I like "Rizzoli & Isles". Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander are fun to watch playing off one another. The storylines usually have an interesting twist. However, the show exemplifies how the Christian faith is too often portrayed on television.
This critique focuses on the episode "Bloodlines", broadcast on August 23, 2011.
The show drew upon the history of Salem and the witch trials. I don't want to give away too many details of the show, so let me focus. There are witches in the show, descended from the people who are accused of being witches and executed during the Salem witch trials. This in turn, according to the storyline, makes them witches. One of these witches is the daughter of a minister. Both are descended from Salem witch. It makes for conflict in the show.
Neither is portrayed well in the faith.
When the police interview the father, the reaction of the police is that the father, the minister, is creepy. They believe this because of the passionate way the minister has reacted to his daughter turning away from the Christian faith to embracing witchcraft, because of her ancestry. He went so far as to attempt to have her abducted to deprogram her. It is not the most flattering portrayal of the dad or a minister. The police decide to have him watched as a prime suspect.
The daughter comes off even worse. She is written with a mental illness that plays into the climax of the episode in what I consider to be a very exploitation way. My faith does not come off well. It was rather stereotypical unfortunately.
The witches were portrayed in a rather stereotypical manner as well, full of face piercings, dark clothing, and generally fringe behavior, poor example, they did not have "real jobs", but all worked in an occult shop. But that critique is for another blog.
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