christian bashing on t.v.

I'm a little late to this thread. Is Moma Angel offended about something?

Did Dys give Ms. Buns the bad touch?

Is someone picking on Jesus?

So many questions.

P.S. Cats suck. They are as a matter of fact in case you've never heard, the spawn of Satan.

I've been saying that for years, but nobody listens . . .

Yep, Im sorry beth but Arrested Developement is getting the ax soon. "People cant figure it out" Jeezus H Christ on a crutch-what do we need to do have lessons on "how to watch TV? I too shall miss the show and, just like its demeanor, Its going to incorporate its cancellation into the final shows.

Nobody better F-k with Deadwood or the Sopranos. I hear the Evangelical Program Police are lining up to try to control content of cable and satellite.

AS Ive always said, the Conservatives want less government except in areas that affect our personal freedoms.

There was a tv show last night that compared the "fixing of intelligence" for Operation Barbarosa as compared to Bush's Iraqi War.

Yeah, but that was different--nobody at OKH had the balls to tell Hitler anything he didn't want to hear, but with the Shrub . . .


. . . oh . . . yeah . . . never mind . . .

Was it on last night and did anyone watch it?

J_B,

My satellite is still out so I don't even know if it was on there. It was not on any of our local channels. I was really hoping to see it.

Maybe someone did see it and can give us a review.

I don't watch t.v.

I watched it.

As comedy it falls flat. It's ridiculous without being very funny.

As drama/soap opera it was far too overloaded with sub-plots and too contrived.

Basically well acted, but very disappointing. The central character, Daniel, is certainly perplexed and beset with problems, but, apart from being basically well-intentioned, he lacks sufficient depth to make him interesting.

I have no idea what all the fuss was about. This program will only be on until about Feb 3rd, and I doubt it will garner a large audience. I might or might not watch it again, just to see if it gets any better.

Hardly ground-breaking, not really all that controversial, and, in my mind, not an example of "Christian bashing". Quirky, but not quirky (or dark enough) to make up for what's lacking, and not substantial enough to be taken seriously, on any level.

It's being repeated tonight at 8 EST on NBC if anyone wants to watch it.

Check your TV listing for tonight for "The Book of Daniel" NBC 8:00pm Pacific time.

It's like 7th Heaven "Unleashed and Unrated"

Thanks for the headsup on the re-showing. I thought I had missed it.

firefly,

Thanx for the info. I will watch the NBC thing tonight.

I just watched it for a few minutes. It was a bit too "cutesy" for my taste, so I turned it off, and went back to watching L&O.

I really can't see what the big deal was about this show.

I went out Friday night, but expected to catch it tonight. Looks like the "religious outcry" shut it down in Houston. The nation is saved from godlessness once again.

I apologize for apparently giving incorrect info about a re-broadcast last night. I was positive I had seen it listed in my TV Guide. Apparently I was wrong. Sorry.

With all the various things I have read about this show, and the protests about it, I think most of them have missed the mark. The problem isn't that the characters engage in a litany of sins which aren't fully condemned enough, or that religion and religious people are portrayed in a bad light. The basic problem is that the show's concept does not have a coherent focus.
The absurd compilation of sub-plots approaches farce, and they come so swiftly, one after the other, that they obscure the more poignant and tragic aspects of the character's lives and any real struggles with faith they might be going through. Had any of these issues been raised or explored gradually, over the course of an entire season, the premise (if there is one) of this show would have had a great deal more interest and considerably more entertainment value as a serio-comedy. Instead, because everything is crammed into 8 episodes (four of which aired at once), it becomes neither particularly good comedy nor good drama and seems merely frantic in it's concept. It does seem to borrow heavily from The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Desperate Housewives in terms of it's creative inspiration, but it lacks the essential qualities that made those shows good, and it winds up being simply uninspired and uninspiring, and just plain unsatisfying.

