The Series: The Book of Daniel was a show about an Episcopalian priest named Daniel Webster (Aidan Quinn), his family, and his congregation. While that sounds fairly innocuous at first, the devil is in the details (pun intended), and the controversy was less about the general concept than the specifics of the premise. You see, Daniel is a drug addict who simply can't put down that bottle of Vicodan. Rather than deal directly with his problems, he always seems willing to reach for the comfort of the pill rather than the Word he preaches. Further complicating the matter is his alcoholic wife (Susanna Thompson), drug dealing daughter (Allison Pill-but she doesn't use it so it's okay), openly gay son (appropriately named Christian Campbell), and lecherous adopted son (Asian Ivan Shaw), nymphomaniac sister in law (Cheryl White), and other crazies.

Further complicating the matter is that Daniel talks directly to Jesus (Garret Dillahunt), who appears regularly but admits to not knowing what's going on, why people do what they do, and why things are the way they are. This New Age savior is pleasant and can only be seen by Daniel (with a single exception in one episode but the idea is like the lead from Rescue Me seeing his dead cousin that no one else sees) but comes across as somewhat lame compared to the Anglican Church version of the figure (I'm not a religious expert but Episcopalians are a splinter group of the Church of England IIRC). The drama-comedy had some bright moments but the two part opener was probably the weakest set of episodes for the entire show and the subsequent episodes saw ratings fall each week. Add in the American Family Association (AFA) protest that gathered huge numbers of letters, emails, and calls to cancel the showing (with advertisers dropping off like flies), there was never any doubt that the series would fail. I know some would argue the AFA were zealots, were misguided, or were opponents of free speech but they simply exercised their rights like anyone else and the network responded in kind as networks have done since the dawn of television to protect their financial interests.

The dynamic of each episode was similar in that a problem would confront Daniel, he'd reach for the pills, and Jesus would sarcastically comment on the situation. A tolerant man, Daniel faced all sorts of problems from his daughter's arrest, to his brother in law's stealing church funds before his apparent death, to needing the mob to recover the money (with all the usual strings attached). Quinn's character was exactly like you'd want a priest to be (short of the drug abuse thing he had going on) but there were major gaps in the secondary characters and situations; including his father's infidelity with Daniel's superior, the daughter's Manga work, and the always present gay issues tossed in for any pretext. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the show's creator was gay and his constant bombardment of related issues in each episode seemed part of the problem with the show (it was like he was knowingly daring the network to cancel the show so he could parade around in his best "the public is homophobic" clothing). As the 8th show was coming to the halfway point, the threads that were starting to tie up at that point began unraveling with newer, more outrageous threads beginning; a parting shot by the creators in my mind since they were almost certainly clear that the show was going to be cancelled. As part of a statement, the show may have worked but as an ongoing drama, it was a mixed ride. I remember reading comments about the show after it was over saying how great it was, how excellent the writing was, and all sorts of gushing praise but getting to see all the episodes at once, I found it more like a generic nighttime soap opera that happened to benefit from a few good performances, notably Aidan Quinn and the ever present foil Paxton (Dylan Baker), with the others showing various degrees of wooden acting. If given more time to develop, a few of the others might have achieved a level of competence in their roles but the writing seemed to hold some of them back more than a little bit, weakening the project as a whole to forward the stated agenda.

So, what do you rate a show that has limited appeal to a mainstream audience? That's a tough one to answer. If you're religious and sensitive about fictionalized drama, you'll want to skip it (just like Muslims should not read the editorial section of newspapers if they don't like the cartoons). If you're gay or decidedly anti-religion and want to see a bunch of religious straw men knocked down repeatedly, this will be an excellent addition to your Will & Grace collection. I found enough material to enjoy to rate it as a Rent It (Baker and Quinn's performances for the most part) but the limited replay value of the series for me simply didn't warrant anything more. Your own mileage may vary of course but religion bashing is about as exciting to me as any other kind of bashing, and ample quantities of it exist in the series, no matter what you may have heard. I wish creator Jack Kenny all the best in his search for a creative outlet without any strings attached but once the shock value of the show was over, it probably would've died from low numbers without the AFA's help.

1) Temptation (January 6, 2006)
2) Foregiveness (January 6, 2006)
3) Acceptance (January 13, 2006)
4) Revelations (January 20, 2006)
5) Assignation (unaired)
6) Withdrawal (unaired)
7) God's Will (unaired)
8) Betrayal (unaired)

Picture: The Book of Daniel was presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio anamorphic widescreen color as shot for network television and airing early in 2006. It looked crisp and clear with no fundamental visual defects observed. The fleshtones and colors were accurate, the composition of the shots perfectly suitable for the television environment, if not up to movie standards, and the DVDs had no compression artifacts that I could see. Some of the deleted scenes weren't as sharp as the rest of the show but a lot of that was probably related to lacking the final polishing up missing on them.

Sound: The audio was presented in 2.0 Dolby Digital English with optional subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. Like the visual elements, this was another area where the series showed a decent amount of care put into it wit a moderate amount of separation and good dynamic range, especially for a television show. The music was slightly on the weaker side (perhaps budget related) but the score added the appropriate queues for those needing them to laugh, cry, or otherwise emote with the characters.

Extras: The best extras were the four episodes not aired on network television. I know you can download them for free (legally off the website) and while I didn't figure them into the scoring for the extras since they were part of the series as a whole, it was a more interesting show because of them. The other decent extra was the inclusion of numerous deleted or re-worked scenes for five of the episodes. They were called deleted but technically, almost all of them were slight variations of scenes used in the show so that isn't exactly a proper term. They didn't add anything to the characters and they were not as good looking and sounding but it was a decent extra to add in. Lastly, the double disc set had a paper insert with some of the episode information on it for those who really liked the show to appreciate.

Final Thoughts: The Book of Daniel: The Complete Series probably would have benefited (perhaps greatly) if it eased into some of the topics rather than threw everything onscreen as soon as possible for shock value. As a calculated move to stir interest, the result of that approach was painfully obvious from the very beginning with people staying away in droves and actively seeking to get the show cancelled. Obviously a night time soap opera, based on religion or not, is going to need some conflict and drama to stir interest but it was clear to me upon watching the show that the writers threw everything offensive to religious believers they could in hopes of gaining the shock value audiences seem to go for these days. The writing was mixed as was the acting but aside from the religious elements; it wasn't a bad little show. Like so many others before it then, it was cancelled before it had a chance to make it, a fate that most shows fall prey to these days, AFA or not.