Like a lot of viewers, I was initially put off by the positioning of the show, and avoided it. Then, channel surfing one day I caught a fragment of one of the mid-series episodes, and was hooked. A friend had the whole series on DVD and I watched it beginning to end. The quality was not always consistent, they changed characters every now and then, but the bottom line is that the good episodes were fine and the great episodes were spectacular. Important to remember that TV, the medium, started with shows that highlighted the small everyday problems of small everyday people. Like Route 66. As the medium evolved, it forgot its roots, and the plots became formulaic to the point of insanity. This show basically gets rid of all the "noise" and tells a new simple and compelling story from week to week. Della Reese, and Roma Downey (who, before this show, played sexy roles in obscure B-movies), more or less become family as you watch. There is even an episode that covers a TV producer whose career is coming undone until he greenlights a religious series with no gimmicks, just faith and hope. Sound familiar? (Seinfeld did a self-congratulatory episode also, where the boys pitch a major studio about a show based on "nothing.") Even with these quibbles, I gave the series a top rating, not only for delivering entertainment of a kind that no one else dared to, but for consistency. The last two episodes, I WILL WALK WITH YOU parts 1 and 2 are the best but -- here is the catch -- you have to watch the whole series to really appreciate them.
Review of Touched by an Angel
