Posted on 03/08/2013 6:45:31 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Up until now, the year’s big cable-ratings story has been the ever-growing success of zombie drama The Walking Dead on AMC. Sunday night, though, History channel had the highest-rated scripted drama on cable for the year, for the beginning of a story in which only one main character rises from the dead, and that not until nearly the end.
The first two hours of History’s Mark Burnett miniseries adaptation of The Bible scored 13.1 million viewers, more than any fiction cable show of the year–and, as the New York Times notes, dwarfing anything on NBC for the past month. (The biblical epic numbers did not quite match The Walking Dead in viewers aged 18 to 49, the demographic that determines advertising rates, but it did get a healthy 5.6 million.)
Those are the kinds of numbers that get TV executives’ attention, and “attention” in the TV business means copying. Last year, History pulled meganumbers with Hatfields and McCoys; now NBC is developing a Hatfields and McCoys series. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see more religious epics coming to TV–stories aimed, like The Bible miniseries, at the comfort zone of believers. (I haven’t watched the entire History miniseries, but the first two hours were sort of a Picture Bible come to life, with the Old Testament violence dialed up and the Old Testament sex dialed down, and the kind of stiff dialogue that avoids seeming to “disrespect” Biblical figures by making them sound like people rather than animatronic figures.)
(Excerpt) Read more at entertainment.time.com ...
MORE HERE:
‘Bible’ Miniseries Beats Zombies as Year’s Most-Watched Cable TV Show
EXCERPT:
The History Channel’s latest hit drew crowds of biblical proportions, with 13.1 million viewers tuning in Sunday for the premiere of Mark Burnett and Roma Downey’s miniseries on the Bible.
The two-hour episode, portraying Genesis and Exodus, was the most-watched and highest-rated show on TV that night and the most popular cable telecast of the year, beating out The Walking Dead on AMC, according to Nielsen.
“God Beats Zombies! Guess it pays to be eternal vs immortal! #TheBible,” Burnett tweeted following the news.
Last year’s premiere of Hatfields & McCoys on the History Channel scored an audience of 13.9 million, the network’s most-watched program ever and the only one more popular than The Bible, Bloomberg News reported.
Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. The Gospel Coalition points out the Bible’s been an entertainment hit for decades, with The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, and The Passion of the Christ ranked among the top-grossing films of all time.
I heard it was awful
RE: I heard it was awful
One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
Let me clarify, it was on a Christian website that the series was awful.
I wonder if it should have been called, “An Atheists’ View of the Bible”?
I watched it with my family. We didn’t think it was awful. We liked it, and will tune in again on Sunday.
“I watched it with my family. We didn’t think it was awful. We liked it, and will tune in again on Sunday.”
Same here.
I watched it and thought that it was pretty good, although some of the stories were embellished, like the Angels fighting their way out of Sodom with swords, “gladiator” style.
If the History Channnel is as accurate with ‘The Bible’ as they are with many of their other shows you might as well forget it.
LOL. Any bets on whether this NBC show has a black family that is treated as equals by the leading characters (other than, ironically, the evil racist Republican) and shows women in prominent, leading roles where they are doing everything the men are doing? This show will tank after a couple episodes when the novelty of the historical setting wears off.
The problem with anything a network does is that it will impose today's values on the historical characters. It is the rare show that actually shows what life really was like (as closely as possible) in past ages. If religion is introduced into more shows, it will be Hollywood's version of religion (humanistic, gay tolerant, let's get along with all religions-type religion).
I tried watching. Gave up after 10 minutes.
It would be “fun” to see this done with the Koran. I think it is a different story.
What they did tell was done in a serious manner and with reverance. I was disappointed with the handling of Sodom. They failed to point out or even infer what the great sin of Sodom was. From their telling it was just that they partied too much!
I have to wonder why the surprise - we know we outnumber them.
Is it just that so many of us actually discovered that it was playing?
(I posted the other day that Raymond Arroyo’s show WorldOver on EWTN interviewed those 2 on the show last week - final segment of the hour.)
Mostly it was Bible-lite with a gloss over on details (why did the crowd in Sodom want Lot to hand over his angel visitors) to pure fantasy (Ninja angels???). I remember having a better book as a child with various Bible stories.
Ramses has this thing about heavy eyeliner and needs to hit the salad bar.
Moses resembles Charles Manson.
Abraham and Sarah look terrific for being just over the century mark when Isaac is born.
The Diversity Angels add a welcome inclusive touch.
But to your point about TV, my wife remarked while watching "don't these people realize they'll never work in film again?" I think The Bible is a rare anomaly in an increasingly hostile entertainment world.
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