Issues of drugs, booze, sex, homosexuality, etc. are somewhat sensational (for network television), particularly when faced by the family of a religious cleric. These aren't just "sins", they are also part of the fabric of contemporary life. Depicting these behaviors isn't bad, it isn't even shocking. But, when you overload the storyline with too many of these issues, it becomes merely silly and the characters become reduced to cartoons.

This show, in the initial episode, seems to focus more on the business of religion--the economics of running a church, the public relations problems, the chances for hierarchal advancement, etc.--than on any real spirituality in the lives of these people. That's all right. It's a creative decision. This program does not have to be about religion, despite the occasional presence of Jesus as a sort of buddy.
And it certainly shows religious leaders as somewhat flawed--including a Catholic priest who apparently does business with the mafia, and two Episcopal bishops who are engaged in an adulterous relationship. Problem is, these don't seem to be the sorts of things you can just toss in for a minute or two and then scoot off to follow another absurd plot dilemma. That's part of why this show left me feeling uncomfortable and frustrated. It titillates in all the wrong ways. It is too busy jumping from one crisis to the next.

Had they taken considerably more time, and more thought, putting this program together, they might have come up with something really good. The main character lost a child to leukemia, and he is now watching his mother being mentally ravaged by Alzheimer's disease. Those are not issues generally dealt with on network television, and giving them the treatment they really merit, and exploring how people cope with such tragedy (beyond the use of pills, booze and sex), might have been really meaningful, even if balanced with comedy. Perhaps in the remaining episodes it will redeem itself in terms of grappling with such real human drama and angst.

I really don't think religious people have any real reason to be offended by this program. Instead of protesting in advance, they should have watched it and then decided whether it was worth their time. Television doesn't have to idealize real life (hiding all of the skeletons in the closet) or send out only religiously acceptable answers/messages. In fact, it should not be doing that. But it should be entertaining and treat serious issues with some intelligence, and the latter seems to be lacking with The Book of Daniel.

Tony Soprano at least sees a shrink. The Rev. Daniel Webster could use Dr. Malfi. Some things are psychological problems and not just spiritual dilemmas. When people are shown as being at such loose ends as the characters in this program, professional help, in addition to spiritual guidance, seems appropriate and called for. Faith alone might not be help enough. Or is that too controversial a notion for network TV to tackle?

while not having seen it, I was a bit suspect , especially since the pre-episode notices were way too complex to seemingly cover the mass of sub-plots in one one hour show. I remember the Sopranos opening show pretty much only delt with introducing the issues that Tony Soprano would become conflicted with in subsequent episodes. It was clean and not all fussed with.

Im sorry but I never saw the opening show of Deadwood and I didnt watch any of "six Feet Under"

I watched about 30 minutes and was also unimpressed and even bored. The threats of boycott by the AFA was the only thing this show had going for it.

Did anyone like it?

I did not have high hopes for the show and this 2 hour pilot did nothing to change my expectations. I think they were foolish in trying to put so much into one long episode. I'll give it another try, but my hopes are still not high. As for all the hoopla, it was over done. This is just one more soap opera which gives an exaggerated (I hope) picture of our foibles.

I thought Ellen Burstyn was one really bright spot. She was wonderful in her brief scenes.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New York Times
January 6, 2006
TV Review | 'The Book of Daniel'

Plenty of Behavior Worthy of a Prayer Session
By NED MARTEL
It's the raucous, not the meek, who are inheriting the earth in NBC's prime-time provocation, "The Book of Daniel," which has its premiere tonight. And the flock of the Rev. Daniel Webster (Aidan Quinn), an Episcopal minister in Westchester County, N.Y., seems to be following his outrageously wayward lead. Their errant behavior has a few NBC affiliates in the heartland debating the supposed disrespect in depicting churchgoers who indulge in worldly delights.

Daniel gobbles Vicodin to endure all that the Lord giveth and taketh away. His gay son, Peter (Christian Campbell), actually beds a bishop's niece, albeit in the backseat of that church elder's luxury sedan. Not that the bishop herself (Ellen Burstyn) can cast the first stone: she's the sideline lover of Daniel's father, himself a bishop whose wife is lost in the drift of Alzheimer's disease.

