The Writing's On the Wall

Only five minutes into last night's premiere episode of TNT's new series, "Saving Grace," a character named Earl (Leon Rippy) sprouted cherubic wings and declared in no uncertain terms that he was a messenger of God. If that seemed like a hasty thematic development, well, detective Grace Hanadarko (Holly Hunter) only needed the first four minutes of the show to have the most graphic sex you'll ever see on basic cable (with her married partner, no less), chase some pills with a whole lot of bourbon blurt out "s---" six times, and kill a pedestrian with her car in a drunken stupor — all in the most charming Southern way.

It's no wonder the faith-based Web site Catholic Online decried, "It seems to us it's the series that could use some divine intervention." For that is just what the Big Man has in store for Grace, a decent but hopelessly lost and jaded Oklahoma City detective who finds new men to seduce easier than she finds her gun and badge in her sty of an apartment. Before Earl arrives, Grace, who earns easy sympathy points with colleagues and viewers alike by tracking down murderers and pedophiles for a living, is precisely the sort of modern television character on which cable stations have come to rely for great ratings. She's not just imperfect; she's debauched, vulgar, sexy, uninhibited, impulsive, violent — and the only cop you'd want looking for your missing daughter if she were kidnapped by the perverted teenage metalhead who stalks through the pilot episode and makes Grace look like the Virgin Mary by comparison. (And if he's not evil enough for you, we learn in the same episode that Grace's late sister was one of the 168 souls that perished in the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing of 1995. So you're either with God or you're in hell with Timothy Mc Veigh.)

But if "Saving Grace" and other recent programs, such as HBO's "John From Cincinnati" and, believe it or not, "The Sopranos," are any indication, some television producers are coming to feel as though our favorite small-screen heroes and heroines are in need of a little intervention — lest they finally convince us that money-lust, casual sex, drinking, and general egomania form the new American personality. So if pushing the envelopes of sex and violence on television with realistically compelling characters is what sells advertisements today, then perhaps, in a market that is still heavily swayed by America's religious sector, sublimating those characters is what will sell them tomorrow.

We've come a long way, both on the screen and off, since the days of Roma Downey and Michael Landon on "Touched by an Angel" and "Highway to Heaven," respectively. The souls they saved were rarely guilty of more than adultery or sharp dealing — and it usually took little more that a heartfelt hymn and a smile that reminded folks of Ronald Reagan.

Today we need Earl, a chaw-dipping hillbilly with a snickering drawl and a fondness for ultimatums. "Do you want God's help or not?" he asks the lapsed catholic Grace after she has mowed down Leon Cooley (Bokeem Woodbine) on a darkened length of road with her beat-up Porsche. A few moments back, Grace had let slip the magic words — the ones she had clearly not uttered in a very long time: "Dear God. Please help me."

"I'm Earl," comes the response, and he is indeed, with great big glowing wings that unfold from his torso like battle axes. "What do you need?"

"I need to call for help" she says frantically."You just did … finally."

It may seem odd that the God of cable television has aped the modus operandi of the common cinema vampire, who can only come in the house if invited. But these days, who's going to go to Him without a good reason? Della Reese just won't do the trick anymore; if the opening moments of "Saving Grace" are to be believed, God will wait for you to reach your absolute nadir before offering you the lifeline you're too afraid not to take. If she chooses to believe she isn't hallucinating, Grace is on her "way to hell" (Earl's quotes) anyway, so she might as well play ball. If not, the whole thing's a dream and she'll be back at the bottom of her Jack Daniels bottle by sunrise.

Maybe that's why for every unmoved Catholic television reviewer there are 100 secular counterparts, like the one on www.film.com who wrote, "Grace isn't ‘saved' overnight, and, heh, God willing, she never will be." But it's a safe bet that by season's end (or series' end, if TNT scores big enough to keep the "saving" on the slow track), she will be. TNT is hoping that Grace's foul mouth and erotic dalliances will prove palatable to those monotheists in the audience who can feel like they're overseeing and even taking some part in her deliverance. But it's counting on the business of all the TV-heads out there who just want to see Ms. Hunter drink like a sponge, get naked, and bust bad guys Kyra Sedgwick-style.

As for Earl, he doesn't have the answers, anyway.

"This doesn't make sense!" Grace impugns him, still ready to believe he's just as easily a stalker as her ticket to salvation.

"But sleeping with different guys, getting drunk every night, lying, stealing, using people — overall just being a major d--- to everybody you meet — makes sense?"

It depends who you ask.