The Book of Daniel

Recently, I heard that NBC will host a series called "The Book of Daniel." Yes, it involves religion. No, it is nothing that would find favor with God.

It is my understanding that it involves a corrupt priest, a lesbian sister, a drug dealing child, and other nefaroius characters. This is supposed to be funny.

And, some conservatives are naturally attacking it. Which garbage like this should be attacked. What will happen is that because of the notoriety, I predict it will have high ratings for the first two-three episodes, then ratings will fall, and if it lasts, it will barely go into the second season.

Why my prediction? I will note.

As I have noted in previous posts, the television world have become greatly fragmented. However, to the networks, they barely recognize this fragmentation. Hence, they have spent a lot of time in their own little network world, circa 1965-1970. However, their attitude toward morals and mores has been much, much more "progressive" than the rest of America. Yeech.

At one time, the sitcom was a successful innovation to keep America entertained. You could keep America laughing for 1/2 hour. Sure, there were other things - like a nightly movie, or Monday Night Football, or a news show, or a drama - during prime time, but the staple was by-and-large the sitcom.

Sitcoms are supposed to be funny,thru-and-thru, right? Well, many were not. They all had to teach some moral. So there had to be some crises that began 17 minutes into the show, and ended ten minutes later. Then there was time for a last laugh. I found this tiring and stupid. Which is why I found "Family Ties" especially annoying (yes, the hero of the show was a young Republican, but that did not make up for the fact that it wasn't really funny, and I was a leftist at that time, anyway).

I found sitcoms especially appealing that were humorous the entire time. Which is why I liked "Married...With Children" (which was a parody of "The Cosby Show"). Seinfeld was the same way. These shows lasted longer than most sitcoms.

When television began, it needed to find some way to get people to watch it during those prime hours, the family hours, 8-10 pm. At that time, there was still somewhat of a shortage of entertainment. Before WWII, not all families had radios - so could not bring radio comedies into the home. Right now, I am working on a history of my Grange (yes, some young people are members of fraternal orders!) Before the 1950's, there was a lot of entertainment at those meetings. And those meetings had high attendance, too. That was because those meetings were the only game in town. While that town probably did not have a theater at that time, if it did, it probably would have shown the same one movie over and over again, so something else needed to be done. I suspect that this was the case of many a small town, and rural district, across America.

Well, Hollywood is made of people who are entertainment specialists. And there are a lot of them. In fact, there probably has been a glut of these people since the end of WWI. When given the opportunity, especially the opportunity to bring entertaining features into the home every single night, it has plenty of talent waiting with baited breath to take this opportunity. And so it did. And people sucked it up, especially since it was free (after the initial investment of a TV set, and the cost of a little bit of electricity). To the detriment of civil society, too. In my review of the above-mentioned meeting records, the attendance did fall preciptiously as the television merged into peoples' homes. I have been told by members of other Granges that the TV did much to destroy meeting attendance. I can tell that is the case with my Grange, because the area around it had very little change during this decline.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, while the average television show was much, much more entertaining than the average community meeting, and could draw attendance from it, it's success was still due to the fact that there was still somewhat of a dearth of entertainment options. The community meeting's high attendance figures demonstrate that. However, when confronted with new entertainment options, how would it fare?

A friend of mine, who is a generation older than me, told me of what those days were like. He said that his father wanted to watch Laurance Welk, who is probably burning in hell by now (and in the lowest level described by Dante). He did not want to watch it. His father made him watch it. So couldn't he leave the room? Well, no, because there was nothing to do.

So the challenges came. The late 1970's-early 1980's was not only the beginning of the information revolution, but also, of the entertainment revolution. This saw the introduction of the video game consoles, personal computers, movies-by-demand, and an upshot of cable subscriptions. As a minor aside, bookstores got much larger, indicating more choice in reading material. TV's got cheaper, too, so you could have more than one in the house. The internet would come later, to more havoc. And, of course, there will probably be other forms of entertainment in the future. There was a challenge to the prime-time hours, which, are, the prime-time leisure hours. As families spent less time together, (and as the structure weakened) entertainment had to become more individualized.

And the networks? Like GM, they remained dinosaurs. They became inflexible to change. The sitcoms that once brought in hoards of viewers now looked antiquated, and even, un-entertaining, given that more and more options were available to people to spend their free time. Boredom is no longer really a problem, but rather, too little time to do what you want is.

In the late 1980's, Rupurt Murdoch presented the Fox Network to the American audience. His goal was to create a fourth network. Although the time had passed for it to occupy the prominent perch that the three other networks had, he succeeded somewhat, especially be grabbing some major league sports seasons. A hallmark of his network were shows that were "edgy." At the time, this was a fresh perspective, and it did draw new people from the old networks, with old, boring shows.

Thus, over time, people in Hollywood saw that putting shows featuring traditional American values on the air did not sell, so they thought - maybe by putting shows with our values on the air, we will succeed! At least, that is the only perspective they get in the West Hollywood bars they all hang out at.

Thus, we saw the liberalization of values on prime-time. However, while they could let Ellen out of the closet, by-and-large, the old three networks got the wrong answer.

