(2 of 3)
Jack Kenny, Daniel's creator, says he set out to tell the story of "a family man, a regular guy who's trying to do good." Making his protagonist a priest raised the dramatic and moral stakes. "A priest's family is supposed to be perfect," he says, "so anything anybody does wrong becomes heightened." As for adding Jesus to the ensemble, he says he did it not for shock value but as an outgrowth of what he was taught growing up as a Catholic (he now considers himself Christian but belongs to no church): that one should have a personal relationship with God.
"It's not the Second Coming," says Kenny. Other characters on Daniel can't see Jesus; no water is walked on. "I don't want it to feel like Daniel is talking to himself, but in a way he is. Jesus represents the best part of Daniel's faith." Dillahunt plays him low-key, without thunderbolts or preaching, like a wry, mildly hip dorm adviser. When Daniel says he takes his pills only rarely, Jesus answers, "Ri-i-i-ight." "Could you put more judgment into that 'Right'?," Daniel asks. "Actually," Jesus replies, "yes, I could."
Conservatives may be less put off by the portrayal of their Savior or the over-the-top story lines than by Daniel's progressive preaching. "If temptation corners us," he says in a sermon after Grace's arrest, "maybe we shouldn't beat ourselves up for giving in to it." His is an easy-listening, baby-boomer ministry, not so much fire and brimstone as Fire and Rain. Of course, Daniel is a priest in a liberal church; American Episcopalians have even ordained a gay bishop, to the consternation of conservative members and the church's overseas counterparts. (The church has had no comment on Daniel so far.) So it's plausible that he would accept his gay son and even ask an engaged couple he's counseling if "everything's O.K. in the bedroom." "But why select the Episcopal Church?" asks AFA spokesman Ed Vitagliano. "Why not choose a conservative priest? The fact is that most Christians have rejected the Episcopal position on homosexuality. It is not a Christian position."
Kenny counters that "being put off by Daniel's tolerance sounds like the opposite of Christianity." He picked an Episcopal priest, he says, because like Catholic clergy, "they have all that pageantry and mystery and wonder--but they can get married." Kenny was also intrigued by the particular country-club Wasp culture that he was introduced to through his Episcopal life partner of almost 24 years. (Yes, that would be a male partner, and no, that isn't helping Daniel among conservatives either. An AFA protest letter slams the show as being written by a "practicing homosexual.")
While Daniel draws its wealthy Wasps broadly, it doesn't disrespect them (unlike Italian Catholics, represented in the show by a stereotyped, Mob-connected priest). The family's unresolved grief over son Jimmy's death is mostly unspoken but palpable, while Daniel's work is treated as a calling but also, realistically, as a job, with ambitions, pressures and politics. The scripts neatly balance satire and sincerity: while the show's outlandish twists challenge Daniel's faith--he's like Job, if Job lived on Melrose Place--they never mock it.