Fuck Netflix for cancelling this show. Given the quality of the cast and special effects, I’m sure the show cost a fortune, but considering how much dreck is on Netflix,* it’s upsetting when a good TV gets cut before its time.**

With Kaos***, Charlie Covell asks the question: what if the Greek Gods were (a) real, (b) still a thing, and (c) running the planet? What would our contemporary world look like under their benevolent (well, maybe not so benevolent) guidance? The answer is a world that is both familiar and so very different.

I’m not going to go into all the brilliant touches—how Jeff Goldblum’s Zeus is always dressed in activewear, how technology has stalled around the 1980s (I love that even Zeus owns a small CRT TV), how Hades is not just a real place but shot entirely in black and white, how the Trojans are a marginalised group, and so on. Nor will I blab on about how Covell reimagines the Minotaur, the Furies and the Fates. Or how Prometheus, played with an all-knowing air by Stephen Dillane, is the glue that binds the story together.

I don’t know enough about the Greek myths**** to determine how clever Covell has been in reimagining the mythology in a contemporary setting. I’m sure there’s a fuck-tonne of deep cuts and easter eggs I missed.***** I don’t think it matters. The performances, the world-building, the storytelling, it’s all high-quality stuff.

So, again, fuck Netflix. 

*Although it’s not that special effects-heavy—it ain’t no Rings of Power.

**I’m sure The Lincoln Lawyer is great.

***Did I initially think this was a Get Smart spin-off with 91-year-old Bernie Kopell reprising his role as Siegfried? No. But that’s because of a failure of imagination on my part and the rest of the world.

****Beyond the broad brush stuff that you’re taught at school.

*****Feel free to skool me. I’m open to learning.