Entertainment News
2006-01-26
NBC closes The
Book of Daniel
A new television
show about a pill-popping priest who talks to Jesus has
been pulled from the NBC schedule for igniting little fai
A new television
show about a pill-popping priest who talks to Jesus has
been pulled from the NBC schedule for igniting little faith
from viewers after just three weeks on the air,
network sources said on Tuesday. The Book of Daniel,
starring Aidan Quinn as a conflicted Episcopal
minister with a Vicodin habit, debuted to mediocre
ratings January 6 and sank steadily in the Nielsens in its
two subsequent broadcasts. NBC has scheduled no
further episodes beyond last Friday's telecast, and
the drama, originally slated as an eight-part limited
series, is not expected to return to the airwaves, network
insiders said.
Besides proving
to be a ratings dud, the show spooked some advertisers
and sparked objections from the conservative American Family
Association and several of NBC's smaller affiliate
stations over its portrayal of Christian themes. A
total of nine affiliates, including stations in
Nashville, Tenn., Little Rock, Ark., and Terre Haute, Ind.,
refused to air at least some episodes of the show.
NBC Entertainment
president Kevin Reilly told a gathering of TV critics
on Sunday he was disappointed with Daniel's
ratings and that "it's been tough sledding on the
advertising front." Controversy can cut both ways in
the TV business, making some advertisers reluctant to
sponsor a show while sometimes generating publicity
that helps build an audience.
Last spring
Reilly told Reuters that NBC's development of the show was
inspired in part by the success of religion-themed novels
like the Left Behind series and Mel Gibson's movie
The Passion of the Christ. Daniel,
however, was a far cry from Passion or the
conventional Easter-season TV specials that portray
Christ in a biblical context.
On the NBC
show—from gay creator Jack Kenny (Titus, Wanda at
Large)—Christ, played by newcomer Garret
Dillahunt, appears as an imaginary confidant to the
Reverend Daniel Webster, an Episcopal rector beset with a
host of family intrigues and pressures. His daughter
sells marijuana, his teenage son sleeps with the
daughter of a church elder, his brother-in-law embezzles
church funds, and his sister-in-law has a penchant for
sexual threesomes. Perhaps the sanest member of the
family is his older son, a gay Republican.
Airing in a
Friday night time slot that has proven especially difficult
for NBC, a unit of the General Electric Co., the show
averaged just 7.6 million viewers overall in its first
three weeks. By comparison, NBC's most watched show
this season, Law & Order: Special Victims
Unit, draws about 14.6 million viewers. (Steve
Gorman, Reuters)
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