''The Spoils of Babylon'' is an American

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

miniseries A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format ...

written by Matt Piedmont and Andrew Steele, directed by Piedmont, and starring

Tobey Maguire Tobias Vincent Maguire (born June 27, 1975) is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for playing the title character from Sam Raimi's ''Spider-Man'' trilogy (2002–2007), a role he later reprised in '' Spider-Man: No Way Hom ...

Kristen Wiig Kristen Carroll Wiig (; born August 22, 1973) is an American actress, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Born in Canandaigua, New York, she was raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Rochester, New York. She moved to Los Angeles, where she jo ...

Tim Robbins Timothy Francis Robbins (born October 16, 1958) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for portraying Andy Dufresne in the film '' The Shawshank Redemption ''(1994), and has won an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards for his rol ...

Jessica Alba Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in '' Camp Nowhere'' and '' The Secret World of Alex Mack'' (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 ...

Val Kilmer Val Edward Kilmer (born December 31, 1959) is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer found fame after appearances in comedy films, starting with ''Top Secret!'' (1984) and ''Real Genius'' (1985), as well as the military action film ...

, Haley Joel Osment,

Michael Sheen Michael Christopher Sheen OBE (born 5 February 1969) is a Welsh actor, television producer and political activist. After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked mainly in theatre throughout the 1990s with stage rol ...

, and

Will Ferrell John William Ferrell (; born July 16, 1967) is an American actor, comedian, and producer. He first established himself in the mid-1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show '' Saturday Night Live'', where he performed from 1995 to 2 ...

. It is a spoof of the epic-scale "TV event" miniseries adapted from bestselling novels (such as ''Shogun'', ''The Thorn Birds'' and ''Rich Man, Poor Man'') prevalent on American network television in the 1970s and 1980s. The miniseries premiered on IFC on January 9, 2014. The series received generally positive reviews from critics. For her performance as Cynthia Morehouse, Wiig was nominated for a

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie is an award presented annually by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). It is given in honor of an actress who has delivered an outstandin ...

Plot

Patriarch Jonas Morehouse shepherds his daughter Cynthia and adopted son Devon from meager beginnings in the

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presen ...

s of

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

to powerful boardrooms in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Cynthia and Devon, entwined in undeniable love, stumble through war-torn battlefields, blazing mansions, filthy drug dens and velvet-sheeted bedrooms on their quest for power and influence. Despite Jonas' best efforts to intervene, Cynthia and Devon's merciless love sets into motion a wave of destruction that crashes down on Devon's graceful wife Lady Anne, his daughter Marianne, his colleague and lover Dixie, Cynthia's hen-pecked husband Chet, her evil son Winston, the scheming Generals and far beyond. The entire miniseries is presented as if it had been a real miniseries, with a fictional backstory of how it took three years to film and was originally 22 hours long. Each episode is framed with its author/director Eric Jonrosh sitting in a restaurant discussing it; the setting and Jonrosh's erratic speech and behaviour therein are in imitation of out-takes from Orson Welles' advertisements for

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented grapes. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different ...

and

frozen peas ''Frozen Peas'' is the colloquial term for a blooper audio clip in which American actor and filmmaker Orson Welles performs narration for a series of British television advertisements for Findus. The clip is known informally as ''In July'', or '' ...

Cast

as Eric Jonrosh, "Author, Producer, Actor, Writer, Director, Raconteur, Bon Vivant, Legend, Fabulist" of the series. Ferrell as Jonrosh also plays

Reza Reza is a Persian name, originating from the Arabic word , ''Riḍā'', which literally means "the fact of being pleased or contented; contentment, approval". In religious context, this name is interpreted as ''satisfaction'' or "''perfect content ...

the

Shah of Iran This is a list of monarchs of Persia (or monarchs of the Iranic peoples, in present-day Iran), which are known by the royal title Shah or Shahanshah. This list starts from the establishment of the Medes around 671 BCE until the deposition of th ...

in the final episode. *

as Dirk Snowfield as Devon Morehouse, Jonas's adopted son *

as Lauoreighiya Samcake (Jonrosh's ex-wife) as Cynthia Morehouse, Jonas's daughter and Devon's adopted sister. *

as Sir Richard Driftwood as Jonas Morehouse, an entrepreneur in the oil industry *

as Bobcat Maccaullie as General Cauliffe, a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

general *

as Christopher Smith as Chet Halner, Cynthia's husband *

as Dixie Melonworth, a marine biologist and Devon's new love interest. * Haley Joel Osment as Marty Comanche as Winston Morehouse, Cynthia's evil son *

David Spade David Wayne Spade (born July 22, 1964) is an American actor, stand-up comedian, television host, and writer. He was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' in the 1990s, and he later began an acting career in both film and television. He also s ...

as Joseph Sol as Talc Munson * Steve Tom as Rex Muftee as General Maddoxton *Jellybean Howie as Gumdrop Howard as Marianne Morehouse * Molly Shannon as Odessa Dobson as Meredith Sennheiser *Phillip Wampler as Devon Morehouse (Young) *

Isabella Acres Isabella Acres (born February 21, 2001) is an American actress who played Rose on ''Better Off Ted'' and Mirabelle Harris in ''The Kicks. Early life Acres was born in Atlanta, Georgia, where she discovered her love for acting in children's the ...

as Cynthia Morehouse (Young) * Cal Bartlett as Cyrus Mego * Brian Chapman as News Reporter * Robert Pike Daniel as Board Member #1 *

Carey Mulligan Carey Hannah Mulligan (born 28 May 1985) is an English actress. She has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award. Mulli ...

(voice) as Lady Anne York, Devon Morehouse's

mannequin A mannequin (also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off different fabrics and textiles. ...

wife *

Marc Evan Jackson Marc Evan Jackson (born August 21, 1970) is an American comedian and actor. Some of his roles include Sparks Nevada in the ''Thrilling Adventure Hour'', Kevin Cozner in '' Brooklyn Nine-Nine'' (he also hosts a podcast based on the sitcom, titled ...

as Bank Man * Tony Mirrcandani as Amed * Al Rossi as Congressman Wilkes

Production

The miniseries began

principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as ...

on June 2, 2013 in Los Angeles.

Episodes

Reception

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website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the series holds an approval rating of 81% based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 7.12/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Kristen Wiig, Will Ferrell and a cast of other famous characters make ''The Spoils of Babylon'' a worthy watch for comedy fans, satirizing the classic television melodrama miniseries with hilarious visuals and clever content." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the series has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Companion series

The series was enough of a success for the network to prompt a second ''Spoils'' miniseries, '' The Spoils Before Dying'', which debuted on July 8, 2015.Berman, Marc (July 9, 2014)
IFC Orders Second Season of "Spoils" Franchise
''TV Media Insights''. Retrieved July 9, 2014.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Spoils of Babylon 2010s American comedy television miniseries 2010s American parody television series 2014 American television series debuts English-language television shows IFC (American TV channel) original programming Television series about television Television series by Funny or Die Television shows filmed in Los Angeles