The morning after the nights before: "Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King"

[dianeduane]

Well, so it's finished airing...and SciFi is very pleased. From our producers this morning:

The premiere of Dark Kingdom averaged a 1.8 HH rating and 2.109 million total viewers (P2+).

This is the most-watched Monday program ever for Sci Fi in any second quarter.

Dark Kingdom delivered 1.181 million P25-54s, the #8 cable program for the day on Monday on this measure.

...Over on the BBs at SciFi there's a certain amount of approbation, a lot of confusion about where the story came from, and some indignation at the ending, along the lines of "How dare this not have a happy ending, it's a fairy tale, right, a fantasy, where's our happy ending?"

Ah well. We have ours. :) On to the next miniseries!

(The funniest remarks over there so far: (1) "There should be a sequel!" (Whoops, sorry, we seem to have killed everybody but Kriemhild.) (2) "We want a series!" (Argh! But now that you mention it... NAAAH.) ;)

Tags: Dark Kingdom, The Dragon King, Sci-Fi Channel, miniseries, Diane Duane, Peter Morwood, Uli Edel, Kristanna Loken

Comments

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

I don't have cable, so I must get this on DVD somehow. Incidentally, Diana L. Paxson did cover the end of the story in Lord of Horses: Gudrun (Kriemhild) is married off to Attila the Hun, and the Nibelung clan comes to a bad end when they try to cross him. A fine novel, and a fine trilogy: The Wolf and the Raven, The Dragons of the Rhine, and Lord of Horses.

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

We managed to watch it all last night. Against all odds, both children voluntarily went to bed at 8 pm.

Wow! Aside from the occasional corny dialogue, we loved it. So was Fafnir based on the 1906 painting of Siegfried and Fafnir by H. Heinrich? He looked just like the depiction there. Although your Siegfried was not fighting him in the buff like in the painting. (Googling this, I discover that the artist has apparently painted more than one, the one in our big mythology book is not the one in the LC Art Center with the same name.)

After we watched it, we pulled out the encylopedia of mythology and looked at the summaries for Brynhild, Kreimhild, etc. and said a lot of "yep, that was in there!" Reading the Niebulungenlied will have to wait, though, as our only copy is in German (purchased for a long-ago college class).

Nice to have some real sword-forging mental imagery to go with re-reading Door into Fire which we do occasionally, too. The anvil-cleaving scene seemed, well, familiar, but with no fire-elementals lurking in the hearth.

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

Forgot to say, absolutely loved that the treasure got sent back to the Niebulungs on the death ship. Thank you for tying up the loose ends.

[davidkevin.livejournal.com]

> (The funniest remarks over there so far: (1) "There should be a
> sequel!" (Whoops, sorry, we seem to have killed everybody but
> Kriemhild.) (2) "We want a series!" (Argh! But now that you
> mention it... NAAAH.) ;)


Coming to first-run syndication on a station in your market:

BEOWULF: The Series.

The Adventures of Boromir.

The Happy Hobbits Variety Hour

Darthen and Arlen: The Next Generation

[(Anonymous)]

Now that was a good movie. DVD will be purchased soon. May have to buy two to have a loaner copy.

Things I was watching for:

* Fire elemental in the forge
* Wizard's Knot in the big spell diagram
* Any good books in Fafnir's hoard

All missing, alas. No solar panels on the dragon, either, but he did have a nice Bussard ram scoop. And the main chamber of his cave was pretty close to how I imagined Segnbora's.

But the big problem is that I now have Bugs Bunny's rendition of Wagner going through my head. "But what did you expect from an opera, a happy ending??"

- cjmr's husband

(Now that I think about it, there was, in fact, a spear and magic helmet. Spear and magic helmet? Spear and magic helmet!)

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

I think Elizabeth Peters wrote in one of her books, "How dare the author deny the readers the happy ending they have every right to expect!" (I paraphrase from memory.)

[fiveforsilver]

Yes, this is my thought - when will it be on dvd? I get cable, but not Sci Fi.

If I'd had any presence of mind, I'd've asked my parents to tape it for me (which is, however, no guarantee that they would have done it...).

[fiveforsilver]

*reads further comments*

*checks Amazon*

Hmmm!

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

*whaps cmjrh on general principles*

[dduane.livejournal.com]

 

 

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

You have a good memory. I don't have the book that's in, though.