Why Of Kings and Prophets Failed with Faith-Based America

ABC’s Of Kings and Prophets (the second episode of which aired last night) was supposed to be a big deal. All 15 episodes, which loosely tell the biblical drama of Samuel, Saul and David, were filmed in South Africa to the tune of $6 million per episode. When the pilot wasn’t quite up to snuff, it ponied up the cash to reshoot the whole thing—just to get everything exactly right. The creators were hoping to lure both Game of Thrones fans and the audience that turned to The History Channel in droves to watch The Bible miniseries.

It’s breathtaking how badly ABC failed.

Just 3.3 million people watched the premiere, making it the lowest-rated broadcast debut of the entire year. Viewership sunk to a truly alarming 2.4 million for its second episode.  Given these dismal ratings, one would’ve thought that the show’s creators went into each Nielsen household in the country, walked into their kitchens and spit in their soup.

I can’t speak as to why fans of Game of Thrones stayed away en masse. But it’s pretty obvious why this show failed with the faith-based crowd. So with that in mind, here are a few cautionary lessons that maybe future television producers can learn from.

If you would like to reach a faith-based audience …

… You might want to hold off on the massacres until the second episode. The pilot of Of Kings and Prophets is predicated, at least in part, on Saul’s near-annihilation of the Amalekite people, which he carried out because God (through Samuel) told him to. Yes, it’s a story pulled right from the Bible, as I’m sure Aslan would point out. But perhaps if you’re sincerely trying to attract a religious audience, this is not the best place to begin your series.

This is not to say that such stories are to be ignored. I don’t think that faith-based viewers can or should shut their eyes to these sorts of deeply challenging, even troubling, stories. Our God is complicated and our faith is complex. But just as one does not start out a blind date by detailing one’s bathroom habits to the person across the table, one should not expect to woo the faith-based crowd with the slaughter of the Amalekites.

… And maybe stay away from the graphic sex. “In being faithful to the scriptures, we decided not to shy away from the sexuality and violence that is either implied or explicit in the text,” write show producers Bill Collage, Adam Cooper and Reza Aslan in religiondispatches.org. “To do so, would sanitize the reality of the biblical time and place, while at the same time bypassing important parallels that we still confront and struggle with today.”

Sure, sex and violence is a part of the Bible. But the Scriptures, at least in their history narratives, have a rather journalistic detachment about them. In 1 and 2 Samuel—the books that Of Kings and Prophets was based on—we’re told what happened without dealing with a lot of lurid or titillating detail. And there certainly were no erotic illustrations, as far as I’m aware, in the original scrolls. The same cannot be said of Of Kings and Prophets.

Listen, lots of Christians have a complex relationship with sex. And one of the things that lots of Christians struggle with is porn. The statistics I’ve seen are pretty staggering. People of faith, naturally, turn to that faith as part of the solution to help break away from porn (many would classify it as an addiction) and help repair intimacy with their spouses. Of Kings and Prophets’ emphasis on sex—and the pretty graphic depictions of it, at least on the TV-MA versions available on iTunes—doesn’t facilitate that much. Even for viewers who don’t struggle with such issues, the emphasis on sex doesn’t do much to build trust with that audience.

… Speaking of sex, if you’re going to include it, make sure it’s actually in the Bible. In an interview with Religion News Service, Aslan admits it was tough to sell the story to network execs. “We got no after no after no, primarily because Hollywood executives would say there is no way we can put this story on the screen because all the sex and violence will offend the faith-based viewers,” he said. “We had to remind them that all the sex and violence they objected to were literally taken from the Bible.”

First, the execs had a point: While there are certainly plenty of Christians who enjoy Game of Thrones, the “faith-based” audience does at least tend to like a cleaner brand of entertainment, which means you should be cautious of gratuity. And perhaps the definition of the word gratuitous is when a “biblical” story contains sex scenes that weren’t ever even hinted at in the Bible.

We’ve seen two such scenes in the first two episodes—not a great track record. The pilot episode features an incredibly heated love scene (at least on the uncensored version of the show on iTunes) wherein one of Saul’s daughters is intimately engaged with her future hubby, a bigwig from the House of Judah. In the second, It’s suggested that David slept with Saul’s wife. Now, I’m no biblical scholar and perhaps I’m just not as clear on these things as I should be. But I don’t recall either of these dalliances from 1 Samuel. “All the sex and violence they objected to were literally taken from the Bible,” Aslan says. Really?

I believe that many in the “faith-based” audience can embrace provocative, challenging stories. But when you take the book we love and treasure above all others and want us to watch it, we need to feel that you love it, too—even if you might see portions of it a bit differently than we might.

Any story well told, and well listened to, begins in the same place: A place of respect. Respect for the source material. Respect for the audience. And that respect, frankly, seems to be missing here.