The Bible

Along with Game of Thrones, the best fantasy series currently airing. An adaptation of the most famous collection of badly presented, unfunny Jewish anecdotes where we wait long and interminably for Godot and primarily an adaptation with which it would be senseless to reflect one’s own beliefs or opinions on faith in the final score. The creators took on a thankless task in the shape of retelling the fundamental parts of the Bible in the space of just ten episodes and so they decided on extreme truncation and a whistle-stop tour of god’s world with a hint of theatricality. But if you refuse to play their game, it has some magic about it. A shame about the necessary evil in the shape of an annoying, literal narrator and even greater shame about his affected, pompous delivery which, along with occasional excesses (for instance the Asian angel tough guy from episode one who slaughters the whole of Sodom), are rather detrimental. The end product is a reverential, dignified and uncontroversial illustration of this time-tested bestseller which was, is and will be an essential component of the basic education of Western civilization, nothing more, nothing less. P.S.: Will there be a season two about the Koran? (10.06.2013)