On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 3:36 PM, Mark Jeffries <[email protected]> wrote:
> The mini that's the first scripted series for Mark Burnett (with wife Roma > "Touched by an Angel" Downey credited as co-EP) pulled an astounding 13.1M > viewers for the cable channel (14.8M if you factor in the late-night/West > Coast repeat airing), outdrawing everything on the broadcast nets last > night (including Burnett's own season premiere of "Celebrity > Apprentice")--will this lead to the religious right calling for more Godly > programming and less Seth MacFarlane and violence, with them waving Nielsen > figures in the faces of network execs?: > > > http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/ratings-bible-vikings-draw-big-numbers-history-80071 > > Anybody see any reviews for this show? The only one I saw was EW's pan > (if C minus is a pan). > My Facebook feed has been dominated by reactions to the show all day, most of which differ from the critical take summarized by the Hollywood Reporter here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/historys-bible-what-critics-are-425767 I teach an Honors-level course on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), and am constantly surprised that even these young people, most of whom were raised in very conservative Christian communities and attended parochial school for most of their lives, have a knowledge of the BIble that is most filtered through Vegetales. I DVR'd but have not yet watched the first episode, but my sense is that it is not much better than a live action version of Vegetales. The religious people though seem to love it, many bragging that they spent the evening with real family television. This is driving me crazy of course - The History Channel is not about wholesome family family values, or history, and from what I can tell families would be better off watching "The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah". All of this is a shame, as there are some really great stories in the Bible (especially the OT), that would benefit from careful and thoughtful dramatic interpretation. The binding of Isaac is an obvious one, but no less important or challenging for that. Less well known are such stories as Jephthah, the Hebrew Judge who sacrificed his daughter to Yahweh and a victorious battle (and perhaps a twin of the Isaac story) or the horrific story of The Concubine of Gibeah, which has some parallels to the better known (and traditionally misunderstood) story of the destruction of Sodom. That interesting if flaws "Kings" show on NBC a couple of years ago hinted at how rich the David cycle of stories are (sometimes called the first novel). The story of Ruth has several interesting and complex layers (including the likely image of our heroine Ruth giving the hero Boaz a blow job). And the texts of the 8th and 7th C prophets, which focus on a growing awareness of social justice as the basis for the national Yahweh religion, seem ideally suited to modern times. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
