Some miniseries (heck, some drama series) become such parodies of themselves and their genre that it’s almost not worth anyone trying to spoof them. That’s not the attitude taken by the brave souls at The Spoils Of Babylon, who have rounded up a killer cast that includes Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Tobey Maguire, Jessica Alba, Hayley Joel Osment, Michael Sheen, Tim Robbins and Val Kilmer.
What it’s all about? The series is “based” on fictional bestseller pumped out by equally fake author Eric Johnrosh (Ferrell). We’re not sure we can do better than the press release, so take it away… “The Spoils Of Babylon, a century-spanning saga, chronicles the sexy and dramatic lives of the Morehouse family, led by Jonas Morehouse (Robbins), his daughter Cynthia (Wiig) and her adopted brother Devon (Maguire) who made their fortune in the oil business,” it says.
“The series takes viewers from the oil fields of Texas to boardrooms in New York City, through war torn battlefields and velvet-sheeted bedrooms. Cynthia and Devon’s unbridled and taboo passion for one another cannot be prevented. Add in Cynthia’s evil son Winston (Osment), her put upon husband Chet Halner (Sheen), and Devon’s new love interest Dixie Mellonworth (Alba), and the booze, the pills, more passion, more pills and the heartache, and you have a mercurial potboiler. Then add in illegal arms deals, international espionage, the Shah of Iran (Ferrell), and two U.S. Army generals (Kilmer, Steve Tom) and it begins to overflow with boiling liquid in a pot on a hot stove that is operational.”
The six-episode series will be produced by the Funny Or Die gang and shown on US cable channel IFC next year (hopefully with a UK channel picking it up before too long…). Frankly it sounds rather promising to us, so we're going to be looking out for this.