we still haven't exited PATRONizing 60's.
It is not enough that the bad king acts like a testosterone ape, he must choose to CALCULATEDLY act out the most psychotic and "CREATIVELY SADISTIC" evil stunts, even when he is celebrating a moment of psychological triumph, or sneaking around his palace betraying his own less powerful family members with petty sinful acts many powerful American family males do regularly without blinking. Yawn.
Women, the damsel/virgin and the bitch/whore. Captain Obvious writer and director only know these two types of female species... Yawn...
The exotic queen is a real bitch - she just want the man she STILL loves to DIE. Oh, and she uses her sexuality (on her own husband!!!)to get her ways. So un-American and evil whore of her. Wow really. LOL.
On that note, the exotic/bad queen Leila is tall enough as is but insists on catwalking all the time in 5inch high heels just so that her mid-build hubby Jamal the bad king looks like a short angry-teen and her adult son looks like telly-tubby next to her. Telly tubby prince also has a tall fashion-model-frame wife, another one-dimensional damsel/virgin object with (unmatching)British boarding school accent.
Imagine the two VIP couples standing in a line. The cartoon visual is NOT intended, however, and that is the core problem with the production: the casting decision is 300% TESTOSTERONE-driven.
Testosterone excess always seek estrogen excess. Thus...the "good" wife of our leading hero is too whiny and fluffy and lacking in "first lady in line" qualities.
As an actress Finnigan just pouts and botox-widen-eyed innocence-posturing and camera-poses to much - ANNOYING even when she's supposed to elicit audience sympathy. Her self-absorbed acting made more jarring by her excessively groomed hair and over-stretched-face and "dreamy white angel in Moroccon resort settings" Vogue fashion shot parades. A 30-something actress who BEHAVES like a flighty 30yr old department store executive would of course FAIL to convince as a 40+ DOCTOR wife OF A DYNASTIC FAMILY with 18 year old children! What? She's a child bride of Bassam at 14?
Finnigan as Molly = most distracting and anti-immersion and cringe-inducing element in the entire show.
Bassam's American family are shallow, banal, run-of-the-mill stereotype Californian upper middle class private school bred, doesn't act like they've grown up with a serious conscientious intellectual "Persian prince" as a father, or a doctor as a mother, even as the kids apparently hung out with their cartoon-psychopath-playboy-millionaire uncle during school holidays in the exotic land of complications. The father's focus is on the lives of millions, his shallow family just want to drink French wines in resort palace and whine about daddy/hubby not caring abt his poor little angelic family? Huh? Seriously?
Overall, it's just bad use of good talents. The daughter is a post-porn era wannabe Lisa Simpson who talks social justice but walks ubercool fashion cafe streets. The son, a caricature of a self-pitying super-brat, another captain obvious "bad seed" Al Fayeed.
But still, Bassam the hero is THE ONLY good AND strong one - so stereotypical Jesus earnestly seeking martyrdom he even looks like Jesus in some scenes. Jamal is just cartoon in his inconsistent evil-type: one minuet he's one super-EFFECTIVE Machiavellian schemer, next minute he pulls another psychotic idiotic stunt sneakily behind his wife/son's back. Huh?
The white/good couple against the exotic/bad couple. So neat. So politically correct. So obvious. Even the attempt to be "edgy" and controversial (cross-cultural male homosexuality) is also neat and captain obvious.
After all that logic holes and glaring flaws, the show has redeeming qualities. There is actually a main story arc still held together by the good dedicated actors and art directors. I'm in the second season start, bracing myself for the tedium of filtering out Finnigan's distracting Botoxed face with bad queen's inappropriate catwalk parades in between more desert sand and beardy males with captain obvious black or white morality.
Those who think Homeland and Zero Dark Thirty are morally just and unbiased will really like this show.
Most educated and rational people will find the gratuitous Arab/ female objectification excessive. I wouldn't say the show adds to the suffering and misunderstanding of those who have to live in that reality, but it certainly isn't as high-minded as it presents itself.
Recommended as a high budget cartoon that pretends to be serious drama. Brace oneself for unnecessary visual and psychological violence.
Art direction is superb. I particularly like the theme song: epic, somber, deep, emotive, beautiful and austere. But the "key story voice" is anything but. Overall the producing, writing, directing are disappointingly SHALLOW given the available ingredients and excellent human resource they have at their disposal.
