Word: angelized
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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JOEL STEIN faithfully tuned in to Touched by an Angel to get a feel for the genre of religious-themed TV shows appearing this fall. His verdict? "It's a pretty well-paced, watchable show," he says. "Besides, that Irish angel is kind of hot." Stein recently joined our staff after two years as sports editor at Time Out New York, where he profiled WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes, thigh-mistress Suzanne Somers and that other icon of athleticism, Howard Stern. Stein seems perplexed by his welcome to TIME: "Everyone here is so nice; they say hi in the cafeteria." Stein...
This season the networks are paving a multilane highway to heaven with an unprecedented eight shows with religious and spiritual themes. Each of these supplicants is praying for the Top-10 ratings success of last season's surprise hit, Touched by an Angel (CBS, Sundays, 8 p.m. E.T.). Also back this fall are 7th Heaven (the WB, Mondays, 8 p.m. E.T.), the melodrama about a minister's family; Dan Aykroyd's priestly sitcom Soul Man (ABC, Tuesdays, 8 p.m. E.T.); and the Angel spin-off Promised Land (CBS, Thursdays, 8 p.m. E.T.). Joining them are four newcomers, each offering...
...show that got the reformation rolling was Touched by an Angel. In 1993 CBS went hunting for something fluffy to cash in on the New Age angel craze. What it got instead from executive producer Martha Williamson was some heavy religious programming. Each week three angels (Della Reese, Roma Downey and John Dye) come to earth to counsel souls in crisis. Basically, they tell them to shut up and trust God, and then the angel of death takes someone away. It is great melodrama--Job replayed weekly--but pretty tough stuff. Nervous CBS execs ordered six episodes--and prepared...
...seasons after Angel's debut, several series tried to capitalize on its formula. The well-acted, heart-tugging Promised Land, created by Williamson, has Gerald McRaney (Major Dad) taking his newly destitute family around the country in a trailer, helping others find faith. Aaron Spelling, who first traded angels in low-cut blouses for the spiritual kind with his 1994 flop Heaven Help Us, came up with the cruelly slow-paced 7th Heaven. It stars Stephen Collins as a minister in a troubled extended family whose members seem to do mean things to one another just so they...
...convert secular ideas into religious ones. Matt Williams (Roseanne) co-created last spring's decent midseason replacement Soul Man, which has Aykroyd as a widowed gang member turned minister raising four kids. UPN's Good News has some nice gospel tunes but is both theologically and comically weak. Teen Angel is just another preteen T.G.I.F. show, only dumber. The Visitor is a brash but effective attempt to meld Angel and The X-Files; one of its executive producers is John Masius, creator of Angel...