Tyrant

Forewarning only the pilot has been seen so far, but based on that I was thoroughly impressed.

Tyrant is the story of the second son of a powerful middle eastern tyrant who has escaped the corruption and despair of his native land and spent two decades Americanising himself and building an unassuming life with his wife and two kids. Reluctantly he is brought back to his country of birth for the wedding of his nephew.

Its not immediately a genre I would find myself drawn to, but I was enthralled. Barry (the second son) Is a wounded character, wary of his father and everything he represents, and they depict him brilliantly. His interactions with his brother and father are complex and deep.

The setting for the show is very beautiful, right in the opening portion of the episode you get a great sequence of shots where the American family is being driven in a cavalcade to the palace, and you can really see the juxtaposition of the opulence of their cars, the palace with its gardens and forest, with the impoverished masses being kept at bay so the streets are clear for the motorcade.

Watching both Barry's reaction to this contrasting culture and his American families reaction is very interesting and adds a different element to the story. His wife's "Dr. Phil" moments trying to get him to open up about the atrocities he witnessed when Barry (and the audience) know she could never really understand, his sons oblivious superficiality and obnoxious self absorption help make the story relatable to me coming from a western culture, and also highlight how ignorant they (and we) are.

I've only seen the pilot, as mentioned above, but I loved this first glimpse of a, for me, unique new story. I cant wait to see how it unfolds, and I recommend the first episode highly.

Most of the characters were somewhat stereotypical at first impression. However, the development of the characters has been executed nicely at a very gradual pace but accelerated to match the tempo of the development of the story.

I have found myself drawn into the characters and their psyche and I believe that most viewers can identify with most of them. The cast executes quite well in general. However, the "Big Brother" controlling Jamal is overdone and slows the development of his disposition. He is intelligent enough to make tough decisions. However, due to his father's influence coupled with the absence of his brother during his formative years, he sometimes needs to be pointed in the right direction yet maintains a cynical sense of humor and pretends to be dumb. This seems to invite the continual advice from his big brother. But the overbearing continual advice from the brother is still overdone.

Most viewers will find "Tyrant" to be a very distinct and unique series and very interesting to watch. It has very good content and nearly all ages can watch this for the sex scenes display more class than most shows on the air. These scenes are shown less and less as the show goes on and when they are shown they are done without unnecessary nudity and tasteless displays of the act. The violence has mellowed as well.

I sincerely hope that the writers keep up the good work, for so far they have shown great vision and originality!

I have to say I enjoyed this show and binge watched all 3 seasons ! So was exceedingly annoyed and frustrated that the last episode left the whole series hanging with no real ending! I get that networks pull the plug on many a show on its ratings but they normally give fair warning to allow writers to assemble a reasonable finale to the show however this was either not done for this show or the writers gave up? Either way as a viewer you feel ripped off after investing many hours over 3 seasons to end with a host of unresolved storylines is frankly a disgrace!

To be honest in this day and age of catch up tv recorders etc how any network can get a true reflection of a shows following by audience viewing on the actual night of broadcast is beyond me.

Did you ever invest 2 seasons on a great show only to have writers run out of ideas by season 3, so they decide to make everybody sleep WITH Everybody? Well, this is that kinda show.

Show started out nicely, with good characters and interesting storyline but the everything crashed in season 3. s3 is an absolute disaster. characters are not themselves anymore and are way out of place especially Bassam and his wife. them becoming tyrants just felt rushed and almost stupid. season 3 ruined the show and it ended with a bad cliffhanger and now the show got cancelled. good job.

season 1 is great but s2 is better, it's my favorite. it's more intense and suspenful. shame it got cancelled.