First, the risque shows that succeeded were on Fox, then moved to cable. The outrageous "Married with Children" was overtaken with the outragous "The Simpsons" The outrageous "The Simpsons" was overtaken by the outrageous "Beavis and Butthead." The outrageous "Beavis and Butthead" was overtaken by the outrageous "Southpark." And there it shall remain. At least without paying for a "premium channel" that is even less regulated by the FCC.

Both "Married..." and "Beavis and Butthead" moved into the TV graveyard about a decade ago. "The Simpsons" is now viewed favorably by those factions of society that used to condemn it (after all, here is a family that eats dinner together every night! And Homer doesn't cheat on his wife (actually, could he?)). "Southpark" still trudges on, because it can grab a faction of society, youth, who still are willing to watch it.

Hence, the FCC limits have pretty much been pushed as to how much risk one can have on regulated TV. Today, such "edgy" shows are not going to attract those who would have the propensity to watch it, because such an audience has many options that are even more risque. And people who are interested in risque do not have the time to go to shows that are less risque - they will go to the real thing, such as can be found inexpensively on the internet, or by rental, or if they are willing to shell out the extra bucks, by pay TV. Or, they can pay for HBO, which can show the real stuff.

And of course, middle America, most of whom finds such shows like "The Book of Daniel" wierd or disgusting, isn't going to watch it, either.

It does not seem to register with the executives who run the networks that there are many, many other options besides their (formerly) boring shows or (currently) bizzare and degenerate shows. They seem to forget that they are not only competing against each other, but also against game consoles, personal computers, DVD's (and even VCR's!), basic cable, the pay channels, pay-per-view, the internet. I.e., a glut of entertainment options. Oh yea - a higher percentage of Americans are single today, too, and there is a proliferation of coffee shops for them to hang out at. And, I forgot to mention that Mexican immigrants have their own channels, like Univision, and they sure ain't going to watch this weird, disgusting stuff that is promoted on archaic networks (in a language in which many are not comfortable, anyway). Other immigrant groups probably have their own channels, too.

No, the television executives are still in the mindset they were in during the "golden age" of television. For these people, they catered to individuals who were almost one-generation removed from the time when any entertainment on hand was a big deal, and a play, from which all visual entertainment mediums evolved, any play, was found to be a highly enjoyable experience. So even in that era, they could produce anything (albeit with highly trained entertainment specialists) and it would still sell, because there were still not a lot of options available for one to spend their free time, or at least considerably less today.

Well, to survive, they need to break out of that mindset. And for once, think outside the box!

I have noted in earlier posts that for the networks to survive, they will need to stick with their specialties, one of which is sitcoms, and dramas. So they really do not have an out. But they can do so without sinking into a moral morass.

"The Book of Daniel" will not make it to the television hall of fame, or even to the next season, because for such a show to succeed, to get the audience it is geared toward, it needs to do stuff that is not permitted on FCC regulated TV. The cast will not only need to speak like sailors, but the lesbian sister needs to be extroardinarily hot, and be caught in delicto flagrante with another extremely hot lover. Many times, with many extremely hot lovers. And the priest will need to have some extracurricular activites, too (but not the sicko pediophiliac ones we have been hearing about - not only will that not sell, but that will get the actors arrested). Not only is he living high off the hog, but the covent where his extracurricular activies take place, after dark, must look like a Victoria Secret's convention - only the residents are wearing somewhat less than what one would see at such a convetnion. And the drug addicted daugher must of course be hot, too, but sound just like Cheech-and-Chong.

Of course this ain't going to make it to network TV. And, attacking priests in this fashion did not begin in 1970 - much of the enlightenment thought (aka Voltaire) that contributed to the French Revolution is believed to have been "translated" to the masses in the form of priestly pornography. And, stuff like this probably went on in the middle ages.

No, for the networks to succeed at sitcoms once again, they need to re-create a new golden age of the sitcom. They will need to figure out what really makes middle-America laugh. They will need to find new avenues of creativity - one of the reasons they are producing such trash is that they seem to have run out of creativity. Good, clean entertainment will sell, as there is not a lot of it anymore. Especially if it is something that parents will want their kids to watch. Especially if it can reach the entire family, for which all members will get a very positive experience from watching it. And, if it is especially entertaining. Which I believe one of the keys to having it especially entertaining is this - to keep it funny throughout.

However, it is difficult for anyone to truly think outside the box, and those who do, are often ridiculed, and do not get too far, and their ideas fail. One thing that the history of institutions shows is that thinking outside the box is what truly saves institutions, for times change, but mindsets don't, and it is the old mindset that does not keep the institution current with the times. So people leave it.

"The Book of Daniel" thus demonstrates continued in-the-box thinking, as it is what less than 1% of all Americans find appealing, which is with whom the producers spend their time. Hopefully, once this flops, the brains of Hollywood will wake up, get some fresh thinking, and pruduce something that much of America will like. However, as other entertainment commentators have urged similar themes, I don't think they will learn anything from this show's eventual failure.