Previewing Tyrant

It has become a cliché ever since The Godfather coined the phrase: "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in." Barry has been living the simple life as a pediatrician in Pasadena for the past twenty years with two teenaged kids (one boy and one girl of course). But his nephew’s wedding brings him back home for the first time in two decade and in instantly brought back in to family turmoil. But unlike the numerous other stories of people being pulled back into the family business, Barry was born Bassam Al-Fayeed and the family business is the dictatorship of the Middle Eastern country Abbudin.

That is the premise of the new FX series Tyrant. The show comes from the same guys who did Homeland which is kind of the reverse of Tyrant where an American exiled in the Middle East (so to speak) returns to the United States. But where Homeland had twists and shocks at every turn (some good, some horribly bad), Tyrant for the most part plays it safe, the series premiere plays out almost exactly how I expected it to just from knowing the premise. The only scene that was mildly surprising is that that causes Barry (Adam Rayner who looks like a vaguely ethnic Matthew Fox).

After the premiere, the show falls into an almost procedural where instead of a case of the week, there is an Arabic country problem of the week where the country’s general (and Barry’s uncle) wants to solve with force, usually the deadly kind, while Barry tries to convince the president to solve the problems in a more civilized (read: American) way. Teenage terrorist kidnap someone? The general want to storm the building and kill everyone, Barry wants to go in and talk. Suspected terrorist is captured? The general wants him hung in the town square within twenty-four hours, Barry wants a trial. Peaceful protest in the town square: The general thinks the president should go talk to them. Oh, wait no that is Barry, the general want to kill them all.

I am actually more interested in Barry’s family. The underappreciated Jennifer Finnigan (Monday Mornings) has been married to a dictator’s son for all this time but apparently never talks about it. The son is your typical teenage douchebag who has no problem living up the dictator family lifestyle even though some of his action would have him stoned in the town square. The daughter does not want to be there but never really articulates why (she does call her grandfather a war criminal at one point) and we have to assume she does not want to spend time in a country where women are oppressed. It was almost as if the Homeland writers are overcompensating the internet’s hate over Dana Brody that they give the daughter absolutely nothing to do but know she is basically just Chris Brody without the irrational Wizards fandom. But none of the American citizens are flushed out and that includes the underutilized Justin Kirk (Weeds) as a U.S. diplomat.

The most interesting characters in the first couple episodes are Barry’s brother Ashraf Barhom (300: Rise of an Empire), who, without his brother for the last couple years, managed to be Uday and Qusay Hussein rolling into one. Sure some will see the character as way over the top, but nothing he does in the first episode I do not look at and say yeah, I would totally believe that either Uday or Qusay did the exact same thing, I would actully be more shocked to learn they were not doing the swame things. He is married to Moran Atias (The Next Three Days) your typical political wife who may very well be more ambitious than her husband.

Tyrant reminds me of numerous post-Golden Age of Television show where all the ingredients are there: good idea, good acting, it looks good, but it sometimes forgets to be entertaining. Tyrant is good, but for the first couple episodes I have been waiting for great, it just has not arrived… yet (hopefully).

Tyrant airs Tuesdays at 10:00 on FX.