TV Gets Religion
For Fall, Programmers Weigh
Pilots With Biblical Themes:
Revelations, Troubled Priests
By BROOKS BARNES
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 28, 2005; Page B1
Now is the time in Hollywood when broadcast networks decide what shows TV audiences will want to watch in the season starting in September. Judging from several comedy and drama pilots now in progress that are already getting close consideration, America's couches will be turning into pews.
A splashy drama called "Book of Daniel" is in development at NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., while Viacom Inc.'s CBS is building a supernatural thriller around a character described as "a brilliant physicist with strong religious beliefs." News Corp.'s Fox, meanwhile, has "Briar + Graves," which the producers describe as "The X-Files" goes to church.
It's the television industry's answer to the cash-generating power of biblical stories put through a pop-culture spin cycle. Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" was one of the top box-office hits last year, and Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" has sold 25 million copies. Meanwhile, author Tim LaHaye's biblical "Left Behind" novels have racked up sales of some $650 million.
"We try in the entertainment business to find veins of interest to tap, and religion is a huge one that is currently very underserved," says Kevin Reilly, president of entertainment at NBC, which is set to begin airing "Revelations," a six-part apocalyptic miniseries, next month.
Also weighing heavily on programming executives' minds is President Bush's re-election. In addition to giving religion a starring role, several shows this development season are set deep inside "red" states and feature ultraconservative characters in the mix. In fact, Walt Disney Co.'s ABC is looking at "Red & Blue," about a conservative grandfather.
Are networks taking a wrong turn on the highway to heaven? Some media buyers think so. In an effort to give the new religion-themed shows the kind of sizzle that draws the young viewers advertisers covet, writers and producers are spicing them up with elements that are likely to offend at least a few conservatives.
In "Book of Daniel," for example, actor Aidan Quinn plays a pill-popping Episcopal priest who has the ability to talk about his drug addiction with a hip, modern-day Jesus. The show is still a work in progress, but for now Mr. Quinn's character also is dealing with a daughter arrested for selling marijuana, a brother-in-law who embezzles money from the church and is found murdered, and a gay son.
Fox's "Briar + Graves" goes further: It is the story of a hard-drinking, gun-toting excommunicated priest who has sworn to battle evil in the name of God. Along the way, he teams up with a neurologist who is in the process of examining her own beliefs.
"While church-going viewers might initially embrace a drama with Jesus at the center, an edgier execution could drive them away very fast," warns John Rash, director of broadcast negotiations at Interpublic Group's Campbell Mithun, a media-buying agency in Minneapolis.
Mr. Rash says networks are on the right track in tapping into religion: In a recent Gallup Poll, 59% of respondents said religion is "very important" in their daily lives. Still, he adds, "successful attempts in the past have embraced a nonthreatening, universal spirituality rather than overt Christianity." So while NBC's animated religious spoof "God, the Devil and Bob" flopped in 2000, the network's tender "Highway to Heaven" ran for four seasons in the mid-1980s.
NBC's Mr. Reilly says it's about time networks got more specific. "Going into these waters with only the safest kind of content would be missing out on a golden opportunity," he says. "People want programming that goes right at it. I'm fairly confident that there are many millions of people out there who will appreciate having a frank religious dialogue in a show."
Indeed, creating polarizing television is part of the plan here, industry executives say. Networks have often thrown a few safe, wholesome religious shows on the air from time to time. But for the most part, they have been time-fillers, airing in slots the networks don't consider important or competitive. (CBS ran "Touched by an Angel" on early Saturday evenings.)
Now, trying to milk what they see as the blue-state-versus-red-state tension in popular culture, some programmers think edgy religious-themed shows can compete in marquee time periods in ways watered-down versions cannot. After all, buzz-creating camps of warring viewers could generate big ratings.
