Last night’s live finale gave hope and inspiration to all of those people who feel that they have been “categorized” into not losing weight. In other words, those people who feel that they cannot lose weight because they are too old or are within a certain age range for a certain gender see now that it can be done. Jerry is 64 years old for goodness sake!

My only gripe with the finale was that it was too long. A three hour finale is completely unnecessary. The entire show could fit into a 90 minute show, which would be nice since there could either be a 30 minute pre-show or a 30 minute post-show. But NBC relies so strictly on the results it gets from audience testing that it completely misses how to put on a television production that makes viewers comfortable while watching the show. Sure, people tuned into the finale to see who was going to win, but the truth is that watching any NBC show is horrible because of the crappy timing and pacing of their shows.

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Anyway, congratulations to Helen and Jerry as well as everyone who lost a ton of weight. Mike’s (the 18-year-old kid) transformation is also an amazing story. I’m happy for him and I hope that he sticks to a good diet and workout regime because he can now be healthy for the rest of his life.

First, there is only one fat person on the entire show and he plays a bit part as a security guard. I can’t imagine that in this fictional society there are no overweight people besides a security guard. Very awkward. In the real world, more than half of Americans are overweight and a large number of the population is considered obese. Of course, I guess that this is one of the reasons that the show takes place in a fictional land!

Second, the show is a bit eerie in that everyone sort of looks alike. Not that they all have the same hair color and eye color, but I think the casting folks went a bit overboard on the “model” look. Everyone from the King all the way down to rank and file soldiers in the Gilboa army all could double as models for Calvin Klein, Old Navy, Gap, etc. It’s weird. The characters don’t have any blemishes, no scars, no deviations from the “perfect” look that models are always trying to achieve. Frankly, it creeps me out.

And finally, this isn’t really a criticism of Kings, but rather one of my continued criticisms of NBC in general. Someone over at the network needs to learn that the few seconds before each commercial break does not need to be overly dramatic! In other words, at this point in the show’s short history those people who are watching the show are probably going to stick with it for the duration. There is no need to make every pre-commercial portion of the show seem as though the world will end if you don’t tune back in. It’s tiresome and awkward and it makes those portions of the show tedious to watch.

And for someone like me, it forces me to record the show and watch it at a later point in time when I’m not going to be bothered with such stupid mid-episode arcs.

All in all, I like Kings, though I don’t know if it’ll be around for the long haul. NBC’s Crusoe was also a good show that didn’t get renewed and if Kings doesn’t bring in big numbers, then I don’t think NBC will give it a chance to make an impact. That’s a shame because the show definitely has potential.