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Created Jul 29, 2014 07:58PM PST • Edited Aug 06, 2014 09:48AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   The Arab Spring comes alive in Tyrant, the most politically important TV series to come along in – well – a long time. Palace intrigue swirls around the fictional Al Fayeed family, tyrannical rulers of the fictional Arab country Abbudin. Their prodigal son returns from Los Angeles in the premier of FX’s Summer ’14 series, bringing his prototypical American family into the insanity and depravity he’d fled 20 years earlier.

   Near Biblical-level family strife ensues, in a milieu of phony aristocratic privilege atop a brutal tribal society. Is it Assad’s Syria? Ben Ali’s Tunisia? Mubarak’s Egypt? Gaddafi’s Libya? Hussein’s Iraq? All and none, though it owes much to The Devil’s Double, the killer movie about Saddam’s son Uday Hussein.

   Given what is going on now with the Syrian Civil War, Hamas’s Gazan suicide war, Libya’s further breakdown and the caliphate that has taken over Transyriaq, the lens that Tyrant provides into the totalitarian reality of Arabian countries could hardly be more timely. But importance only goes so far…

   Tyrant is terrific TV: The Sopranos via The Arabian Nights. Incest, intrigue, gay sons, scheming generals: Tyrant’s got more dirt than the Sahara has sand. Series Recordings get no more satisfying.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Adam Rayner & Ashraf Barhom play the Al Fayeed brothers, a tyrant’s sons, fathers to callow children.

   Al Fayeed Family

   • British-born Adam Rayner plays Bassam Al Fayeed, who went by Barry when he took up residence in the United States. Interesting character naming, no.
   • Israeli-Arab Ashraf Barhom plays the malevolent, psychotic Jamal Al Fayeed, who is clearly fashioned after the Uday Hussein of The Devil’s Double. Barhom is scary great in the role.
   • Moran Atias plays his long suffering wife Leila Al Fayeed, who had a teenage fling with brother Bassam. Near Biblical-level family issues, remember. Atias – an Israeli-Morrocan Jewess – is a world-class beauty who is also a serious actress.
   • Jennifer Finnigan plays All American woman Molly Al Fayeed, Barry’s physician wife. Her character is continually clueless, which might be necessary for expository reasons, but makes her the one annoying character.
   • Noah Silver & Anne Winters play their All American teenagers, Sammy Al Fayeed & Emma Al Fayeed. Silver’s character is gay, no doubt a conscious contribution by series creator Gideon Raff. Both are great, with Winters displaying a sharp intelligence often expressed as teenaged bitchiness.
   • Cameron Gharaee plays Ahmed Al Fayeed, son of Jamal & Leila, a doughboy, party animal and clueless husband.
   • Sibylla Deen plays Nusrat Al Fayeed, his newly suffering wife. Deen – another world class beauty who looks like Emmanuelle Chriqui – is also a seriously impressive actress.
   • Alice Krige plays the matriarch of the Al Fayeed family, a proper British woman.
   • Nasser Faris plays her patriarchal husband, the original tyrant in Tyrant.
   • Raad Rawi plays General Tariq Al Fayeed, the strong man in the family. Rawi played a similar role in The Devil’s Double.

   Outsiders

   • Fares Fares as writer-friend of the the older Al Fayeed brother, now unemployed and desperate.
   • Mor Polanuer as his twenty-something daughter Samira, a political radical
   • Mehdi Dehbi as a gay courtier who aspires to nothing more than remaining in the Al Fayeed world
   • Salim Dau as the Tyrant’s very discrete chief minister
   • Justin Kirk as the U.S. State Department’s man in Abbudin, where we have a Navy base
   • Alexander Karim as popular opposition leader Ihab Rashid, a self-aggrandizing hothead
   • Waleed Elgadi as his exiled Father, Walid Rashid

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Really Great 4.5

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    Gideon Raff and crew deserve a shelf full of Emmys for Tyrant.

    Series creator Raff is now a bona fide industry, with Tyrant coming on top of Homeland.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.1

17. Sex Erotic 2.6

18. Violence Brutal 3.0

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.7

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    CircoReality at 1½ because Tyrant is about a made-up family in a made-up country, but no higher because all this terrible tragedy has actually occurred in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq or Kuwait, to name several members of the Arab League.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.5

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0