Revelations : Looking for a few stout volunteers

Anybody want to join me tonight and watch/critique the new NBC series, “Revelations,” which is replacing “West Wing” in the 9PM time slot? (West Wing had its season-ending cliffhanger last week.)

Tom Shales, the outstanding WaPo TV columnist, doesn’t make it sound like much fun: “The least we can ask of the end of the world is that it be entertaining. But lo, NBC has unleashed the armies of the night in a six-game tournament against the armies of the day, and “low” sums up the whole thing pretty well.”

“Revelations,” made by NBC in conjunction with Pariah (no kidding) Productions, will unfold over six weekly episodes starting tonight at 9 on [NBC], with the implicit climax being that showdown of showdowns, a “High Noon” between Christ and Satan — the ultimate Wrestlemania.

Uh, didn’t “South Park” and “Carnivale” already do this? …
Anyway, I won’t be disappointed if no one signs up. I might even admire you more.

But I am curious about the reasons behind dramatic programming like this, and what potential effects such shows may have on the populace. So, your impressions and opinions would be interesting to read.

Perhaps the best part of series like “Revelations” is that it gives Tom Shales — and you — a chance to make fun:

Once all the punishingly noisy prefatory hullabaloo settles down, the essentials of the plot rise to the surface. The little daughter of the very practical and scientific Harvard professor Richard Massey (Bill Pullman, who earlier survived apocalypse in “Independence Day”) has been killed by a vicious homicidal maniac named Isaiah Haden (Michael Massee, baring not just teeth but gums). Haden claims to be a harbinger of the world’s grand finale, the End of Days, as Revelation calls it, and to prove his standing as an F.O.S. (Friend of Satan), Haden declares that although he may be cut, he will not bleed — lopping off a finger and letting it plop bloodlessly to the floor to make his point.

Meanwhile, two other little girls figure in the unholy mess — one who lies brain-dead in a Miami hospital but who suddenly begins chatting up a storm, drawing donkeys on a sketch pad and channeling Massey’s late daughter. He’s alerted to this by a dour, fanatical nun, Sister Josepha Montafiore, …

I’ve always enjoyed the campy horror of movies like “The Omen” series or “The Exorcist,” but this sounds as if it takes itself too seriously to be as entertaining as those horror classics.