The Book of Daniel

[maggiethecat]

Has anyone else caught the promos for this show? I seem to recall reading "buzz" that it was a tough network sell . . . which, of course, makes me want to give it a try.

Looks like we have a confused Episcopal priest with a wildly dysfuntional family (including an embezzer), Ellen Burstyn as a take-no-prisoners bishop, and Jesus -- a la Rescue Me -- rides with the guy in his car and gives him a hard time.

And it's -- be still my foolish heart -- Aiden Quinn.

This could be good.

[housemouse]

I have not seen the promos, but Aidan Quinn - as a PRIEST!!! Oh my, oh my.

[bjobsessed]

Never heard of it, but let me know when it's on. I'm game to give it a try.

[mlm828]

It will be on NBC, beginning Friday, January 6, at 9 p.m. Eastern time, then moving to 10 p.m., beginning January 13.

I've seen the promos for it, too, and my reaction is that it is going to be either very, very good or very, very bad. I guess the only way to find out is to watch.

[inuvik]

Sounds great to me! I love shows that deal with religion and church-going. So many of the few that are out there deal with the Catholic faith that a focus on Anglican/Episcopal will be very welcome.

I dearly miss Highway to Heaven.

[housemouse]

This was in the LA Times today:

A conservative Christian organization critical of "The Book of Daniel," a new NBC drama about an Episcopal priest who sees and talks to Jesus, has launched a campaign asking local affiliates not to air the program and warning that supporters will lodge protests with the show's advertisers

The Mississippi-based American Family Assn. says the show, set to premiere Jan. 6, disrespects Christians by depicting the Rev. Daniel Webster and his family as "deeply dysfunctional." Webster, played by Aidan Quinn, is addicted to painkillers, while his wife has a drinking problem, one of their sons is gay and their teenage daughter sells drugs.

"It seems they made every decision they could to alienate us," said AFA spokesman Ed Vitagliano. The group says it has generated more than 400,000 protest e-mails to network officials in the last week. An NBC spokesman could confirm receipt of only a couple of hundred e-mails and released a statement expressing the network's support for the show.

" 'The Book of Daniel' is a fictional drama about an Episcopalian priest's family and the contemporary issues with which they must grapple," the statement read. "We're confident that once audiences view this quality drama themselves, they'll appreciate this thought-provoking examination of one American family."

— Matea Gold

[doobrah]

That actually sounds really interesting and chock full of dramatic possibilities.

I read recently that the networks are busy trying to adapt Mexican telenovelas to American TV. They were described as 13-week closed end stories that would run in the summer as an alternative to the flagging reality TV genre. They are going to try to retain the high drama that is the hallmark of the telenovela.

Already HBO Signature is running "Epitafios", an Argentinian 13-week telenovela in Spanish with subtitles. They're into Week 4 and it's really great.

[bjobsessed]

Anything would be better than more reality tv.

[inuvik]

housemouse said:

This was in the LA Times today:

A conservative Christian organization critical of "The Book of Daniel," a new NBC drama about an Episcopal priest who sees and talks to Jesus, has launched a campaign asking local affiliates not to air the program and warning that supporters will lodge protests with the show's advertisers

The Mississippi-based American Family Assn. says the show, set to premiere Jan. 6, disrespects Christians by depicting the Rev. Daniel Webster and his family as "deeply dysfunctional." Webster, played by Aidan Quinn, is addicted to painkillers, while his wife has a drinking problem, one of their sons is gay and their teenage daughter sells drugs.

"It seems they made every decision they could to alienate us," said AFA spokesman Ed Vitagliano. The group says it has generated more than 400,000 protest e-mails to network officials in the last week.

Well--this certainly makes me want to watch it more! If it annoys the ultra-Conservatives it is bound to be good.

It certainly bugs me when the conservative Christians make statements like "disrespects Christians", as if all Christians are alike on the spectrum of belief. There is lots of diversity out there and there are many Christians that have different beliefs than groups like American Family Association.

[housemouse]

Here is a link to an article in today's LA Times. The link usually only works the day the article is printed. If it disappears, let me know and I will copy the text here.

www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-daniel6jan06,0,2661271.story?coll=la-tot-promo&track=widget

[shmeep]

housemouse said:

Here is a link to an article in today's LA Times. The link usually only works the day the article is printed. If it disappears, let me know and I will copy the text here.

www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-daniel6jan06,0,2661271.story?coll=la-tot-promo&track=widget

Oops. Tried it and the link already doesn't work. Now you have me all curious about this article...

[inuvik]

Thanks so much for this link Mouse!

I am so excited about this show, I can hardly wait to watch it. Except I will have to wait, and for about 6 weeks too! I don't have cable, and like BJ, my mother will record it for me and when she gets a full tape send it to me. Bummer. I will definitely be following discussion of it here closely! The upside of this process, is you get to watch a whole bunch of episodes at once.

I do disagree with these 2 parts of the article:

"You've got at its core a character that you don't usually see on television," Zigler said. "His family and surrounding extended family have so much drama, and he himself is a flawed character.

and

"It's about a family that loves each other unconditionally and is ready to catch each other when they fall.

