The Book Of Daniel

(No not this Book of Daniel)

Ok, it's Friday night and like many I watched primarily because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
NBC could have prevented much of the Sturm und Drang if they had just told us that they had ripped off Desperate Housewives with Aiden Quinn playing the Terri Hatcher part.
One word can sum up the last two hours of TV:
SILLY - Monumentally Silly.
This wasn't a show about theology (of course we might want to be thankful for that one as any theology lesson emanating from Pasadena would most likely border on heresy). It could have been subtitled, "Let's see how many subplots we can cram into one family in a 2 hour premiere." There were so many Hollywood stereotypes in the show that I began to wonder if maybe it was some kind of an inside joke the writers were playing on us, the viewers.
Not only was the pastor constantly speaking to Jesus the surfer dude, but his wife is a chronic self-medicating alcoholic, his daughter was selling drugs to pay for a chronic Manga habit, his gay (but not in the closet mind you) son was having the stereotypical gay-guy crisis where EVERYBODY tries to set him up with a "nice" girl, the sister-in-law is not only married to an embezzling sex addict but is also having a lesbian affair with her now deceased husband's secretary, his other son is also a sex addict having a hot and heavy time with the cute 15 year old daughter of the bigots in the congregation (when found out the mother casually sneers she "doesn't want to be raising and little asian grandbabies"), the living-in-sin couple he is counseling is having sexual "issues", his superior the lady bishop is having an affair with his father the archbishop who is married to an Alzheimer's stricken wife and just in case we have left out any stereotypes lets not forget the Catholic priest friend who just "happens" to have a Mob connection. Have I left anything out?
It kinda makes me want to watch next week only to see how they can figure out a way to add even more sex into the story line.
Seriously, the entire show was laden with sex like gravy over roast pork. It dripped sex like an 8th grader's wet dreams.
Man, if I knew being an Episcopal meant this much sex, I would have left Rome years ago.

Oh and one other thing, it wasn't all that good. About the only high point was Aiden Quinn who is a much better actor than this show lets on. If this show is to survive the writers need to leave the cute typecasting and really attempt to understand what real families look like and how they interact.