{"id":8156,"date":"2019-09-13T15:53:35","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T19:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=8156"},"modified":"2019-09-13T15:53:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T19:53:35","slug":"evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2019\/09\/evil.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Evil&#8221; comes to CBS: Drama series creators explore the nature of the beast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the latest dispatch from the crossroads of faith and media:<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Watch CBS&#039; Evil Trailer\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Jf0ggynR0sc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>What causes <em>Evil<\/em>? <\/strong>That&#8217;s the big question Robert and Michelle King (<em>The Good Wife, The Good Fight<\/em>) pose in their new CBS drama titled, you guessed it, <em>Evil<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the logline for the show, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/live-feed\/tv-pilots-2019-complete-guide-1172633\">Hollywood Reporter<\/a>: <em>A drama about the battle between science and religion,\u00a0Evil\u00a0focuses on a skeptical female clinical psychologist who joins a priest-in-training and a blue-collar contractor as they investigate supposed miracles, demonic possessions and other extraordinary occurrences to see if there&#8217;s a scientific explanation or if something truly supernatural is at work.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The series, which is shot in New York City, stars Katja Herbers\u00a0 (<em>Westworld, Divorce<\/em>) as the skeptical psychologist, Mike Colter (<em>Luke Cage<\/em>) as the priest in training who is more apt to see demonic forces at play, Aasif Mandvi (<em>The Daily Show<\/em>) as their working man aide and Michael Emerson (<em>Lost, Person of Interest<\/em>) as the mysterious apparent embodiment of pure evil.<\/p>\n<p>I had the opportunity to converse with the married Kings via a media conference call in which the producer\/writers\u00a0 suggested that the relationship between the Herbers and Colter characters toward faith pretty much reflects their own. Michelle describes herself as agnostic Jew who comes from a family of holocaust survivors and has deep respect for her heritage.\u00a0 Robert hails from a large Italian-Irish Catholic family and still attends mass. He tends to believe that there is a real demonic components in at least some of the mass murder and serial killer cases that have all-too-often captured the headlines in recent years. His wife, on the other hand, looks more toward strictly psychological explanations.<\/p>\n<p>From listening to them, it appears the answer to the question of the root cause of <em>Evil<\/em> will remain open -at least in the early going &#8211; with viewers left to contemplate the question and make up their own minds (or, perhaps, remain undecided on the issue).<\/p>\n<p>They note that they do have a Catholic priest that consults with them to try and get some of the details correct when it comes to the Church&#8217;s investigations of such matters as alleged demonic possessions and other unexplained phenomena\u00a0 &#8211; but also admit to taking occasional dramatic license with the subject matter.<\/p>\n<p>Robert says the hope is that the show will go beyond the dark to included other investigations as well (i.e. miracles, etc.) and says that some episodes will even lean toward humor.<\/p>\n<p>I asked him if the title itself might push the show more toward the dark side. He answered that he feels the series &#8220;is probably aptly titled&#8221; and has the asset of being provocative. He notes that the &#8220;<em>Evil<\/em>&#8221; posters on buses on New York City buses certainly get his attention, adding that the title also, unfortunately, is in keeping with the headlines.<\/p>\n<p><em>Evil<\/em> premieres Thursday, Sept. 26 at 10:00 PM (ET) on CBS.<\/p>\n<p><em><span class=\"st\">Encourage one another and build each other up &#8211; <\/span><\/em><span class=\"st\">1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the latest dispatch from the crossroads of faith and media: What causes Evil? That&#8217;s the big question Robert and Michelle King (The Good Wife, The Good Fight) pose in their new CBS drama titled, you guessed it, Evil. Here&#8217;s the logline for the show, Hollywood Reporter: A drama about the battle between science and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,21,9247,4206,31,1],"tags":[9486,9481,9483,9482,315,9451,9480,9484,9485],"class_list":["post-8156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic-church","category-interfaith-dialogue","category-judaism","category-miracles","category-power-of-prayer","category-television","category-uncategorized","tag-evil-comes-to-cbs","tag-aasif-mandvi-the-daily-show","tag-divorce","tag-katja-herbers-westworld","tag-michael-emerson-lost","tag-mike-colter-luke-cage","tag-person-of-interest","tag-robert-and-michelle-king-the-good-wife","tag-the-good-fight"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;Evil&quot; comes to CBS: Drama series creators explore the nature of the beast<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2019\/09\/evil.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;Evil&quot; comes to CBS: Drama series creators explore the nature of the beast\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#8217;s the latest dispatch from the crossroads of faith and media: What causes Evil? That&#8217;s the big question Robert and Michelle King (The Good Wife, The Good Fight) pose in their new CBS drama titled, you guessed it, Evil. Here&#8217;s the logline for the show, Hollywood Reporter: A drama about the battle between science and&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2019\/09\/evil.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-09-13T19:53:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. Kennedy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Evil\" comes to CBS: Drama series creators explore the nature of the beast","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2019\/09\/evil.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Evil\" comes to CBS: Drama series creators explore the nature of the beast","og_description":"Here&#8217;s the latest dispatch from the crossroads of faith and media: What causes Evil? That&#8217;s the big question Robert and Michelle King (The Good Wife, The Good Fight) pose in their new CBS drama titled, you guessed it, Evil. 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Kennedy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2019\/09\/evil.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2019\/09\/evil.html","name":"\"Evil\" comes to CBS: Drama series creators explore the nature of the beast","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-09-13T19:53:35+00:00","dateModified":"2019-09-13T19:53:35+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2019\/09\/evil.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2019\/09\/evil.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2019\/09\/evil.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"&#8220;Evil&#8221; comes to CBS: Drama series creators explore the nature of the beast"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/","name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - John W. Kennedy","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8156"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8162,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156\/revisions\/8162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}