NBC Still Doesn't Get It

Now why is NBC in last place? Oh, yeah.

According to this story from Beliefnet, NBC Television has a real treat in store for people interested in religion: their upcoming drama series, The Book of Daniel, is about a married Episcopal priest, Daniel Webster, who is addicted to Vicodin, who is married and has a gay Republican son and a drug-dealing 16-year-old daughter. The American Family Association notes that the priest's secretary is a lesbian who is sleeping with his sister-in-law. Did I mention he also has a 16-year-old adopted son who is sleeping with the bishop's daughter?

The writer for the series, Jack Kenny, who describes himself as a real "spiritual" person, is also a practicing homosexual "in recovery from Catholicism" and studying Buudhist beliefs.

His main character, Daniel Webster, talks to Jesus, who appears to him every now and then in times of great stress. Kenny does "believe in Jesus, but not necessarily "all the myth surrounding him."

NBC purportedly is launching the series in an effort to recover from a fourth-place finish in recent ratings. Since Episcopal parishes led by priests such as Daniel Webster are wildly successful, I think they have the making of a hit.

Speaking of "hits," I note that Kenny says: "Organized religion is, to me, almost the same organism as the Mafia."

Really? Well, after all, he says,

"It's got its internal politics, it's got rules that it follows, rules that it doesn't follow, who's allowed to do what to who. It's got skeletons in the closet and scandals and all those things. It skirts the law because it can. They do it legitimately, where the Mafia does it illegitimately. I always wanted to explore religion the way 'The Sopranos' explored the Mafia, through the focal lens of a family."

And who says the media is not paying enough attention to religion?