Maximum laughs in miniseries spoof
It says something about how overheated several current TV melodramas are that it takes a minute or two to realize that “The Spoils of Babylon” is an elaborate spoof.
The six-part miniseries, premiering Thursday on IFC, is produced by Internet comedy destination Funny or Die, which was co-founded by Will Ferrell and lists Judd Apatow as a principal partner.
Ferrell is almost unrecognizable for a few seconds as Eric Jonrosh, the “undisputed master of fiction,” as the show’s press notes claim. His greatest book is “The Spoils of Babylon,” the “momentous and sweeping tale of forbidden love, betrayal and bloodshed.” Jonrosh adapted the book for TV, but found networks unpredictably cool toward a 22-hour epic, so he cut it down to three hours and divvied it up into six half-hour shows.
The show follows the entirely unbelievable story of Jonas Morehouse (Tim Robbins) and his dimwitted but lustful and greedy daughter Cynthia (Kristen Wiig), who falls for her adopted brother Devon (Tobey Maguire) when they are just kids. Just as Morehouse is about to lose his land to the bank, his one oil well becomes a gusher.
Devon tries hard to resist Cynthia and even goes so far as to marry Britain’s Lady Anne York after his plane gets shot down in World War II.
Lady Anne is played by a mannequin.
The cast is impressive, to say the least. In addition to the actors mentioned above, “Spoils” players include Val Kilmer, Jessica Alba, Carey Mulligan (as Lady Anne’s voice), Michael Sheen, Haley Joel Osment, Jellybean Howie and character actor Steve Tom.
“Spoils of Babylon” is extended sketch comedy, which makes sense since it was created by Andrew Steele and Matt Piedmont and exec-produced by Adam McKay. All three are former “Saturday Night Live” writers and previously worked together on the Ferrell spoof “Casa de Mi Padre.”
The episodes, introduced and wrapped up by Ferrell as Jonrosh, are about 22 minutes long, but that’s longer than most “SNL” sketches. That’s a minor problem here and there when jokes and setups are repeated. To wit: Early on, Jonas gives Devon a pocket compass with an inscription that goes on and on and on, well beyond the number of words that could be inscribed on such a small surface. In the show’s second episode, Devon’s plane is hit by enemy gunfire during the war and is spiraling toward the ground — the perfect time for him to deliver a verbose, bilious oration about the nature of love and honor or some such.
Not a big problem, though, because the show has enough originality and sheer wackiness to maintain viewer interest, not to mention ridiculous effects that are anything but special.
If ABC’s “Betrayal” were this funny, I might actually watch more often.