NBC Sign Up Jesus For New Series

That Jesus bloke has been a busy little beaver of late, hasn’t he? Not content with satisfying Middle-America’s desire for bloodlust snuff movies with The Passion Of The Christ, TV network NBC has announced that God Jr. is all set to feature in their somewhat controversial new series Book Of Daniel.

Jesus will apparently act as confidant and imaginary best buddy to ‘troubled’ reverend Daniel Webster (Aidan Quinn), as he goes about his distinctly unholy lifestyle - a cacophony of pill-popping shenanigans, rumour has it.

Jesus is to be portrayed as a "contemporary, cool figure‘"- possibly with a blinged-up halo and wicked sound system installed on his donkey - who will appear to the minister and offer his advice. The hugely talented yet often-wasted Ellen Burstyn (DVDs) is also set to star, which raises hecklerspray’s hopes that this show could actually be quite good.

It’s certainly a bold move for a mainstream American network. Something like this could be expected from HBO - home of such wonderfulness as The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm and the first (good) season of Six Feet Under - but, in a country where owning a Radiohead album is considered subversive, such an ‘attack’ on a blessed religious figure is bound to cause all sorts of placard-waving and bomb-threats.

In other words: this could be fun.

As enthused as hecklerspray is about Book Of Daniel, however, it pales into insignificance compared with CBS’s (sadly rejected) rival idea. Joan Of Arcadia - great title - went one step further by featuring the exploits of "a girl who talks to God". God himself? Surely only Ricky Gervais can command that sort of guest star these days?

Maybe this will inspire producers to start casting other religious figureheads in more ‘contemporary’ roles. It’d be great to see Buddha brought back as an NYC wise guy, constantly running into scrapes and arguments with the local Mafia underworld.

"You want to teach us discipline?" the bad guys would snarl. "Try laying off the pies first, you fat fuck!" At which point Buddha would kick their arses.

See? This thing practically writes itself…

[story by C J Davies]