The Almighty Johnsons

It took me ages to get to see this show and it has exceeded my expectations. As a comedy drama it works on both of those levels. The main characters are likeable and as a fan of Norse mythology, I like the dilemmas they face as modern day Aucklanders who happen to be the vessels of gods and goddesses. I can't praise the cast enough but Shane Cortese as Colin/Loki is wonderfully sleazy, and Ben Barrington as eternally young grandfather Olaf/Baldur is believable as the Johnson who uses getting stoned as a means of coping with immortality.There is pretty good character development and the myths are used as a good inspiration for some of the storylines. I'm almost through all three seasons and I will miss it when I have finished watching it, although I very much feel that it is a show that will go out on a high. Earlier episodes show that the budget may not have been huge, but everything else makes up for that and you can see it has been made with love.

So basically it does not have the production values of Supernatural or some other show from the US but I have been brought up on the cheap sets of Dr Who which requires a more interesting storyline and in that respect if you go into this show with low expectations you will actually end up impressed.

Going through the list of actors you can see that there is not much experience but they all pull together really well, I especially like Anders character as he adds a certain amount of lightness to the darker back stories and the Thor character from one episode was laugh out loud funny. I would certainly not classify this as a comedy but more of a light hearted supernatural drama.

I have just watch the first series through in three day and can't wait for the second season to air and really hope the good story pace and sharp writing is continued.

Why on earth does IMDb display one of the few poor instead of the many positive reviews of this series on the main page for this show?

I came to the Almighty Johnsons after watching an ad for the show on Sky and thought "why not? I'll check it out". The show easily lived up to all my hopes and expectations. Starting off lowish budget but with brilliant acting and storytelling with action and comedy easily worthy of the Norse legends it parodies.

Olaf and Anders provide the comic relief whilst Mikkel and Axl provide the main, straight performances that move the story along. Ty is the dark one of the brothers, whose character becomes so much more so in the second series.

Don't believe the haters, try it for yourself. If you are looking for intelligent drama/fantasy with a dedicated, well acted cast then you could be in with a winner here.

I came across this program by accident and what a find it was. I had been watching No Ordinary Family at the time and when I saw the synopsis of what this was about I thought it would be similar. Boy I was wrong. This is more true to life , out with the main subject matter, than most things on TV. There is swearing, but no more than in normal life, nudity, the same and plenty of adult humour. You could also say informative as it does educate about Norse gods. It's difficult to say much more without spoilers but I'll try to say briefly what it's about. There are people living in NZ who are the basically the Norse gods. They currently don't have all their godlike powers and so begin a quest to regain them. If you liked Heroes, No Ordinary Family and especially Misfits then you'll most likely love this, baring in mind this is decidedly adult with swearing, nudity and drug taking.

As a Kiwi ex-pat, I occasionally watch some TV programs from back home to see what is happening. Sometimes they are OK, sometimes dire, but this is a real gem.

Great Kiwi humor, acting and story-line. I love this series! I have even introduced this to a few other Kiwi ex-pats, as well as other foreigners (including an American mate, who actually gets it)

To the Nay-sayers who dislike this program, I don't know what they are expecting or what they want. Perhaps another mass-produced American series ? there are loads of those.

This is original, and brilliant. I am so happy there is going to be a 3rd series!

Cheers