The good news is, this kind of comedy gold is worth every frustrating moment. I’m going to hit five things in every episode worth watching it for. I’m not going to slap it behind a spoiler cut, I guess, since the book’s been out for twenty years. (Also, this is so unrelated to the book that it wouldn’t matter in any case.)

Look at those hostage eyes. You know you’re in for a treat!

Five Reasons to Watch Episode 1 of Pillars of the Earth.

1. It’s a ham-off. Basically, a bunch of seasoned actors all got together and said, “YOU GUYS, HAM-OFF ON SOUNDSTAGE 6,” and everyone was like, “HOLY CRAP CAN I WEAR A STUPID WIG AND/OR WIMPLE?” and everyone else was like, “IT IS REQUIRED,” and they all broke huddle to go dress like idiots and then meet back up and see who could deliver the hammiest performance of all time.

2. That competition is going to be tiiiiiiiight. Right now I give the edge to Sarah Parish, but that might just be the wimple. THE JURY IS OUT.

3. The pacing is so awful I can’t explain it in words. We open on a flaming shipwreck; the next scene is labeled “18 Years Later.” We see Ian McShane telling Brother Matthew McFayden (looking sad not to be participating in the Ham-Off) that he can make him a Prior, if Prior McFayden would one day make him bishop. Brother McFayden agrees. CUT TO all of them in church and McShane announcing that the old bishop has just now keeled over, what a shame, time to elect a new one, as Prior McFayden clutches his pearls.

THOSE SCENES ARE NEXT TO EACH OTHER. Did anyone ever teach anyone in this production how to develop suspense for more than thirty seconds? Anyone?

4. At one point, one of the bad guys leads a raid on Donald Sutherland’s castle (sure). His troops have been ordered to murder, pillage, and rape their way through the castle. Donald Sutherland comes into his overrun keep, sees that things are not going well, decides to surrender, and calls out, “Stop!”

EVERYONE STOPS. Like, bad guy soldiers literally stop mid-molest and step back to wait politely for whatever happens. (These filmmakers do not know a lot about how battle works, I guess. Or acoustics, or history, or anything.)

5. This miniseries is so far afield from the books that it’s basically left them behind entirely and is now just medieval soap-opera soup, so there’s literally no knowing what will happen. Which at least means that if you read the book, you can still be surprised! By…almost all of it!

Tonight, Episode 2. I CANNOT WAIT.

Still, that book was my jam when I was 11, so I thought I might as well check it out, since it’s got every ham actor who ever hammed. It’s an Ultimate Ham-off!

After seeing the first episode, I can tell you with authority: this is the kind of Ham-Off they will write about for a hundred years. And by “they” I mean “me,” and by “a hundred years” I mean “for the next three weeks.”

I mean, the cast aside (Rufus Sewell, Ian McShane, Donald Sutherland, Sarah Parish, just for starters), the subject matter is perfect for half-starved scenery-chewing. I think most of what I’ll be doing the next three weeks is developing a drinking game for this thing, because I suspect it will need it.

For those who doubt how much cheese you can get in less than two minutes of footage, I give you a vaguely-spoilery trailer!

Tomorrow, Episode 1 (A New Ham-off)!

Cleopatra, Portrait of a Killer. (To be pronounced “KILLAH!” with Gloria Swanson eyes.)

Their premise is that Cleopatra, because she hinted around at various Romans until her brother/husband and her half-sister got bumped off and left her sitting pretty on the throne, is a stone-cold killer. Also they have an extra five minutes to fill, so we’re going to reconstruct some bones we found in Arsinoe’s tomb and decide where she came from! (Not interesting enough for its own show, I guess, but apparently a nice way to bring home the fact that Arsinoe was dispatched by a KILLAH.)

Here’s the problem with that: they must think we have never heard of a royal family before. Killing each other is what royal families more or less exist to do. (Last one standing gets the throne, you guys!) So, the fact that Cleopatra exerted some influence to rid herself of rivals to the throne is business as usual, and doing everything you can to keep yourself in power is not only business as usual, but history sort of vilifies you if you can’t manage it, so you might as well really go for it and become Oxnard the Wrathful or whatever instead of Plinkerton the Waffling.

(Also, if we’re talking about someone who is not afraid to fight for the throne, the ghost of Henry VIII heard this TV show title and looked up, superoffended.)

On the other hand, “Cleopatra: Portrait of Moderate Political Acumen” doesn’t have the same ring to it, I guess.

But long as we’re still competing for incestuous, murderous royal families, there’s another amber-filtered desert-dwelling monarchy that makes Cleopatra’s friends look like an episode of Blackadder. Just saying.

On the plus side, this had the best history-documentary extras EVER. They were really going for it, especially Cleopatra and Arsinoe, who did more intense-head-turns-to-the-camera than any other history documentary has ever attempted.

