Kings
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Kings |
| Abbreviation(s): | |
| Creator: | Michael Green |
| Date(s): | March 15 – July 25, 2009 |
| Medium: | television |
| Country of Origin: | USA |
| External Links: | Wikipedia Official NBC Site Official Twitter |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Kings is an American live-action TV show that ran for one season on NBC. The plot of the show is loosely based on stories of King David and King Saul in the Hebrew Bible.
Cast
- Ian McShane as Silas Benjamin, King of Gilboa
- Christopher Egan as David Shepherd
- Susanna Thompson as Rose Cross Benjamin
- Allison Miller as Michelle Benjamin
- Eamonn Walker as Reverend Ephram Samuels
- Sebastian Stan as Jack Benjamin
- Dylan Baker as William Cross
- Wes Studi as General Linus Abner
Fandom
The show had fairly good reviews when it aired in 2009 but was unable to justify a second season, despite fan campaigns to save the show.[1] There was also a lot of high-level shakup at NBC, and sadly, the new heads of the network didn't care for the show, which had a high production cost. They pulled funding for the show, and moved the show to a different slot, which lost viewers throughout the season.[2] It has retained interest on Tumblr largely because of Sebastian Stan looking pretty, sad, and gay as Jack Benjamin.
Because of Stan's popularity, Kings has been both a stepping stone into other fandoms, and out to other fandoms, with many fans of Bucky Barnes (whom Stan also portrays onscreen) becoming interested in Kings. Stan has also played gay (or queer-coded) characters elsewhere, such as Chase Collins from The Covenant, and TJ Hammond on the show Political Animals. Jack Benjamin is the most popular character in the Kings fandom. Crossover pairings make up 4 of the top ten relationships in the Kings tag on AO3.
Many fans of the show noted the queer coding of the relationship between Jack Benjamin and David Shepherd, and pointed towards the Biblical source material for support of this pairing. Fans also used the Book of Samuels to identify the places, people, and plotlines of the show, which while having extremely strong biblical threads running through it, also had supernatural and even horror characters appear, such as the Angel of Death in Episode 8: The Sabbath Queen.
Pairings
- Jack Benjamin/David Shepherd
- Jack Benjamin/Joseph Lasile
- Michelle Benjamin/David Shepherd
- Jack Benjamin/Lucinda Wolfson
- Jack Benjamin/Serviceman Stuart
Popular Crossover Pairings
- Jack Benjamin/Curtis Everett
- Jack Benjamin/Johnny Storm
- Jack Benjamin/Steve Rogers
Fan Communities
On LiveJournal:
- kings_tv, a general discussion community
- kings_fic, for fanfiction
- kings_graphics, for web graphics
- david_michelle, for Michelle Benjamin/David Shepherd (deleted)
- jackxdavid, for Jack Benjamin/David Shepherd
- kingdomofgilboa, a Spanish-language community
Links & Resources
- Kings works on the AO3
- Kings on FFnet
- nbckings on Tumblr - not official, but helpful
- Kings Wiki (archive link)
- Reasons to watch/love/save/know Kings (an introduction of sorts) by nyaza, a picspam and primer (August 2009) (images offline)
References
- ^ savekings.org (archive link) and savekings on Twitter. See also i refuse to give up || four ideas to make a difference (30 July 2009) and update on the campaigns (31 July 2009), posted by nyaza in kings_tv on LiveJournal.
- ^ Kings: NBC Exec Explains Why the Ambitious Drama Failed by Trevor Kimball at tvseriesfinale.com, 7 August 2009.