A.D.: The Bible Continues // Mini-Review

I did catch the first installment of the new Roma Downey-Mark Burnett produced Biblical TV production, A.D.: The Bible Continues. The massive success of 2013's The Bible (broadcast in the U.S. on The History Channel) and last year's Son of God, the theatrical release culled from the original miniseries, has won the wife and husband production team a slot on NBC. I want to watch a few weeks more before giving a full blown analysts, but my first impressions are positive, with some of the same apprehensions I had with the original production.

On the positive side, the production values are better than we saw with The Bible (obviously high ratings and solid box office breeds bigger subsequent budgets). While still not up to feature film standards, they do try to tell the story artfully. The story itself is told in a straight forward, un-ironic way: while characters may express doubts, the presentation itself accepts that Jesus is who he says he is. While the Jewish authorities are clearly on the wrong side of history, they are not completely villainized. They are presented as men walking a tight rope between being true to their faith and avoiding giving the Roman occupiers an excuse to crack down. In other words they are treated like human beings and not mustache twirling criminals.

On the negative side the first episode (of 12) drops us right into the middle of Good Friday without any real context of how we got there. The producers' goal is to make a series in the style of Game of Thrones, that will draw a broad audience, including the un-evangelized, and continue with 12 new episodes a year for seasons to come. I certainly hope they get their wish, but I'm afraid that the viewer really does need to have some knowledge of the Biblical sources to really understand what's going on. As Christians we sometimes take for granted that people are familiar with Jesus' story and why he died on the cross. But the truth is that people who grew up in other religious traditions or, as is increasingly the case, no faith tradition at all, will probably be left scratching their head a bit.

I'll be back in a few weeks with some more, again, I want to see more. Episode 1 leaves us with an empty tomb cliff hanger, I'm guessing designed to draw back people who may not know how things go from here. Again, I think their aim is true, but only a few more weeks of tracking the ratings (which by all accounts were solid for Sunday's premiere), to see if they hit the target.