Fans of Dean O’Gorman who live in New Zealand, Australia, Canada or the UK may have already enjoyed watching him in television show The Almighty Johnsons; for fans in America, the series starts screening on Syfy this evening (Friday). Ringer Kiwifan in Germany loves the show, and wants to share her passion with you! Here’s what she had to say:
“This Friday evening, July 11, NZ tv show The Almighty Johnsons, starring Dean O’Gorman as Anders Johnson (Bragi), will have its U.S. premiere on the Syfy channel. The series, which ran for three seasons on television in New Zealand, Canada, Australia and the UK, garnered several awards and gained fans worldwide. Incidentally, the eldest Johnson brother, Mike, is played by Tim Balme who first became known for his starring role in Peter Jackson’s film Braindead (aka Dead Alive). Balme also wrote several of the episodes of The Almighty Johnsons.
The series is about four brothers who seem to be just regular Kiwi blokes with the kind of lives ordinary mortals lead. Not so; as Axl, the youngest Johnson brother, discovers on his twenty-first birthday when it is revealed to him that he, the same as his older brothers and the still youthful surfer-type whom he had thought to be his cousin but who turns out to be his grandfather, is actually the reincarnation of a Norse god in human form. In fact, Axl is Odin, the most powerful of them all. These Norse gods, however, won’t have their full powers until Odin is reunited with his wife, the goddess Frigg, and if Axl, a happy-go-lucky and rather naive student, should fail to find her before he dies, his three brothers are doomed to die at the same time. In the meantime, their existence as Norse gods must be kept secret from mortals, which makes their life in modern-day Auckland rather complicated at times! And there is also a small group of reincarnated Norse goddesses who mean to prevent this reunion by means fair or foul. And so a strange and often hilarious quest begins…
I first heard about The Almighty Johnsons at HobbitCon in 2013, when Dean O’Gorman was asked questions about it in his solo panel, and I thought it sounded interesting. As it hasn’t been dubbed into German, I ordered the UK DVD release of the first series, became instantly addicted, immediately bought the second series and then had to wait impatiently for almost a year until I was able to obtain the New Zealand edition of season three on DVD, as so far there is no UK DVD release of it on the horizon. To the utter dismay of all of its fans, The Almighty Johnsons won’t be continued, so unless there is a minor miracle, there will be no season four. Television critic Chris Philpott wrote very succinctly about it in his article ‘An Almighty farewell’ which appeared on www.stuff.co.nz on September 27:
‘This is a unique show, unlike anything this country has produced in the past, and it’s been impossibly clever at times … The Almighty Johnsons‘ legacy will probably be based on its lack of viewers and the fact that most Kiwis ‘just didn’t get it’, which is sad. I’ll choose to remember this show as a true original, an entertaining and clever and engrossing show that stands as (I think) the best serial drama ever made in New Zealand. And I’m going to miss it terribly.’
And so will I. But for US audiences, it’s only just beginning. I really hope they will ‘get’ this truly extraordinary show and enjoy it as much as I do!”
Tune in to The Almighty Johnsons on Syfy, starting today. You can read Variety’s review of the show here.
Thanks to Ringer Kiwifan for contacting us!
