House of David: The Magical World of Amazon

Move over, Disney. Amazon can produce original content that people actually want to watch. Take, for example, Amazon’s remarkable new TV series House of David. I’ve just finished watching the first season and am blown away, like when I watched The Ten Commandments for the first time as a kid.

Can you imagine Walt Disney Pictures producing anything about King David that is true to the period, true to the first book of Samuel, and captively entertaining? Well, you can wish upon a star, but that’s not going to happen. But Amazon has.

Financed by Leonard Leo of Federalist Society fame, House of David offers truths that you have a hard time finding in Hollywood. Unlike the motion pictures of the past decade that try to suspend your disbelief that women possess an equal distribution of martial prowess, in House of David, women look and act like women, and the men do the fighting on the battlefield. Another impossible political incorrectness of House of David is subtle yet profoundly obvious: though the actors are dressed in Bronze Age costumes, the Philistines look like Palestinians and the Hebrews look like Israelis. Thus, from gender roles to the three-thousand-year continuity of the Middle East conflict, this show reeks of authenticity.

It does take some creative liberties. Try reading First Samuel. Its dense prose has a simple plot that leaves readers wondering about the backstory. To fill a whole season of eight episodes, the writers have added to the text. I can live with that if it’s not poorly played, like the 2014 movie Noah and its rock creatures. House of David’s artistic license is employed with more taste, similar to how Charleton Heston’s portrayal of Moses depicted him as the crown prince of Egypt. You won’t find that in the text of Exodus. Similarly, House of David has a subplot about David’s guilt for being responsible for the death of his mother. As long as the added context fits within the biblical account rather than contradicts it, I’m down with the adaptation.

Check House of David out. See TV like it was meant to be.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.