TVSquad

After last week's premiere where we got to meet all the players amidst a blizzard of plots and subplots, this week things settled down a bit for The Book of Daniel. We last left Reverend Daniel Webster' getting the news that the stolen money ($3.2 million) that was earmarked for the construction of a new school has been located, but the situation becomes a bit sticky when the Mafia-connected priest tells him that if the construction job does not go to Vaporelli Construction, then there is no found money. Daniel spends a good bit of time wrestling with the question and, in a case of mistaken identity, agrees to the deal. It seems that Daniel has offered his acceptance to the situation, but he (obviously) has his doubts about going along with this extortion.

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.)