New NBC series stirs controversy

[Republican_Man]

[IntrepidIsMe]

It's actually not incest. I know someone who married their step brother. Sure, it's weird, but if it was incest, it would be illegal.



Just a question: in any way, shape, or form, does this show directly imply that Christianity is 'bad'?

And by the way- That's directed at people who have actually watched it.

[Republican_Man]

Only one or two people have seen it, and they're gonna say no. But that doesn't mean that it's so.
And it may not be direct, but it could be put in there more hidden. I'll let you know what I see on Friday (as, again, I'm reserving final judgment until then).
And I think it is still incest, particularly when it's an adopted brother. Either way, though, it's wrong, because he's part of the family and saying something about that.

[IntrepidIsMe]

Well, I guess that that's just a call on what you find humorous or not.

[Republican_Man]

I disagree. It's not merely a matter of what you find humorous, because I know people who find racist jokes humorous. I don't happen to--but does it change the fact that they're racist jokes? No.

[IntrepidIsMe]

I don't see your point. If you laugh at it, you find it humorous. You said you think it's wrong, hence: not humerous. I'm willing to guess that at least somebody laughed at it. Does that mean that they're sick incest-loving freaks? I dunno.

[Republican_Man]

Oh, no, not necessarily. But just because it's humorous to one person doesn't mean that it's not wrong, horrifying, bad, etc--just like a racist joke may be funny to someone who's, as you suggested, not necessarily a racist himself doesn't make the joke right. See where I'm coming? Just because someone finds it funny (and I'm not just talking about the incest joke only), it doesn't mean that it's appropriate or right.
Keep debating if you will, but I know that I'm going to try to stay away from here until tomorrow night, because I don't want to debate it much more until I see the show for myself, because, apparently, it's pointless.

[IntrepidIsMe]

I'm pretty sure that lots of the really funny jokes are the ones that aren't appropriate. But once again, it's just how far you're willing to go to find something funny.

[Republican_Man]

Being appropriate doesn't necessarily mean sexual, though
And I think there's FAR more to it than you see, but let's watch the show, shall we?

[IntrepidIsMe]

I said "aren't appropriate,"

Well, I don't see how this has to do with the show, but alrighty, if you say so. I don't know if I want to bother with watching this show or not. I've heard from a few people that it's just a bad show in general (not even considering the controversy).

[Republican_Man]

Ah, my mistake.

And the ONLY reason why I'm watching the show is because I've been told by several people that my opinion holds little to no weight because I'm making a judgment about the show before I've seen it--just like prior to when I saw Farenheit 9/11. But, meh.

[TrekkieMage]

[Republican_Man]

Think that if you will. I disagree, but won't make a final decision until tomorrow night.

(Oh, and btw. I've read reviews of people who HAVE seen the show )

[Republican_Man]

Well, it's on in about an hour...So, sadly, I'm going to be watching it--at least as much as I can stomach. I'll let you know what I think.

[Republican_Man]

Please pardon my three posts in a row, but here is my review. I saw the entire episode.
I didn't think that this episode was that bad. However, the commercial for next week's episode...let's just say I have NO interest in seeing that. It just looks horrible.
But this week's wasn't what I expected, as in it wasn't that bad. Here are some things that I noticed:

The mom's sister, I think she was--the girl who had sex with, um, Jesse...I don't quite remember that character or the character's identity, but anyways, yes, she turned out to be a jerk and steal the jewelery of whatever her name is, but in the beginning, when the wife's sister says, "I'll put this on today," with regards to a piece of jewelery, Jesse says, "I was hoping you would be taking things off." Personally, I find that wrong, especially considering her relation to a priest. I don't think such things are appropriate for a show called "The Book of Daniel" (which, of course, is in the Bible [different, but there's still The Book of Daniel]), which involves a priest.

