Maybe the only thing more unusual than a show dealing honestly with questions of faith is a network that picks up such shows — and TNT sure bucked a trend picking up “Will.” And the man responsible for that is TNT and TBS president Kevin Reilly.
To see a longer piece where I examine “Will”, which airs on Mondays at 11 p.m. ET/PT, more closely, click here, but in short, it’s a period drama with contemporary touches that examines the life of the young William Shakespeare in Elizabethan London.
What sets it apart is that it holds forth that, as some scholars believe, Shakespeare was a secret Catholic, who struggles with both the Faith and the real danger it represents from Elizabeth I’s persecution. “Will” also casts rival playwright Christopher Marlowe as not just a libertine (which he was), but a spiritual seeker.
I’m currently at the biannual Television Critics Press Tour, taking place in Beverly Hills, California. Last week, the cable networks presented their news shows. Included in that was a press conference with Reilly (which featured low-rider bikes and Snoop Dogg, host of TBS’ reboot of “Joker’s Wild,” but that’s another story.)
At the session, I asked Reilly about taking the Catholic angle on Shakespeare:
It was really backing Craig’s [series creator Craig Pearce] vision. He himself had been very, very passionate and studied on [Shakespeare’s] life.. There’s a lot that’s unknown about his life, maybe more unknown. And it is one of the extraordinary things in history for a singular man to have left a footprint — I don’t know if anybody’s seen this thing that’s been online and it goes around of, like, the phrases from Shakespeare that we still use today. I mean, come on. There’s nobody in contemporary history ever that has had — will have ever have had — it’s not phrases like, “I think I’ve heard of that.” You’re like, “Oh, my God, I use that every week.” It came from one of his works. And yet we know so little.
So Craig looked and researched certain markers, like the religious angle, and then leaned into what was known and what he felt he could create and leverage off of that. He had a really clear vision of it from the get-go. So we didn’t guide him anywhere on that.
We said, “The show sounds compelling and interesting.” We bought it in our very, very first wave when we were trying to throw the net out wide and say, “We’re going to do different things, and we’re going to really reach for things.” It was a reach. It’s performing, I’d say, as good as — better than most dramas on television.
In addition, TBS has “People of Earth,” a comedy about alien abductees who meet at a Catholic church. The creation of Catholic writer David Jenkins — click here to read my interview with him — it features the church’s priest, Father Doug (Oscar Nunez), as a positive regular character.
There was also a session on “The Last O.G.,” a new TBS comedy coming out on Oct. 24, starring Tracy Morgan as a ex-con who returns to his old Brooklyn neighborhood and the woman he left behind — and the twins he never knew he had.
Morgan, who survived a terrible car wreck in 2014, made several references to his gratitude to God during the session — click here for my story on it.
So I asked whether that aspect would continue in his new show.
Kevin Reilly said:
Well, you know what? I’m gonna make a note, and if it takes that angle, I’ll attribute it to this session, I’m glad you’re raising it because I haven’t had a chance to revisit it. From the get-go we talked about this character’s connection to his soul and some larger meaning. And that’s really part of Tracy.
People have seen the crazy part of Tracy, the impetuous, over-grown child part of him, but what’s coming out now, particularly given, not a near-death, being dead, is he comes at life with a whole other thing now.
I definitely want to go back in and revisit and make sure that it doesn’t get lost.
I then asked him about doing more shows where faith. especially Christianity, is taken seriously and treated with respect.
What sparked it in my mind is that, I would say, in this day and age, and with so much television, I’m always looking for the white space. What’s not on? Where do you want to go? And really an exploration of faith is not on there.
If you go too [aggressively] at it then people feel like it’s medicine. But I mean something that really owns that as a thing. That’s on my mind lately.
Let’s see what he comes up with. And if you’re a great writer/producer with a faith-positive show in your back pocket, might be time to pay Reilly a visit.
Images: Courtesy TNT, Buchan/Variety/REX/Shutterstock, TBS
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