What's more, just because people identify themselves as evangelical, for example, doesn't mean they don't want a little romance-novel action in their living rooms, programmers say. The decidedly unwholesome "Desperate Housewives" couldn't be such a massive hit without a fair number of religious types tuning in, executives say. Says Mr. Reilly, "By offering shows that have a morality and belief at the center as well as some racier content -- hopefully a lot of people can have their cake and eat it too."
As a test of the drawing power of this edgier brand of religious TV, studios and networks will be watching closely to see what kind of ratings "Revelations" gets. An unflinching dramatization of the Book of Revelation, the miniseries -- NBC has deemed it an "event series" -- follows a nun, Sister Josepha Montifiore, and a nonreligious scientist as they find evidence that the world, as predicted in the Bible, has reached the End of Days. NBC bought the project before "The Passion of the Christ" hit theaters.
"Trying to do something soft with religion, so nobody is offended, feels very false," says Gavin Polone, a producer of "Revelations." "We wanted to do something viewers can connect to."
Despite the bravado, some development executives concede they're struggling to figure out how to make religion and a conservative sensibility part of a programming world where the goal is to attract younger and younger viewers. Hunting for a drama with religion as a hook, executives at News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox Television studio last fall developed a series called "Point Pleasant," about a teenager who is the daughter of the devil. It flopped: Fox canceled the series last week, citing, among other problems, the show's failure to mesh teen with spirituality.
CBS has had its own problems with "Joan of Arcadia," the Emmy Award-nominated series about a teenager who can talk to God. Ratings dropped sharply this season after writers diluted the show's religious theme in an episode suggesting the central character couldn't actually talk to God but was just hearing voices. (The drama's creator, Barbara Hall, disagrees that viewers tuned out because of the now-infamous episode. "One minute there's too much God. Then there's too little God. I've heard it all, but I'm trying to ignore all of that and just focus on the story I'm trying to tell," she says.)
Now, CBS is trying to get the drama back on track by pulling the story line in the opposite direction: A second character who really can talk with God will be added in the season finale.
Write to Brooks Barnes at brooks.barnes@wsj.com
For Fall, Programmers Weigh
Pilots With Biblical Themes:
Revelations, Troubled Priests
By BROOKS BARNES
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 28, 2005; Page B1
Now is the time in Hollywood when broadcast networks decide what shows TV audiences will want to watch in the season starting in September. Judging from several comedy and drama pilots now in progress that are already getting close consideration, America's couches will be turning into pews.
A splashy drama called "Book of Daniel" is in development at NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., while Viacom Inc.'s CBS is building a supernatural thriller around a character described as "a brilliant physicist with strong religious beliefs." News Corp.'s Fox, meanwhile, has "Briar + Graves," which the producers describe as "The X-Files" goes to church.
It's the television industry's answer to the cash-generating power of biblical stories put through a pop-culture spin cycle. Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" was one of the top box-office hits last year, and Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" has sold 25 million copies. Meanwhile, author Tim LaHaye's biblical "Left Behind" novels have racked up sales of some $650 million.
"We try in the entertainment business to find veins of interest to tap, and religion is a huge one that is currently very underserved," says Kevin Reilly, president of entertainment at NBC, which is set to begin airing "Revelations," a six-part apocalyptic miniseries, next month.
Also weighing heavily on programming executives' minds is President Bush's re-election. In addition to giving religion a starring role, several shows this development season are set deep inside "red" states and feature ultraconservative characters in the mix. In fact, Walt Disney Co.'s ABC is looking at "Red & Blue," about a conservative grandfather.
Are networks taking a wrong turn on the highway to heaven? Some media buyers think so. In an effort to give the new religion-themed shows the kind of sizzle that draws the young viewers advertisers covet, writers and producers are spicing them up with elements that are likely to offend at least a few conservatives.
In "Book of Daniel," for example, actor Aidan Quinn plays a pill-popping Episcopal priest who has the ability to talk about his drug addiction with a hip, modern-day Jesus. The show is still a work in progress, but for now Mr. Quinn's character also is dealing with a daughter arrested for selling marijuana, a brother-in-law who embezzles money from the church and is found murdered, and a gay son.