Adding on to that complaint, I think there's too much homosexuality for a show about the family, and relations of a family, of a priest (Daniel).
Firstly, when the one guy (the friend of Daniel's, whose daughter was Adam's girlfriend) said, "Great. More gays. As if you�d think the 7 we already have aren�t sufficient," I think that, even though Daniel talks about acceptance afterwards, that doesn't shed a good light on Christians.
In general, though, there are so many things about gays in the church, from all the lesbian stuff (like the fact that the lesbian woman is having sex with a her brother's ex-wife's former secretary, or however it goes, exactly) to the gay son to the two gay people Daniel's supposed to meet with (but doesn't, at least in the show, but thinks the two mob guys are them). I just think it's almost numbing and really trying to put forth the gay agenda in a setting involving--and not just the backplot, or whatever Founder likes to call it--a priest.
Now, don't get me wrong in thinking that I don't think homosexuality should be in TV. Far be it from me to think that--I think if there's an adult comedy show, that's fine. However, in this case the show has the title of a book in the Bible and is all relating to this Christian priest, who, IMO, while he should be preaching acceptance should not be doing so much to support the gay agenda. (Keep in mind, though, that I'm FOR civil unions and a proponent of them, and don't really care if someone's gay or not.) It's all of or relating to this priest, and they throw it in so much, it just makes me get the impression that they're really trying to push the gay agenda and everything revolved around it. I think it's just too much for a show called "The Book of Daniel" and, for all intents and purposes, about this priest named Daniel, as is implied in the name.
I do think, though, that there should have been SOMETHING with regards to the fact that acting on homosexual feelings is a sin, even though there should have been that acceptance message.

I will submit to you that the message of acceptance was a fine message, but I don't think is quite as obvious as the different things that happened in the show.

Now, moving on: Jesus.
I didn't find Jesus offensive, per se, but I did find him QUITE far away from what he would be. I mean, he hardly gives any kind of words that would closely resemble the Jesus in the Bible, and usually gives hand motions (like at one point in the beginning he gives an iffy hand signal) or sounds. That's not anywhere near what Jesus would be like, now is it? It's just too far away from Jesus to seem real in any way...I can't quite describe it.
While I didn't find him offensive, I also found him far away from ANYTHING like he would be. I found it more of a mockery in the sense that he just didn't seem so real or so sincere to me. He doesn't even give much real interaction/much of a response to Daniel and his actions. All I really found was him making little sounds and/or hand motions. I didn't like his character at all, despite the fact that I didn't find him offensive, per se.

Now, clearly they inserted a little humor into the daughter convincing her grandmother that she sold marijuana to buy computer programs or whatever, and the grandmother did stuff to buy clothes or whatever that card she gave her was--but the point is that she lied to her grandmother, and not only that, but her mother just stood by and let her lie to her, knowing full well that what she was saying was false.
Now, I realize she doesn't like her mother at all, but she's the wife of a priest, for Cripe's Sake. That's not a good thing, letting your child lie to her grandmother like that, particularly when you're the wife of a priest, and she's the daughter of a priest.
Now, I know kids are rebellious, and I know kids aren't necessarily like their parents, but most kids, I submit to you, that are born to priests aren't liars and pot sellers and things like what's-her-name is. So, I think that that's off, on this daughter, there. I don't think it's right, having that in a show, even if sometimes it may be so.

But more on the daughter here.
Her drawings. Yes, she has rights to dislike her grandmother, I would concede, but did she really have to make those drawings of her grandmother whipping her mom or whatever it was? I don't think so...

Now, let's touch on that mob issue. I mean, a Church doing business with the mob! Yes, I realize that he made a mistake and made them think, because he thought they were the gay couple he was supposed to meet, that he was okay with them, and yes, I realize that he was essentially pressured into doing business with the mob, but really. I mean, come on! He had money troubles, yes. But he had someone else already situated for it. The guy that essentially told him off over that switch was right when he said that he was wrong to "get into bed" with the mob--that the Church, he thought, was supposed to stand up for what's good and right.
Now, given you could pretty much see that Daniel was distraut over his decision, that's no excuse for having the church thrust into business with the mob. I mean, there are so many other things you could do instead of that, and you could even make them humorous. But come on--the mob! No way. You just don�t do something about a church being pressured into working with the mob. Okay, so maybe, one could argue, it's possible that in recent days, and the past, churches have worked with the mob. But that's no excuse to say, "It's happened before, so it should be alright." He knew what he was getting into when he hired the company. He knew that they were, for all intents and purposes, part of the mob, and yet he made a deal with the business to build the new school for his church. Riiight.

