By Donald H. Harrison 

The television critics in the San Diego Union and the Los Angeles Times panned it, but, hey, I wanted to see for myself what all the fuss was about, so I tuned in the new television series, "The Book of Daniel" notwithstanding their sage advice.

This being a show about an Episcopal minister, a gay son, a marijuana-dealing daughter, an adopted son who is the lover boy of his high school, and a wife who drinks too much, I wondered why the producers picked a book from Hebrew Scriptures, rather than Christian Scriptures, for the title.  Would the "Book of Matthew" or the "Book of Luke" be too boring?  

I reread some of the Hebrew "Book of Daniel" just to refamiliarize myself with the plot. Daniel, like Joseph before him, was fabulous at interpreting the dreams of the foreign ruler in the land where he lived—those of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. This made the local necromancers mighty jealous, so they had the king test Daniel and his lieutenants Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  When the latter three failed the king's test—but passed God's, by bowing down only before Him—Nebuchadnezzar ordered them cast into the furnace.  So hot was the seven-times heated furnace that the guards who escorted the Judeans there were consumed by the heat of the flames.  But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were seen with a fourth figure—an angel or perhaps God Himself—walking unharmed in the furnace. 

There were other episodes of  visions and tests—including one where Daniel for his loyalty to God instead of  to the new king, Darius, was put into the lion's den, from which he emerged unharmed.

So far the plot lines are different between the biblical "Book of Daniel" and television's series of the same name—but perhaps one similarity is worth pondering.  The biblical Daniel gets out of all kinds of scrapes because he has visions sent by God.  The television Daniel has to deal with all matters of family problems, and he too has visions—but in this case they materialize in the form of a robed Jesus with whom he can walk, talk, and even joke. Typically Jesus appears whenever the minister is so frazzled that he is ready to swallow some codeine-laced pills that he kept in his pocket.  Jesus typically snatches the pills away, so we can assume from this that Jesus really is supposed to be Daniel's conscience, rather than the revered figure of Christianity.

That being the case, the religious fundamentalists who are concerned that the television series sends the wrong message about Christianity probably should relax.  The story line is that people can converse with their "personal savior"  to help them weather all kinds of problems—exactly what I understand one of the tenets of Christianity to be.  But, hey, I'm a Jew;  who am I to mix in?

My dear friends, Gerry and Judy Burstain, and Judy's mom, Eleanor Lieb, didn't watch the series debut last night, but they had read the negative reviews. We couldn't compare notes about the plot of "The Book of Daniel," but over lunch we did remark on television's seemingly growing preoccupation with spiritual subjects.  Besides this show with an Episcopal minister shmoozing with Jesus, there is another show, "Ghost Whisperer," in which an antique dealer spots troubled earth-bound spirits and helps them to cross "to the other side."  There is also "Medium," in which a consultant to the District Attorney's office helps solve cases through her visions—similar to the television show "Missing" in which a newly minted FBI Agent also relies on visions to solve cases. Missing from the current season's lineup, but popular for a while, was "Joan of Arc," in which God Himself talked with a high school student sending her on all sorts of  incomprehensible missions.

While interest in ghosts, heaven, Jesus and God has been with us for at least two millennia, it seems to me that there has been an upsurge lately.  This intensified interest in matters beyond life itself may be a reflection of our increased awareness in the wake of 9-11 of how perishable our lives are, and how capricious fate can be.  Tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes of last year surely must have deepened our collective desire to find something or someone who can help us understand it all. Television, through marketing research, developed shows to cater to that psychological need.

Given all the tsuris this Episcopal minister is having in his television series, if I had given it a name, I might have called it the "Book of Job."Tragedy after tragedy befell Job's family just as they seem to be befalling Daniel's.family.  Oh did I forget to tell you that Daniel's mother has Alzheimer's Disease, and his father, an Episcopal Bishop, is having an affair with a female Bishop.  

Yet another reason to name the series  the "Book of Job" is the bad reception the critics are giving the series.  If they have their way, the whole cast soon will be trying to book new jobs