Sight Unseen

6 January 2006



Local Affiliates to Pre-Empt NBC’s “Book of Daniel”

Aidan Quinn’s new series, “The Book of Daniel,” may be the greatest thing since William Shakespeare or the biggest steaming pile of television since reality TV happened. It hasn’t aired yet, so it’s hard to say. However, that hasn’t prevented the Pharisee Right from campaigning against it, which has two affiliates deciding not to show the program on NBC tonight at 9 pm.

The show appears to be (remember, it hasn’t aired yet) about an Episcopal minister named Daniel Webster (played by Mr. Quinn) with a Vicodin habit. He goes through the usual minister and flock stuff, and one of the characters is Jesus of Nazareth, to whom the minister talks in imagined conversations (which is called “prayer” by most Christians, although actually having Jesus talk back is not commonly experienced). This is about all one can glean from the ads that have been running.

Facts, however, don’t bother the faith-based jihadists of the American Family Association, a reactionary group that has organized a campaign against NBC affiliates and advertisers. It has a page on its website that starts off by saying “New NBC Drama Show Mocks Christianity.” It further offers more about the show that the ads haven’t shown. Reverend Webster has a martini drinking wife, “a 23-year-old homosexual Republican son, a 16-year-old daughter who is a drug dealer, and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sex with the bishop's daughter. At the office, his lesbian secretary is sleeping with his sister-in-law.” Yes, that would be bad, a Republican son.

So, KARK-TV in Little Rock, Arkansas, and WTWO-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana, will pre-empt “Daniel.” Both are owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group. KARK-TV declined to air “Daniel” after “careful consideration” of viewer feedback, which is astonishing as no one has seen it yet. Instead, Little Rock's WB affiliate, KWBF-TV, will air “Daniel” instead, and the WB took “Everybody Hates Chris” when Fox wouldn’t.

Over at WTWO, the general manager, Duane Lammers, seems to be trying to make everyone happy. He won’t show “Daniel,” but “This has nothing to do with the program and has nothing to do with the AFA. I think the system is screwed up. I think the network thinks we are going to do whatever they tell us to do. I think the regulatory environment is flawed.” It’s just a coincidence that he has chosen to protest by not airing “Daniel.” If he really wanted to get NBC’s attention, he could have pre-empted other things as well. Last night’s “Must See TV” is NBC’s hottest stuff; he could have canceled “Will and Grace’ (which as a gay character), “Four Kings” (which no one had seen either), “My Name is Earl” (which is about a screw-up who tries to make amends for past misdeeds – hard to fuss about his one), and “The Office” (the episode was called “Booze Cruise”).

Mocking religion is distasteful, and to do it on national TV is most certainly destructive of the social fabric. Just because the televangelists do it every week is no reason for NBC to get away with doing the same thing. But, before condemning NBC, maybe the country should have seen “The Book of Daniel” before claiming anything about it. Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t mocking the faith of Christians at all but showing just how hard it is to be good at following in the footsteps of the Carpenter from Galilee.


© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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