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All this is less likely to offend any demographic than pinko talk about camels and needles. By separating God from religion, Arcadia takes away what makes faith divisive--a reasonable goal for a major-network series that needs to draw a broad audience to thrive. But reducing God to principles we can all agree on also means taking away much of what makes faith difficult. With this God, everything is a win-win, and all Joan's chain reactions are for the better. "Better is how it works with me," God says. "An infinite good in an infinite universe." A comforting thought for the home audience, and it beats holy war, but it avoids the hard choices that arise from believing there are principles you must follow because they are right, even if you--like the 15th century Joan--must suffer for it. Arcadia's God asks for hard work but not self-sacrifice. If you realize your potential, you enlarge the pie of world happiness. It's supply-side spirituality.
If God, however, is simply asking Joan to do what all teens have to do--develop an identity--Arcadia works because Tamblyn reminds us so well how tough that job is. Joan may talk to God, but she has to do the work her own, mortal self, from accepting life's unfairness to finding her niche at school. Hall calls Joan a "metaphysical warrior," and the battles that go on behind Tamblyn's wrinkled brow are as compelling as any supernatural fireworks. Unlike most prime-time teens, Joan is neither a babe nor a brain, neither a Goody Two-Shoes nor a sarcastic rebel. She's the most extraordinarily average teen to crop up on a TV show in years--yet after a few episodes, you realize you would watch her story even if God stopped showing up. Perhaps that's the true message of Joan of Arcadia: that God is a divine MacGuffin, dramatic bait to make us realize how interesting and powerful an ordinary person can be. In a TV world glutted with cops and superheroes, achieving that realization is a blessing indeed.