The Book of Daniel
January 25, 2006
My friend, Richard Waterfield, posted the following about the cancelation of NBC's, "The Book of Daniel" in a Christian Fellowship discussion today. (Click to read the entire discussion or participate.)
"All,
"Without so much as a peep from me, the TV show 'Book of
Daniel' has parted company with it's Friday night NBC time. Maybe it
will run at 3 AM, or on some special interest cable program, or maybe
not at all. Devotees are calling for an early DVD release and blaming
the fanatical right wingers for the show's demise. The real cause might
have been ratings. I donno.
Richard W."
I responded:
"Richard,
">>The real cause might have been ratings. I donno.<<"
"Ya think ? <G>"
"I've never known the networks to be motivated by anything else <g>."
"I was curious and didn't feel right about speaking out against
something on the word of others, so I watched most of the first episode
and clicked in on some of the others. They were straining very hard to
include as many schocking scenarios as they could in an hour."
"It's like the guy who had the bumper sticker that said, "Nuke a gay
whale for Jesus." - designed to offend everyone, but not worth
the buck to buy it or the trouble to put it on the bumper. I enjoy
being offended as much as the next guy, but the show just didn't have
any edge to it, just a lot of dull axes to grind."
"Now - cancelling West Wing is another matter. I was looking forward to
either way the wind blew - a Jimmy Smit presidency or an Alan
Alda presidency. I enjoy being offended by a good, thoughtful script
<s>."
"And don't get me started on Seventh Heaven <S> (which has
pretty much run out of scripts to be written). Nevertheless, I've been
loyal to the family and to Eric Camden, Super Pastor."
"I guess I'll just watch Law and Order or better still, read a book."
"Thus endeth Tom's Media Commentary for the week <g>."
"- Tom"
Networks will forgive almost anything except bad ratings. Viewers will forgive anything except bad stories and scripts. It may be that the boycotters are patting themselves on the back, but if anything, they got a lot of us to check it out. Come to think of it, as an indirect result, they may have precipitated its demise.
Let me quickly add, that I never recomended the show and never would have. I am just very skeptical about and resistant to boycotts. If someone tells me what not to read or watch it sends a little prickly thing crawling up my back.
Any family can be dysfunctional - even ministers' families, but this was a bit much - to be so dysfunctional and yet, functional at the same time!
One thing I never really figured out was what Daniel stood for. He wasn't a bad guy; it's just that, given his lack of any conviction whatsoever, why bother? I guess we'll never know.
And then, there was the protrayal of Jesus. Some called it blasphemous. I don't know about that - but it certainly didn't look like the Jesus I converse with regularly.
And while we are at it, didn't anyone complain that he was rather ...... WHITE?
And bland ... ?
And exactly what was his message?
Read more at Religion Today.