Fox's "Briar + Graves" goes further: It is the story of a hard-drinking, gun-toting excommunicated priest who has sworn to battle evil in the name of God. Along the way, he teams up with a neurologist who is in the process of examining her own beliefs.
"While church-going viewers might initially embrace a drama with Jesus at the center, an edgier execution could drive them away very fast," warns John Rash, director of broadcast negotiations at Interpublic Group's Campbell Mithun, a media-buying agency in Minneapolis.
Mr. Rash says networks are on the right track in tapping into religion: In a recent Gallup Poll, 59% of respondents said religion is "very important" in their daily lives. Still, he adds, "successful attempts in the past have embraced a nonthreatening, universal spirituality rather than overt Christianity." So while NBC's animated religious spoof "God, the Devil and Bob" flopped in 2000, the network's tender "Highway to Heaven" ran for four seasons in the mid-1980s.
NBC's Mr. Reilly says it's about time networks got more specific. "Going into these waters with only the safest kind of content would be missing out on a golden opportunity," he says. "People want programming that goes right at it. I'm fairly confident that there are many millions of people out there who will appreciate having a frank religious dialogue in a show."
Indeed, creating polarizing television is part of the plan here, industry executives say. Networks have often thrown a few safe, wholesome religious shows on the air from time to time. But for the most part, they have been time-fillers, airing in slots the networks don't consider important or competitive. (CBS ran "Touched by an Angel" on early Saturday evenings.)
Now, trying to milk what they see as the blue-state-versus-red-state tension in popular culture, some programmers think edgy religious-themed shows can compete in marquee time periods in ways watered-down versions cannot. After all, buzz-creating camps of warring viewers could generate big ratings.
What's more, just because people identify themselves as evangelical, for example, doesn't mean they don't want a little romance-novel action in their living rooms, programmers say. The decidedly unwholesome "Desperate Housewives" couldn't be such a massive hit without a fair number of religious types tuning in, executives say. Says Mr. Reilly, "By offering shows that have a morality and belief at the center as well as some racier content -- hopefully a lot of people can have their cake and eat it too."
As a test of the drawing power of this edgier brand of religious TV, studios and networks will be watching closely to see what kind of ratings "Revelations" gets. An unflinching dramatization of the Book of Revelation, the miniseries -- NBC has deemed it an "event series" -- follows a nun, Sister Josepha Montifiore, and a nonreligious scientist as they find evidence that the world, as predicted in the Bible, has reached the End of Days. NBC bought the project before "The Passion of the Christ" hit theaters.
"Trying to do something soft with religion, so nobody is offended, feels very false," says Gavin Polone, a producer of "Revelations." "We wanted to do something viewers can connect to."
Despite the bravado, some development executives concede they're struggling to figure out how to make religion and a conservative sensibility part of a programming world where the goal is to attract younger and younger viewers. Hunting for a drama with religion as a hook, executives at News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox Television studio last fall developed a series called "Point Pleasant," about a teenager who is the daughter of the devil. It flopped: Fox canceled the series last week, citing, among other problems, the show's failure to mesh teen with spirituality.
CBS has had its own problems with "Joan of Arcadia," the Emmy Award-nominated series about a teenager who can talk to God. Ratings dropped sharply this season after writers diluted the show's religious theme in an episode suggesting the central character couldn't actually talk to God but was just hearing voices. (The drama's creator, Barbara Hall, disagrees that viewers tuned out because of the now-infamous episode. "One minute there's too much God. Then there's too little God. I've heard it all, but I'm trying to ignore all of that and just focus on the story I'm trying to tell," she says.)
Now, CBS is trying to get the drama back on track by pulling the story line in the opposite direction: A second character who really can talk with God will be added in the season finale.
Write to Brooks Barnes at brooks.barnes@wsj.com
