Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith and media: 11/04/20

You’ve heard of the hit TV series The Good Wife and The Good Doctor. Well, about The Good Shepherd? Actually, the show is called   The Chosen and, hailing from the family-friendly streaming app and original content studio VidAngel, it’s the first-ever, multi-season original series about the life of Christ. Created, directed and co-written by American filmmaker Dallas Jenkins (seen above talking about the start of Season 2), the series is surpassing expectations and breaking records. Named the No. 1 crowdfunded media project in history, The Chosen went on to become the first entertainment project to be released around the world in more than 180 countries on its own app. It has also surged to No. 73 on IMDb’s Top 250 All-time series list and has a 9.8 user score with over 9,800 user reviews, making it the highest-rated Faith film project of all time. On top of that, it enjoys a 100% critic score and 99% audience score (7,251 ratings) on Rotten Tomatoes. Season 1 of The Chosen has over 64 million views, is subtitled in over twenty languages and is available to watch for free on The Chosen mobile app. Viewers can cast the show’s episodes to popular streaming devices like Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, Chromecast, etc.

Concept creator Dallas Jenkins, the son of celebrated Left Behind author Jerry Jenkins, produced the independent feature Hometown Legend at the age of 25 and managed to get it distributed by Warner Brothers. In the nearly 20 years since then, he has directed and produced over a dozen feature and short films for companies such as Universal, Lionsgate, Pureflix, Hallmark Channel and Amazon. His most recent film, The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, was released in theaters in 2017. He executive produces with

The Chosen series is produced by Chad Gundersen (The Redemption of Henry Myers, Like Dandelion Dust) and Justin Tolley (October Baby).

What Does It Mean to Be Chosen?: An Interactive Bible Study Guide, an eight-week Bible study guide based on the show’s first season releases January 21, 2021.

(Left) Director Dallas Jenkins prepares a scene for Episode 3, Season 1 of The Chosen.

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Chuck Lorre-produced Mom deals with a major change in its Season 8 premiere tomorrow night (11/8) on CBS. One of the funniest, most insightful and compassionate sitcoms  in TV history (right up there with M*A*S*H, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond and Lorre’s own Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon) goes on without its daughter Christy Plunkett (Anna Faris).  She’ll certainly be hard to replace but some shows (i.e. the aforementioned M*A*S*H, Cheers and NYPD Blue) have actually managed to get better with cast changes.

Nobody asked me but here’s my suggestion (which fans of the show will understand). Christy, moving forward as a lawyer, moves away to live with, reconcile with and assist her estranged daughter and Violet (Sadie Calvano), now herself an unwed mother. It would be nice if Faris could at least be coaxed into some nice phone chat scenes.

Meanwhile, the character of Patty (Kate Micucci), the single mother who Bonnie Plunkett (aka the title character played by Allison Janney)  agreed to become an AA sponsor of in Season 7, suddenly shows up at the apartment with her child and in desperate need of a place to stay. This, of course, is much to the chagrin of Bonnie’s husband Adam (William Fichtner) who was kinda looking forward to an empty nest.

All in all, the scenario would provide a hopeful ending to Christy’s story, maintain the validity of the show’s title and flow naturally from previously-established story points while opening up new story possibilities that take full advantage of the series’ ability to artfully balance laugh out loud comedy with genuine heart.

Anyway, I’ve actually thought about this – prompting my wife to suggest I have too much time on my hands. Hey, it’s better than fretting about the election results.

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11