Then there's the randy swordsman of the family, an adopted son who can't keep his mitts off the daughter of the congregation's meddlesome benefactor. Plus, Daniel has an heiress wife whose blue bloodlines are thinned by gin and vermouth.

This is hardly divine justice for the holier than thou, as decreed by the libertines in Hollywood. The show is a spectacle of broken Commandments, but not a satire. Daniel is genuinely pained by the sins he commits and counsels against. In moments of reflection, he even chats with Jesus about the turmoil.

"I've been meaning to ask you," Daniel asks the Son of God, "am I chosen?" Hardly, the Messiah says, explaining that anyone can choose to hear his messages. This is typical of a show that is mainly respectful and even affectionate toward those trapped and troubled by their impulses. The real mark against "The Book of Daniel" is not any antipathy it might show toward the family or sympathy for the devil. The real objection is that it's just not very good.

Don't blame the cast members, who gamely enliven the dreary backstory-establishing patter of tonight's two opening episodes. Standouts include the haunting Kathleen Chalfant as the grandma with dementia, and the chipper Ivan Shaw as Adam, that adopted son with the mischievous libido. He is Asian and offers some wicked cross-cultural insights, and inspires some scampy scenarios. His girlfriend's father escorts Adam to an emergency room after he has fallen from her bedroom window. "I couldn't just let the boy lie there on my Jag all week, could I?" the father (Dylan Baker) says sympathetically.

Some basic problems: The title is already taken, indelibly so, by E. L. Doctorow's 1971 novel about the son of executed Russian spies. And though it's sporting to christen a lead character Daniel Webster, and have him consult with Jesus rather than debate the devil, the television show's creator, Jack Kenny, falls far short of a worthy homage to this orator. Plus, the musings of Jesus (Garret Dillahunt) are decidedly, uninspiringly earthbound. ("Boy, you never know, do you?" Jesus mutters from the sidelines, when one character reveals a lesbian relationship.)

Mr. Kenny pays another middling tribute with his characters, this time to the trio of Fisher siblings in "Six Feet Under." There's a teenage daughter, who seems a drab version of Claire Fisher, plus a half-closeted gay son, who portrays none of David's complex soul-sickness. And Adam exhibits a few of Nate's self-sabotaging sexploits, with a death in the family as a device to put all the family's foibles in mortal relief.

Mr. Kenny has brought imagination to past efforts, like the short-lived, much-admired Fox comedy "Titus." His new family dramedy is based on the preferred format for one-hour network series, with quirks and complications that make suburbia consistently salacious. His sinful protagonist is never as compelling as Kevin Anderson's troubled priest in ABC's "Nothing Sacred," or Denis Leary's firefighter in FX's "Rescue Me," who also gets celestial messages of a sort. Plus, the show tries to capitalize on (and compete with) CBS's Friday-night discussions with higher powers and lost souls, which started with "Joan of Arcadia" and continues on "Ghost Whisperer."

All these allusions and derivations make Daniel's parish as hyperactive as Wisteria Lane on "Desperate Housewives," where plots are so contorted they wring the humanity and familiarity out of the neighborhood. And let's face it: having a spectral confidant is becoming a bore. I guess it's better than scenes set in a psychiatrist's office, ponderous voice-overs, that weird unseen neighbor in "Home Improvement" or any of the other devices that turn internal monologue into quipster dialogue.

I miss the simplicity of old family tales, when anguished characters did a bit of sulking rather than all manner of acting out. Not that everyone misses Sada Thompson's artful moping on "Family," or the heartache embedded in "Family Affair" and even "Eight Is Enough." It's just that it seems a hallmark of self-importance - both for the character and the show - to have a counseling session with the Almighty, when, in simpler times, a quick chat with Mrs. Beasley would have done the trick.

This type of censorship is extremely frightening, because it is based on pressure from people who had not yet even seen the show. Why not at least air it and then see how the majority of viewers react. What harm would be done by airing it? Those who don't want to see it can watch something else.

Does this sort of censorship disturb anyone else?