I think I’ve talked about this before, but I REALLY love extras. Extras in big movies, extras in small movies, accidental extras in crowd scenes, extras who look right at the camera, extras who are falling asleep, extras who outdance the leads, extras who are into it above and beyond the call of duty and gesticulate wildly in the background having a peas-and-carrots fight. But perhaps no extras are closer to my heart than the extras in historical documentaries, who usually look a little confused as to why they’re doing whatever they’re doing, but gamely push forward into a castle siege or something, just like they were told.

These extras came to win, though. They threw shade at each other and had silent freakouts and threw jewelry all over the place! I actually enjoy this Cleopatra in a completely non-facetious way, and watched the entire hour because I loved how much fun she was clearly having. You make it happen, Cleopatra!

Below, a clip from the show for your enjoyment. (She was a KILLAH!)

It was…plentiful? I don’t even know what to say about it. They somehow managed to undercut most of their good points by accident (though every once in a while my jaw would hit the floor when something egregious stereotyped through the frame).

They did try very hard with the casting, which is generally passable and occasionally enjoyable. Sam Clemens and Allegra the courtesan did very well for themselves, and of course, Peter Wingfield never met an outdoor set he couldn’t halfheartedly stage-fight his way across. (I also suspect he had a contract rider that stipulated he be making out for at least 40% of his screen time.)

I’d be surprised if it makes it to a long-term series, only because renting a riverboat like that must be expensive, and because they burned all four hours of it on a Sunday night in April, which doesn’t speak much to their confidence about holding an audience from week to week.

But here’s the thing: I tease SyFy (and rightly), but I do think that with all this “reimagine-classic miniseries” stuff they’re getting closer and closer to something good that they can sustain. I mean, sure, Tin Man was a disaster. And Alice had a decent first half and then kind of imploded, but the cast was actually surprisingly good, and I enjoyed it quite a bit whenever I could forget the WORST PLOT IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Frankly, if SyFy could have come up with a better premise, I would have tuned in to that show every week, no problems. A nice pulpy hour every week full of actors I like? SOLD.

This one had a multicultural cast (thumbs up) who are mostly sci-fi TV veterans (thumbs up!) in a script with an ensemble feel (thumbs up), in a setting where they can be held hostage by Vikings at any moment (thumb sideways), and a standard Chosen One quest plot (thumbs down) where the hero is looking for his impossible, dull, virginal girlfriend (thumbs down), and where blue aliens manipulate you with cryptic messages and sometimes tie you to a table and taunt you for no reason and then let you escape from your prison and then transport you a hundred miles away from the prison anyway, making your escape moot and leaving you staring at your costar in the middle of the Vancouver woods. (Uh, thumbs down.)

They managed to strike gold for a whole season after the BSG miniseries. (And then three more, which were like brass.) Someday soon, they’ll get it right again.

Just…not with this one.

Do I think this will be awesome? Yes. But it has some serious work to do if it’s ever going to compare to the most amazing version of this story ever broadcast, and I think you know which I mean.

This one. (Immortalized here on Greendale Elementary’s picture day.)

Now, this show is not amazing for its overall storyline (which was three ounces of story in a two-gallon jug). Nor is it memorable for its individual episodes, which tended to be like the 90s remake of The Tomorrow People, in that almost every episode featured someone new learning about the underground society that has existed in secrecy for decades, except that judging by the discovery rate on the show, by now everyone in New York probably knows about it and just doesn’t realize it’s common knowledge because it doesn’t come up in conversation. The Underground Renaissance Faire: New York’s best-kept secret.

But neither one of those is the element that makes the show truly timeless. That would be the wardrobe.

To be fair, the show is somehow too sincere to really demonize, and some aspects of it still hold up. I like the adherence to the Beast of the classic myth, where his appearance is ghastly but he is, at all times, tenderhearted. (This made him too static for a long-form TV show, but still.) I like that Linda Hamilton was over 30 when they cast her, because I seriously don’t think that could happen these days. But my prevailing thought about the show over the years has been, “MAN, were those the 80s.”

Oh, were they EVER the 80s.

No joke, this is one of the most Late-80s images I have ever seen. (This started out as Hogwarts, now it’s Lord of the Fliiiiies!)

But she’s not the only one dealing with some 80s.

This is one of Catherine’s super-rich boyfriends. This is what he’s wearing when we discover he’s evil. (I think we knew that, sir.)

This dude cannot take the 80s for one more second. Hang in there, guy!

Plus, he’s hardly got the short end of the wardrobe stick here. Let’s talk about the people who live underground. It makes sense that they have to make do with whatever, but seriously now:

A too-big blazer (sure thing) with handmade, layered epaulets draped from the shoulders(…).

And we have not even gotten to Vincent, who committed to the idea that it was 1650 down in the tunnels like nobody else could have.

He’s just keepin’ it casual for his morning jog, is all.

Thank you for all of this, show. And I mean that.

Though I think with all Vincent’s jabot-flaunting, when we look for a true fashion victim for the ages, we’re looking at this one:

I would be making that face too, Linda Hamilton. You took one for the team this time.

“Best screencaps in the world” credit goes toClassical Alliance.