TVSquad

Aidan Quinn, who was last seen in the anti-7th Heaven drama Book of Daniel, has joined the cast of FOX's Canterbury's Law, which stars Juliana Margulies. He will have a recurring role as Matt Furey, husband to Marguiles' character. Elizabeth Canterbury.

Now, if you have seen a preview of the show on the FOX website you're probably saying to yourself 'Wait, doesn't she have a husband already?'. Well, yes. It's Matthew Canterbury, played by Linus Roache. Only Linus, the show's producers and FOX broadcasting know the reasons for the re-casting. So goes television.

• Anna Paquin: "Sadly, stories like this are not unique in the United States." She can act, and she's political. Watch out folks.
• Fred Thompson, former U.S. senator and actor who has is always typecast as a hard-assed senator, admiral, and politician in general plays President Ulysses S. Grant. When aproached by executive producer Dick Wolf and asked if he wanted to play him, Thompson replied: "Not if I have to grow the damn beard."

Well, they say nothing lasts forever, and they were right. NBC's The Book of Daniel has been cancelled, effective immediately. The Friday 10 pm slot will be occupied this week by a rerun of a Law and Order episode. No word yet on what the network will do to permanently fill the slot.

I have mixed feelings on this situation. IMHO, the episodes were filled with way too many subplots and that the writers and producers were more interested in trying to get away with things rather than developing a story. However, I also thought the show could have evolved into something, given more time. Of course, ratings are everything, and this show didn't have them, plain and simple.

I wonder if The Book of Daniel will be "resurrected" on a cable network, a la HBO or Showtime. It might just find a home and a loyal, albeit smaller, audience if that happens.

Controversial new television show The Book of Daniel has been removed from the lineup of Nashville's NBC affiliate after the show drew thousands of complaints from irate viewers, incuding letters faxed in on church letterhead. The show has now been pulled from seven network affiliates, mostly in the South.  The Book of Daniel, which features Aidan Quinn as a pill-popping Episcopalian priest with a gay son, has drawn the fire of conservative Christian groups, most notably the American Family Association, which is encouraging members through its website to protest the show and threaten boycotts of advertisers.

In the middle of his sermon, Reverend Daniel Webster (Aidan Quinn) poses this question to the congregation:

"If there were no temptation, how can there be redemption?"

The Book of Daniel made its much anticipated debut Friday night on NBC with a two-hour episode. If you saw it, you know there were so many subplots that trying to recap them here will make your (and my) head spin.

In a nutshell, Daniel's life is a complicated one, to say the least. This Episcopalian man of the cloth has to deal with his teenage daughter (Grace) being arrested for dealing pot, to having a gay son (Peter) that causes confusion for him, to having an adopted son from China (Adam) who pokes fun at his Asian features and heritage, to having a neurotic wife taken to having martinis as soon as noon passes, to having a female bishop critiquing his Sunday sermons, to finding out his brother-in-law has embezzled $3.2 million from the church, to dealing with a stiff and wooden father who happens to be a bishop, to his mother suffering from Alzheimer's, to interacting with a Mafia-connected Catholic priest. (I could go further but I think you get the general idea.)