# The Spoils of Babylon (2014)

> A mock-epic miniseries spoofing period melodrama, following siblings whose all-consuming love wrecks everyone around them.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/44901

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 23 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: comedy
- Created by: Harper Steele, Matt Piedmont
- Network: IFC
- Cast: Tobey Maguire, Kristen Wiig, Tim Robbins, Will Ferrell, Jessica Alba, Haley Joel Osment, Val Kilmer, Michael Sheen
- TMDB rating: 6.7/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2884286/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: mild
- Tone: campy, deadpan, absurd, melodramatic, irreverent

## What critics say

Mixed audience reception, with viewers enjoying its over-the-top parody of prestige period melodrama while finding the joke wears thin across its run.

## Synopsis

The Spoils of Babylon (2014) is an American comedy miniseries created by Harper Steele and Matt Piedmont for IFC. This six-episode, 23-minute spoof of sprawling period melodrama follows siblings Cynthia and Devon Morehouse, whose consuming love drives everyone around them toward ruin. Tobey Maguire plays Devon and Kristen Wiig plays Cynthia, while Tim Robbins appears as Jonas Morehouse, Will Ferrell as Eric Jonrosh, and Jessica Alba as Dixie Melonworth. The engine of the show is parody itself: each episode piles on lavish, self-serious twists of fortune, betrayal, and scheming, played with straight-faced gravity that keeps undercutting the grandeur. Its shape is a single limited run rather than a case-of-the-week format, with a continuing story told in a mock-epic narrating voice. The setting is an exaggerated early twentieth century America of fortune, status, and romance. Tone and theme blend a deadpan, campy absurdity with an undercurrent of obsessive devotion and the wreckage it leaves behind. Fans of Blackadder, Drunk History, and Documentary Now! will find resonance in its gleeful commitment to ridiculous melodrama and its sly, self-aware sense of period storytelling.

## Shows like The Spoils of Babylon

- [Another Period (2015)](https://ember.film/tv/55817)
- [Crisis in Six Scenes (2016)](https://ember.film/tv/59328)
- [History of the World: Part II (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/125449)
- [Parade's End (2012)](https://ember.film/tv/36399)
- [Hal & Harper (2025)](https://ember.film/tv/161397)
- [1670 (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/153521)
- [The Decameron (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/165472)
- [The Curse (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/95544)
- [On Becoming a God in Central Florida (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/69164)
- [I Know This Much Is True (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/74844)

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