In 1976 eccentric actor/producer/writer/director/… Eric Jonrosh (Will Ferrell) began principle photography on a TV adaptation of one of his best-selling novels, “The Spoils of Babylon”. Three years later the production came to an abrupt halt due to undisclosed issues behind the scenes. When Jonrosh first presented the 22-hour cut to the network it was rejected, and so his “masterpiece” sat on the shelf for over 30 years. Now Jonrosh presents this shortened 6-part version of his miniseries to the modern-day viewer.

The mini-series within the series follows the rise and fall of the Morehouse family—from almost losing their land while struggling to strike oil, to running their massive empire from the boardrooms. The drama that ensues ultimately tears this family apart and leaves a lot of destruction in its wake. The epic story begins in 1931 when orphan Devon is adopted by Jonas Morehouse (Tim Robbins), an unsuccessful oil developer who’s struggling to strike it big. Jonas has a nine-year-old daughter Cynthia, and she and Devon quickly develop feelings for one another. Jonas forbids the pair from acting on these feelings, due to the fact that they are now siblings.

After 10 years of struggling, and with the threat of a bank foreclosure looming, the Morehouses finally strike oil and kick off what will become their family empire. However, The passing of time has also strengthened the feelings between Devon (Tobey Maguire) and Cynthia (Kristen Wiig), so after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Devon decides to enlist in order to avoid the increasing temptation.

As time passes, Devon and Cynthia try to deny their feelings and try to move on, but their forbidden love always looms over them. Devon has relationships with Lady Anne York (voiced by Carey Mulligan) and marine biologist Dixie Melonworth (Jessica Alba). While Cynthia has her own henpecked husband Chet (Michael Sheen), and evil son Winston (Haley Joel Osment), who she grooms to take over the family business. However, the repressed feelings between the siblings ultimately leads to addiction, deception, scheming, conspiracies, death and murder (among other things), and ultimately a power struggle at Morehouse Conglomerated.

This IFC series works quite well on multiple levels. Each episode of the show is framed by 30-second clips of a present-day, gluttonous and inebriated Jonrosh sitting in a restaurant giving viewers some background information about that installment of the mini-series. He points out some fun and interesting “behind-the-scenes” controversies that add another layer to the mini-series within the series. For example, Tim Robbins plays actor Sir Richard Driftwood, who is playing the character of Jonas Morehouse, and in some scenes Sir Richard will accidentally drift into his native British accent while playing southerner Jonas. Jonrosh also tells viewers about the on-the-set drama between himself and then-wife Lauoreighiya Samcake, the actress who plays Cynthia Morehouse (played by Kristen Wiig). This helps viewers to understand why later on they see the character of Lady Anne York being played by a mannequin in the mini-series (more on this later).

The mini-series within the series feels very much a product of its era, and is an excellent spoof of the epic network TV novel adaptations that filled TV screens in the late ’70s and early ’80s. The drama is heightened, everyone is overacting and the melodrama is abundant. While there is a very clear story that progresses throughout the mini-series, the creators have a lot of fun just piling on the absolute ridiculousness of it all, and you can instantly recognize the things they are spoofing. Even when a character is played by a mannequin instead of an actual actress, it doesn’t seem out of place—there is no acknowledgement of the fact that the actress isn’t human, and all of her scenes are played out to the same heightened level of drama, including a big love scene!

The series has such a talented an amazing cast. Tobey Macguire, Kristen Wiig, Tim Robbins and Haley Joel Osment all give hilariously over-acted performances. And there are a lot of other great folks who appear in the series, including Doris Burke, Cal Bartlett, Val Kilmer and Steve Tom.

Even though the mini-series is supposed to be from the ’70s, it is presented in widescreen, due to Jonrosh filming his masterpiece in “93mm Breathascope”. In the US, this series is only being released on DVD (Australia has received a Blu-ray release), however, this is less of a concern since the material is supposed to be 40 years old. That said the DVD picture quality looks great, and the creators have utilized the color palette to really bring out the fake age of the mini-series within the series. The audio track was nothing really notable, but does provide clear dialogue, and the few songs that appear on the soundtrack sound really good. Unfortunately, the DVD doesn’t contain any bonus material.

What’s Included:
Episodes: (138 min)

• All 6 episodes of the series: “The Foundling”, “The War Within”, “Kicking the Habit”, “The Rise of the Empire”, “The Age of the Bastard” and “So Sweet the Bells”
• 480p / Anamorphic Widescreen 2.40:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

Extras:

Unfortunately, there is no bonus material included.

Final Thoughts:

Overall I enjoyed this series a lot more than I had originally expected to. Will Ferrell’s Jonrosh framing bits didn’t really work for me—they reminded me of a character he did on SNL that I never really cared for. However, the mini-series within the series is hilarious and a really well done spoof starring an incredibly-talented cast of high-profile actors. The production has many different levels of humor, which also makes it highly re-watchable. The DVD looks and sounds good, but unfortunately doesn’t include any bonus material. But this release is definitely worth checking out just based on the quiality of the series itself.