The Spoils of Babylon

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.