The Spoils of Babylon
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
IFC’s six episode parody of bloated ’70s and ’80s TV miniseries, think The Thorn Birds meets Dynasty filtered through a sketch that refuses to end. Eric Jonrosh (Will Ferrell, in full wine commercial Orson Welles mode) presents his “novel for television” about the Morehouse oil dynasty: Kristen Wiig and Tobey Maguire as forbidden lovers across decades, Tim Robbins as the wildcatting patriarch, and assorted prestige cameos.
The joke is sustained single mindedness: every miniseries cliché deployed at exactly the wrong speed, dissolves that last too long, rear projection driving shots, and the single funniest visual choice in the whole thing: a mannequin standing in for a dead actress in a love scene. Whether it sustains across six episodes is genuinely debatable, the conceit gets airless in the middle, but the cast’s dead commitment and the production’s love of the form it’s mocking make it a fascinating experiment. The sequel found the sweet spot.
Verdict: Watch it as a curiosity. Stay for the mannequin.