The actors do try their best, but there're just too many 'pander to mainstream American sentimental clichés' and cringe-worthy moments. Cringe-worthy, because the writer/director think their viewers are idiots, and the producer think "audience are lured in by either bloody visual violence or crying/seductive female baits". They must hit every VERY HARD on every points like we still haven't exited PATRONizing 60's.
It is not enough that the bad king acts like a testosterone ape, he must choose to CALCULATEDLY act out the most psychotic and "CREATIVELY SADISTIC" evil stunts, even when he is celebrating a moment of psychological triumph, or sneaking around his palace betraying his own less powerful family members with petty sinful acts many powerful American family males do regularly without blinking. Yawn.
Women, the damsel/virgin and the bitch/whore. Captain Obvious writer and director only know these two types of female species... Yawn...
The exotic queen is a real bitch - she just want the man she STILL loves to DIE. Oh, and she uses her sexuality (on her own husband!!!)to get her ways. So un-American and evil whore of her. Wow really. LOL.
On that note, the exotic/bad queen Leila is tall enough as is but insists on catwalking all the time in 5inch high heels just so that her mid-build hubby Jamal the bad king looks like a short angry-teen and her adult son looks like telly-tubby next to her. Telly tubby prince also has a tall fashion-model-frame wife, another one-dimensional damsel/virgin object with (unmatching)British boarding school accent.
Imagine the two VIP couples standing in a line. The cartoon visual is NOT intended, however, and that is the core problem with the production: the casting decision is 300% TESTOSTERONE-driven.
Testosterone excess always seek estrogen excess. Thus...the "good" wife of our leading hero is too whiny and fluffy and lacking in "first lady in line" qualities.
As an actress Finnigan just pouts and botox-widen-eyed innocence-posturing and camera-poses to much - ANNOYING even when she's supposed to elicit audience sympathy. Her self-absorbed acting made more jarring by her excessively groomed hair and over-stretched-face and "dreamy white angel in Moroccon resort settings" Vogue fashion shot parades. A 30-something actress who BEHAVES like a flighty 30yr old department store executive would of course FAIL to convince as a 40+ DOCTOR wife OF A DYNASTIC FAMILY with 18 year old children! What? She's a child bride of Bassam at 14?
Finnigan as Molly = most distracting and anti-immersion and cringe-inducing element in the entire show.
Bassam's American family are shallow, banal, run-of-the-mill stereotype Californian upper middle class private school bred, doesn't act like they've grown up with a serious conscientious intellectual "Persian prince" as a father, or a doctor as a mother, even as the kids apparently hung out with their cartoon-psychopath-playboy-millionaire uncle during school holidays in the exotic land of complications. The father's focus is on the lives of millions, his shallow family just want to drink French wines in resort palace and whine about daddy/hubby not caring abt his poor little angelic family? Huh? Seriously?
Overall, it's just bad use of good talents. The daughter is a post-porn era wannabe Lisa Simpson who talks social justice but walks ubercool fashion cafe streets. The son, a caricature of a self-pitying super-brat, another captain obvious "bad seed" Al Fayeed.
But still, Bassam the hero is THE ONLY good AND strong one - so stereotypical Jesus earnestly seeking martyrdom he even looks like Jesus in some scenes. Jamal is just cartoon in his inconsistent evil-type: one minuet he's one super-EFFECTIVE Machiavellian schemer, next minute he pulls another psychotic idiotic stunt sneakily behind his wife/son's back. Huh?
The white/good couple against the exotic/bad couple. So neat. So politically correct. So obvious. Even the attempt to be "edgy" and controversial (cross-cultural male homosexuality) is also neat and captain obvious.
After all that logic holes and glaring flaws, the show has redeeming qualities. There is actually a main story arc still held together by the good dedicated actors and art directors. I'm in the second season start, bracing myself for the tedium of filtering out Finnigan's distracting Botoxed face with bad queen's inappropriate catwalk parades in between more desert sand and beardy males with captain obvious black or white morality.
Those who think Homeland and Zero Dark Thirty are morally just and unbiased will really like this show.
Most educated and rational people will find the gratuitous Arab/ female objectification excessive. I wouldn't say the show adds to the suffering and misunderstanding of those who have to live in that reality, but it certainly isn't as high-minded as it presents itself.
Recommended as a high budget cartoon that pretends to be serious drama. Brace oneself for unnecessary visual and psychological violence.