The Fall 2013 TV season starts with a bang this week.. or perhaps with a slice. A slice from the Headless Horseman’s broadaxe to be specific. FOX’s Sleepy Hollow, premiering in its Monday 9pm timeslot, has the potential to be an interesting reimagining of Washington Irving’s classic and gripping legend. If not handled well by … Continue reading
Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom has hit its second season stride, with a captivating storyline for serious viewers of the clever show. In the August 18 episode “One Step Too Many,” the sarin gas story heats up, but it’s another small in-episode mini-story that offers a troubling look at the routine business of the news – … Continue reading
Millions tuned in for The History Channel’s landmark mini-series The Bible. Produced by Touched By an Angel’s Roma Downey and her husband, television giant Mark Burnett, the show’s steady viewership proves yet again the draw that religious content has for American viewers. Yet while “The Bible” was a big success, it may actually be “#TheBible” … Continue reading
Though at times they’ve looked for laughs when contestants have claimed to hear the “voice of God,” FOX’s American Idol openly embraced the Spirit as it wrapped its season 12 time in Vegas and moved back to LA. Demonstrating the power of song to move an audience and the potential for television to transcend itself, the success … Continue reading
The fiasco over whether or not Harry Potter and author J.K. Rowling were servants of the devil may have inoculated many in Christian circles against knee-jerk reactions to youth-oriented fantasy titles involving the supernatural, but it did not stop Beautiful Creatures from stirring up some unnecessary antagonism. While the film has many genuinely engaging and … Continue reading
With the Disney Channel reviving the popular ABC sitcom-darling Boy Meets World through its much-anticipated sequel Girl Meets World, the original show (currently in rerun syndication) has nostalgically regained a bit of its social cachet. In one episode of interest, “Cult Fiction” from ‘97 (online HERE; stream it on Amazon), a lonely and belief-less Shawn Hunter … Continue reading
Religious music is a huge industry. It has global fan bases that react viscerally to its messages and tunes, bringing in over a half-billion dollars a year in record sales alone. Yet it was not a part of Sunday’s three-and-a-half hour prime time Grammy Award presentation. Peculiar. TV’s “biggest night in music” hosted by CBS … Continue reading
The Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister) did a good deal to chart what it means to be irreverently funny in television animation. Before Comedy Central’s “South Park” and FOX’s “Family Guy” took the post-Al Bundy television cue of crudeness and sacrilege to new heights (er, depths?), the Animaniacs gave viewers a full helping of … Continue reading
Western society has never been very good at discussing religion. It’s “not polite,” many say, when really they mean that most people are not able to talk about religious differences without quarrelling. The surprise international/public television smash, “Downton Abbey” gave it a try, craftily portraying much of what we already know: most people aren’t very … Continue reading
ABC’s hit medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” finds its best religious tone yet in last night’s “Bad Blood” episode. A patient dies on the table because his Jehovah’s Witness faith prohibits blood transfusions, one intern struggles with the ethics of the situation, and the family is cast as distraught-but-not-crazy in their faithfulness to their beliefs. Even … Continue reading
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