I didn't like the Vodka addiction at all, but I didn't find that too bad.

I noticed that Daniel's sermon didn't even quote scripture or ANYTHING like that. All he said, in his sermon about acceptance, relating to God and Jesus is, "As God wants us" and "As Jesus told us to" or whatever he said. No scripture, and no real message from God, Jesus, or the Bible. That's not characteristic of a priest, from what I've seen (and I've not only been to Catholic churches, mind you). And when people are leaving the church he says, "Have a wonderful day." While that's not really bad, I find it rather odd, or something wrong with, him saying nothing about God or Jesus.
So the show has a Jesus guy in it, who's far from the real Jesus. So the guy is a priest. So the guy mentions God and/or Jesus to people a couple times. But so what? He's supposed to be a priest, and yet how much does he talk about God? Hardly at all, from what I can recall, even though much of the story took place at the church.

And I didn't think the dinner scene at the end was right, and I didn't like the kid named "Yoda" coming on to Daniel's daughter (again, I forget her name), talking about seeing two boobs, and then one. (And the scenes involving him for next week's episode were FAR from appropriate.) Oh, and for you guys who haven't seen the show. Yoda's like a 13 or 14 year old kid, and the girl's 16, I believe.

Finally, before my closing, I'll submit to you that there were a couple little parts that I did a one- or two-part chuckle at (two, I think), but that was it. I didn't really find it funny--and not just because of innapropriate stuff, but because I just didn't see anything funny.
The acting and script (not content) were okay, but not really that good, I thought. I wouldn't really plan on watching the show again, or more than one more time (and only seeing them for debating purposes.)

Anyways, all in all, this episode wasn't as bad as I expected--I'll give you that. I'll submit to you that I misjudged it in thinking that every episode would be horribly innapropriate and wrong and bad; however, from what I heard of last week's show, and the scenes I saw in the "next week" commercial for next week's show...not good.
I recorded the show for reference if you want me to find any specific quotes or something to look up. I could even type up the commercial for next week's show, too.
I might watch some of next week's show, just to see an example of a wrong episode to argue about here, because this one, admittedly, wasn't as bad as I expected. Not to say that it was good or anything--just not as bad as I expected.

Anyways, if I think of anything else, or want to change something here, I will.

There you have it, folks. My review, and I think I was pretty fair (despite the fact that all I pointed out was things I didn't like).

And I would like to apologize for my outbursts over the last week. In my state of ideas at the time, it was justified. But in retrospect, this is a show that I needed to see before making a final judgment (which I had a final judgment made until a couple days ago) and didn't find as bad as I expected. I didn't think it was that good, and although this episode didn't seem too innapropriate in net innapropriateness, I can safely say that it looks like next week's episode will be different, and, from what I've seen, last week's episodes weren't appropriate and right either.
Now, that aside, I didn't find this episode that bad, and misjudged this show as being full of things that were bad, and little else. However, it seems that some episodes, like tonight's, aren't so incredibly bad as I once thought (again, not that I was impressed or wasn't, at times, disturbed by it), but yeah, it wasn't too, too bad, so my apologies [once again] for going on a tirade last weekend over this show when I hadn't seen it and realize that it's not necessarily as bad (wrong--not being, like, a bad show, if you catch my meaning) as I had expected. So, yeah, my apologies for rude remarks, etc.

[IntrepidIsMe]

Well, it looks like they canceled it due to low ratings. If HBO had created it, I'm sure it would have done great. The acting and directing was pretty bad, or so said the critics.

[Lord Borg]

^It was cancelled. Guess it just wasn't able to capture an audience.

[Republican_Man]

Despite the fact that that one episode wasn't that offensive, I'm breathing a slight sigh of relief.