That Prime-Time Religion

By James Poniewozik

When things get tough, many Christians ask themselves, What would Jesus do? The Rev. Daniel Webster goes straight to the source: the dude with the beard, flowing hair and robe who rides shotgun in his car. "Let it play out," comes the answer from the Son of God. Then he adds, "You're tailgating."

Daniel (Aidan Quinn), an Episcopal priest in an affluent New York City suburb, has a lot to talk about. His son Jimmy has died of leukemia; son Peter (Christian Campbell) is gay; adopted son Adam (Ivan Shaw) is bedding the teenage daughter of an influential parishioner. Daniel's daughter Grace (Alison Pill) was busted for dealing pot. His mother has Alzheimer's. His boss the bishop (Ellen Burstyn) has been riding him. His brother-in-law has disappeared with $3 million of church money. To take the edge off, Daniel has been turning not only to Jesus (Garret Dillahunt) but also to a stash of Vicodin pills. Father knows best? More like Father has a little helper.

After President Bush was re-elected with the support of traditionalist Christians, there was much talk about how Hollywood could attract them. Suffice it to say The Book of Daniel (NBC, Fridays, 10 p.m. E.T.; debuts 9 p.m. E.T., Jan. 6) does not exactly lay out the welcome mat. Its content--did I forget to mention his sister-in-law's lesbian affair? his wife's martini habit? the adulterous bishops?--has already drawn the ire of the American Family Association (AFA), a conservative cultural watchdog group, which charged that the show "mocks Christianity." (Or that at least the promos do; the group had not yet seen, or requested, a screener from NBC.) NBC entertainment president Kevin Reilly says it's a funny but ultimately sincere family drama, though he notes that he expects "there will be a mixed reaction to it."

Past TV executives would have had an unmixed reaction to Daniel: Are you nuts? Outside 700 Club territory, religion on TV has usually been soft-pedaled or protested. In 1997-98, ABC's button-pushing Nothing Sacred, about a rebellious young priest, was quickly canceled. Touched by an Angel was only vaguely spiritual. The God who spoke to Joan of Arcadia was carefully nondenominational. The WB's genial 7th Heaven, about a minister and his family, has been the network's highest-rated show for most of its 10-season run but has never got the hype of edgier shows like Everwood. Asks creator Brenda Hampton: "How do you promote, 'This week, Ruthie respects her parents'?"

Today, however, polarizing is not always bad. The Passion of the Christ was $370 million domestic gross' worth of polarizing. And religion--specific, fraught, inflaming religion--can make for involving stories. In March HBO debuts Big Love, about fundamentalist polygamists in Utah. Devout Christian characters have shown up in ensembles from TNT's Wanted to CBS's Threshold. On FX's Rescue Me, Denis Leary's self-destructive firefighter has recurrent talks with--Zeitgeist alert!--Jesus. "I don't know who his agent is," says Rescue Me co-creator Peter Tolan, "but he's cleaning up this year."

Jack Kenny, Daniel's creator, says he set out to tell the story of "a family man, a regular guy who's trying to do good." Making his protagonist a priest raised the dramatic and moral stakes. "A priest's family is supposed to be perfect," he says, "so anything anybody does wrong becomes heightened." As for adding Jesus to the ensemble, he says he did it not for shock value but as an outgrowth of what he was taught growing up as a Catholic (he now considers himself Christian but belongs to no church): that one should have a personal relationship with God.

"It's not the Second Coming," says Kenny. Other characters on Daniel can't see Jesus; no water is walked on. "I don't want it to feel like Daniel is talking to himself, but in a way he is. Jesus represents the best part of Daniel's faith." Dillahunt plays him low-key, without thunderbolts or preaching, like a wry, mildly hip dorm adviser. When Daniel says he takes his pills only rarely, Jesus answers, "Ri-i-i-ight." "Could you put more judgment into that 'Right'?," Daniel asks. "Actually," Jesus replies, "yes, I could."

Conservatives may be less put off by the portrayal of their Savior or the over-the-top story lines than by Daniel's progressive preaching. "If temptation corners us," he says in a sermon after Grace's arrest, "maybe we shouldn't beat ourselves up for giving in to it." His is an easy-listening, baby-boomer ministry, not so much fire and brimstone as Fire and Rain. Of course, Daniel is a priest in a liberal church; American Episcopalians have even ordained a gay bishop, to the consternation of conservative members and the church's overseas counterparts. (The church has had no comment on Daniel so far.) So it's plausible that he would accept his gay son and even ask an engaged couple he's counseling if "everything's O.K. in the bedroom." "But why select the Episcopal Church?" asks AFA spokesman Ed Vitagliano. "Why not choose a conservative priest? The fact is that most Christians have rejected the Episcopal position on homosexuality. It is not a Christian position."

Kenny counters that "being put off by Daniel's tolerance sounds like the opposite of Christianity." He picked an Episcopal priest, he says, because like Catholic clergy, "they have all that pageantry and mystery and wonder--but they can get married." Kenny was also intrigued by the particular country-club Wasp culture that he was introduced to through his Episcopal life partner of almost 24 years. (Yes, that would be a male partner, and no, that isn't helping Daniel among conservatives either. An AFA protest letter slams the show as being written by a "practicing homosexual.")

While Daniel draws its wealthy Wasps broadly, it doesn't disrespect them (unlike Italian Catholics, represented in the show by a stereotyped, Mob-connected priest). The family's unresolved grief over son Jimmy's death is mostly unspoken but palpable, while Daniel's work is treated as a calling but also, realistically, as a job, with ambitions, pressures and politics. The scripts neatly balance satire and sincerity: while the show's outlandish twists challenge Daniel's faith--he's like Job, if Job lived on Melrose Place--they never mock it.

You may feel the faith-and-family themes could be handled better on cable--mainly because they have been. The less flashy, more affecting Rescue Me, besides its divine tete-`a-tetes, deals with the Catholic guilt of Leary's character (who also loses a son and pops pills). The most glaring parallels are to HBO'S Six Feet Under, with its Episcopal repression, uptight gay son and angry, artistic daughter. On Daniel, the network leash keeps tugging distractingly. Peter, like so many other gay TV characters, is conveniently "getting over a breakup," and in the pilot, Daniel has to have a pat moment of connection with each of his children before the credits roll.

Daniel deserves a chance to improve, though, if only for its ambition. No, its Westchester-liberal milieu is not representative of all American Christians, but guess what? No Christian denomination is, and it is insulting to assume that an audience won't understand that. Red staters watch Desperate Housewives; law-abiding citizens follow The Sopranos. Some deeply devout Christians may be put off (though the fact that the guy with the family troubles is a liberal may reaffirm their beliefs). Some secularists may not like all the God talk. But what should matter to most is whether Daniel can, as it sometimes does, capture life in all its risible, messy fallibility. Religion is polarizing, yes, but there are things many viewers can agree on: that being good is both necessary and difficult and that sin is both ubiquitous and--if you tell the story right--blessedly entertaining.