One of the things I failed to notice about Touched By An Angel last week was
its time slot: It runs opposite of The X-Files. I was never able to
stomach X-Files because the lie it propagates is that the FBI would possibly
succor a kook like Muldaur. However, I have it on reliable authority that
lately The X-Files is downplaying government conspiracies and concentrating
on the supernatural. Thus, I can see the audience for TBA being composed of
two parts: The same people who watched Little House, Dr. Quinn, & The
Waltons, and the people who watch it as a reaction to X-Files. It's my
opinion that a lot of the subtext in TBA is a reaction to the X-Files.
Where X-Files portrays a menacing world filled with predatory killers TBA
portrays the world as being essentially good with the angels being god's
mechanism for fine tuning what is essentially a benign society.
I got a phone call last night and so wasn't able to watch more than a half
hour of TBA ... but the part of the story I saw was as follows:
1) A toy company is looking to shut down its American plant and move
production off shore.
2) The president of the toy company somehow has "a good heart" but is
being led astray by his partner - a lawyer.
3) While trying to decide to build in Mexico or China the president of
the toy company meets one of his workers - a woman -who was at Tianamen
square.
4) The program devolved into a pathetic portrayal of Tianamen square
... and I got my call.
5) When I came back to the program the woman was locked in solitary
confinement in China and the Angel was keeping watch over her. I turned off
the tube and read a book.
One of my favorite parts of the show was the introduction where angel's are
talking about how they had first hand knowledge that The Great Wall of China
is the only man-made structure visible from the moon. Della Reese - the
wise but earthy angel - then did a rap on how you can't see borders and that
borders are semi-permeable membranes through which information must flow.
The amusing thing about this rap was how it assumed that all moral
information flowed FROM America's heartland. For instance the show made a
big deal about the symbolism of the statue of liberty on Tianamen square ...
and how it resonated in the Chinese heart.
I believe that Miss Liberty was the Chinese student's attempt to keep
American pressure on the chinese govt. I would have loved to have been a
bug on the wall of the Oval Office during Tianamen. I wonder how Mr. Bush -
who was ambassador to China under Ford? - viewed the student's bid for
democracy. And that may be the crux of my fondness for TBA. The angels go
around touching people who in real life are virtually completely
dis-empowered. For instance the range of freedom of the toy makers are
tightly constrained by market forces. The show had a subtext of a kite that
would fly even when there was no wind - essentially defying gravity. Once
you think the angels can suspend the laws of gravity and aerodynamics, then
believing they can suspend the laws of supply and demand is simple.