Tyrant is an American political drama television series created by director and writer Gideon Raff and developed by Howard Gordon and Craig Wright.

[1] The first season of Tyrant consisting of 10 episodes premiered on American cable network FX on June 24, 2014, and ended on August 26, 2014.

[6] Bassam "Barry" Al-Fayeed, the younger of two sons of an infamous Middle-Eastern tyrant, has been running from his past for 20 years.

Now a pediatrician living in the United States, he has an American wife, son and daughter, and no desire to revisit his familial origins.

However, when he is reluctantly compelled to return to his home country (the fictional Abuddin) for his nephew's wedding, he is quickly drawn into a taut political crisis when his father dies in the midst of a growing popular revolution against the ruling family.

Bassam must now attempt to use his influence to guide the new president, his brutal and unstable older brother Jamal, to a political solution that will avert a bloody conflict.

"[7] The first television promos appeared in April 2014, featuring an excerpt of the song "Wave" from the album Morning Phase by Beck.

The consensus on the site reads: "Realizing a uniquely vital representation of life in the Middle East, Tyrant mostly thrives as a biting family drama set against immersive scenery".

Alan Sepinwall at HitFix labeled the show "messy", and criticized Adam Rayner's performance as Barry: "Rayner is so bland, so lacking in charisma in the role – Barry is by nature, a quieter, more reserved character, but there are ways to play silence that aren't remotely this dull – that it's baffling that Gordon and company would go to the trouble and risk the justifiable anger over the casting.