Un-wad Your Panties...

Now that we've all seen the first episode of "The Book of Daniel", everyone can take a deep breath and un-wad their panties: the world hasn't come screeching to a halt, so I think it's safe to say the danger has passed.

Let's see what the score was:

1. Daniel's a drug-addicted priest who talks to Jesus -- given the medical profession's propensity for writing prescriptions, being addicted to pain killers as the result of unremitting back pain is understandable. The "unconventional white-robed Jesus", by the way, gives him a fair amount of shit and actually keeps him from partaking on more than one occasion.
   
2. His wife depends heavily on her mid-day martinis -- but she loves, accepts and defends her children. Hell, she even loves her husband. So who am I to condemn her for wanting to take the edge off with a little bit of vodka.
3. His adopted son is having sex -- hey, 16-year-old hormones; what are you going to do? Beside, he shows definite signs of being in love.
4. His daughter is a drug dealer -- she needed money to buy computer equipment, so she sold some pot and got caught. Come on: ganja for manga? Is there a higher calling?
   
5. His eldest son is a homosexual republican -- the aforementioned republican tendencies were never discussed, but we did discover that he's going into cancer research because his twin brother died of leukemia.
6. The lesbian secretary is sleeping with the sister-in-law -- well, I watched every second of the episode and I didn't see even an hint of on-screen rug-munching or muff-diving activities.
   

Okay... So Daniel's mother is suffering from alzheimer's while his father is shtuping the right bishop Dr. Beatrice Congreve, who occasionally dips into Daniel's stash of vicodin. Come on, my gentle snowflakes, you must admit that everyone has their foibles. These characters seem like real people with real problems. And when they pile up, all you can do is try to deal with it the best you can, right?

That seems to be precisely what the Webster family is trying to do.

So why don't you cut them some fucking slack...