NBC's 'Book of Daniel' features Episcopal angle

Episcopal News Service ^ | 8/16/2005 | The Rev. Patricia McCaughan

[q_an_a]

the odds that single conservative bishop in the ECUSA is a woman is longer than what is needed to hit the MegaLotto.

[TruthNtegrity]

Thanks for the ping. I needed a smile today - and while it was more of a grimace, it has convinced me to step away from this PC and go DO something!

[N. Theknow]

A bit more info on this program.

With a wink and a nod to Stephen Vincent Benet, Aidan Quinn plays Daniel Webster in the series, an Episcopal priest with a monkey on his back, who regularly converses with a street-smart Jesus (Deadwood’s Garrett Dillahunt). Together, Daniel and Jesus explore family problems, church politics, and Daniel’s addiction to prescription painkillers. It takes the concept of accepting Jesus as your personal savior, well, literally.

Ellyn Burstyn, an Oscar winner for 1974’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, plays Bishop Beatrice Congreve, with whom Daniel butts theological heads. Susanna Thompson (Once and Again) is on board as Daniel’s martini-drinking wife Judith. Alison Pill is their daughter, and Ivan Shaw, their adopted Asian son.

But for gay men, it’s the Webster’s son, Peter (Christian Campbell) who is the page-turning character in Daniel’s book. Not only is Peter Webster gay; he’s a Log Cabin Republican. As the series opens, Peter is nursing a recently broken heart, and still struggling with the long-ago death of his twin brother.

The pulchritudinous, joyously heterosexual Christian Campbell, most recently seen cavorting in a G-string in Showtime’s camp extravaganza Reefer Madness, and currently on the London stage in tick…tick…BOOM!, has been melting gay hearts since 1999’s Trick. The indie picture--in which Campbell played Gabriel, a Sondheim wannabe looking for a place to get it on with his chiseled one-night stand--was the darling of that year’s Sundance Film Festival, and an art house favorite.

Back then, the actor told Prodigy Internet “I was never concerned about playing gay, but my management was.”

In The Book of Daniel, Christian Campbell’s Peter Webster brings something brand new to broadcast, dramatic television: the gay Republican. The only other occasion in recent history when television has offered up a gay Republican was during Election season last year, when the cable network Trio explored how Log Cabin Republicans were splitting over supporting Bush in the one-hour documentary Gay Republicans.