This is exactly what Everwood is about! (I wish someone on this board liked Everwood, my fave show on the air).

Hoping this show is wonderful, character drama!

[inuvik]

admin said:

housemouse said:

Here is a link to an article in today's LA Times. The link usually only works the day the article is printed. If it disappears, let me know and I will copy the text here.

www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-daniel6jan06,0,2661271.story?coll=la-tot-promo&track=widget

Oops. Tried it and the link already doesn't work. Now you have me all curious about this article...

Just copy the link and paste it in your browser, half of the link is not hyperlinked.

[housemouse]

Here is the review from the LA Times.

"The Book of Daniel," which premieres tonight on NBC, concerns a pill-popping Episcopal priest (Aidan Quinn), his somewhat mildly unconventional family and the priest's personal relationship with Jesus (Garrett Dillahunt), who pops in every so often for conversation. It has been news of a minor sort for some weeks, as the subject of a preemptive campaign and threatened boycott by Donald Wildmon's American Family Assn., who view it as an affront to "Christians who believe in the Bible." (Presumably NBC was expecting them — the AFA shows up to all these parties — and has done that math, and is not worried.)

Wildmon and company have every right to their campaign. And I don't happen to like the show much myself, for other reasons — it's weak and unconvincing and plays like a knock-off of bits of "Six Feet Under" (dysfunctional family meets the supernatural) and "Desperate Housewives" (crazy, racy doings in leafy suburbia). But it is by no means anti-Christian, or even anti-clerical, or anti-family. Quite the opposite.

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Still, I can see how this Jesus might be a little laid-back and California-tolerant for Wildmon, one of whose missions is fighting "the Homosexual Agenda." (Series creator Jack Kenny is gay.) Dillahunt's is an it's-all-good, joking Jesus ("I'm a one-liner kind of guy — do unto others, turn the other cheek, stuff like that"), with the blissed-out affect of a practiced acidhead. (Though He is high only on life — "Oh would you look at those clouds?" he sighs.) But all representations of God are works of the imagination, whether Mel Gibson's or Martin Scorsese's, and if we're going to get picky about these things there's a lot of art to take down from the museum and church walls, and a lot of film we'll need to burn.

In any case, it's clear that this Jesus — a white, American picture-postcard Jesus, in flowing white robes with the standard hippie hair and beard — is just Daniel's personal Jesus, his imaginary friend and guidance counselor. There is not, however, much depth to his advice or philosophy. "You should laugh more," he tells Daniel. Or, "Life is hard, Daniel, for everyone. That's why there's such a nice reward at the end of it." Or, "I'm not a fortune teller, let it play out." It's never easy writing lines for God.

But "The Book of Daniel" is less a show about faith or Christianity — in the three hours I've seen, the subject is barely discussed, and never in such a way as to throw any new or interesting light on the subject — than it is a kind of Episcopalian Peyton Place, full of sex and secrets. Its tone shifts continually, and despite a fine cast that includes Ellen Burstyn, Dylan Baker and Dan Hedaya, in the end it works neither as comedy, satire, drama nor soap opera.

Very little of it rings true. Divine manifestations aside, it is only tenuously connected to ordinary reality — often in small ways, but the missteps add up. As when the housekeeper, looking for privacy, smokes a joint in the frontyard. Or a boy and girl manage to shower together in a school gym. Characters are underimagined — past one or two Identifying Characteristics, they seem to have no life or interests at all.

Indeed, they seem to have met one another just before the filming began, rather than having spent their whole lives together. Oversexed adopted Adam (Ivan Shaw) keeps making jokes about his being Chinese, as if this were news, and about his older brother's homosexuality, as if that were news. Daniel's bishop father (James Rebhorn), speaking to his daughter-in-law, refers to his own grandson as "Peter, your eldest." (Only on "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" would such a reference make sense.)

Daughter Grace (Alison Pill) is busted for selling pot, and while you would expect that to bloom into a scandal, it goes away with a little community service. In any case, her actual Identifying Characteristic is that she draws cartoons. (She occupies the same position — sullen, sarcastic, arty teen — as Lauren Ambrose did on "Six Feet Under.") Wife Judith (Susanna Thompson) drinks a little — she'll drop the odd plate or loudly announce, "I'm having a martini, it's the weekend, it's after noon and I'm having a martini" — but apart from these passing moments, nothing comes of it. In the same way, Daniel's addiction to painkillers seems no more troublesome than, say, an over-fondness for jellybeans.

Indeed, Daniel's character is critically undeveloped, past the fact that (as church warden Baker tells him), he's "a good man." (This formulation is used again and again: "She's a good girl," Jesus says of Grace. "He's a good boy," Judith says of Adam. "He was a good man," Daniel eulogizes his brother-in-law. This may be some sort of subtle joke about Episcopalians, but I am not sure.) He does not even wonder whether that's really Jesus sitting next to him in the station wagon. Wouldn't you?


Not that we always (or ever) agree with reviewers, but it is interesting to read.

[inuvik]

That review you posted was not the same one in the link--could it be that the LA times has changed it or something? Weird.