The new NBC drama "Kings" debuts Sunday night in a mixed-review background. The subject of the show is quite controversial and can result in hundreds of different consequences. It is modern-day version of the Old Testament tale of David and Goliath starring Ian McShane, the British actor best known stateside for his Emmy-nominated role as the sly saloonkeeper on "Deadwood."

Unfortunately half of us (or more), however, would have to go to the Bible, or the Internet, to find out what happened after the little fella slew the giant back in the day; and that story is the meat of “Kings,” altered, one hopes, to provide surprises for those who already know the original.

McShane, a gifted and dynamic performer, stars as King Silas Benjamin, who presides over the mythical nation of Gilboa and whose capital is Shiloh. He’s having problems keeping its hostile neighbor nation Gath at bay.

Apart from this ultra-general plot, “Kings” centers on tween-magnet Chris Egan as David Shepherd. A soldier in the Gilboa army, David destroys the enemy's unstoppable weapon, a tank called Goliath, and is called to the capital Shiloh to meet his God-appointed king, Silas. Let the adventure begin!

“Kings” isn’t much like anything else on TV, and that’s one of the good things about it. Visually and thematically, however, this tale of royal intrigue does contain echoes of “Heroes,” the series that “Kings” creator Michael Green worked on previously.

As the show bounces between startling and startlingly pretentious, profound and profoundly silly, you can't help but wish the writers had a firmer grasp on their allegory and their conceits. We're told Shiloh is a city built entirely anew, but it's clearly old New York with a few new buildings drawn in. Dialogue that is modern conversational one minute can switch to Elizabethan theatrical or worse, bad operetta, the next.

All in all there's a queen and a prince and princess, all quite contemporary, various cabinet and military folk, and this David kid, who becomes a national hero. The characters, especially the king, are quite complex, and the story twists and turns relentlessly as people serially get caught in the spiders' web and fight to release themselves.

The symbolism just busts out from every corner of "Kings," which comes complete with the J.R. Ewing-like megalomaniac in King Silas and the ready-made Alexis Carrington bitch in Queen Rose Benjamin (played with frigid menace by Susanna Thompson).

Pretentious and far too taken with its own sense of menace, the show casts every line of dialogue as a pronouncement, every action as an uppercut to the chops. The supporting cast gives the pilot extra heft. The King's scheming brother-in-law gets an icy portrayal by Dylan Baker. The King's smart and beautiful daughter Michelle, played by Allison Miller ("Lucy's Piano"), is relentless in her pursuit of health-care reform. Soap opera all the way…