ABC is repeating a failed endeavor.
Ratings for The Real O’Neals continue to sink, but that won’t stop the network from keeping the pointedly anti-Catholic show alive as long as it can. And we’ve seen this movie (or series) before, back in the 90s when ABC developed, debuted and kept a show called Nothing Sacred on life support over Catholic and Christian objection.
The third Real O’Neals episode aired Tuesday at 8:30pm and scored 1.0/4 ratings and 3.47 million viewers, down from 4.01 million last week and 6.3 million for the premiere.
The failure is well-deserved.
The Real O’Neils is loosely based on the early life of Dan Savage, an anti-Christian blogger who publishes X-rated content under the guise of gay “sex advice.” Some of his greatest hits include inviting Dr. Ben Carson to “Suck my d**k,” suggesting Christian parents whose transgender teen committed suicide be charged with murder, hoping Sarah Palin gets cancer, and marking Pope Benedict’s retirement by headlining his column: “That Motherf**king Power-Hungry, Self-Aggrandized Bigot In the Stupid F**king Hat Announces His Retirement.” Most infamously, because Savage didn’t like something Sen. Rick Santorum said about homosexuality back in 2003, he “Google-bombed” the senator’s name in the vilest possible way.
When ABC announced it had ordered a pilot, the MRC and other conservative and religious groups wrote to Ben Sherwood, president of Disney/ABC Television Group requesting the network pull the plug on the show (they received no response), and launched an online petition to pressure ABC to cancel the show. One Million Moms spoke out against The Real O’Neals: “This show ridicules people of faith, and Christians across America are offended by it.”
ABC plowed ahead. The effort is reminiscent of ABC’s push for the TV series Nothing Sacred in the ‘90s, another anti-Christian show that survived for a while on air mainly because of network backing for its irreverent agenda.
Nothing Sacred, an unapologetically anti-Catholic drama about a priest, aired from Sep. 18, 1997 to March 14, 1998, lasting a season minus four episodes. Kevin Anderson playing Father Ray won a Golden Globe for his performance.
Nothing Sacred played up the temptations of Father Ray, showing him in a hotel room flirting with the idea of an affair and included an episode with an HIV positive priest.
In one episode a young woman tells Father Ray in the confessional that she plans to have an abortion. He says only, “You're an adult with your own conscience. I can't tell you what to do. I can only tell you what the church teaches.”
The show offended so many Catholics and Christians, including the Catholic League, which called for boycotts of Nothing Sacred and its sponsors, that 28 sponsors pulled their advertising, and ABC eventually dropped it.
The show is ''propaganda dressed up as entertainment … The entertainment elite’s belief that there are no moral absolutes deeply contradicts the religious view of Christianity,” stated Alan Keyes, a member of the advisory board of the Catholic League .
William Donahue, president of the Catholic League argued that the network had an "ideological investment" in the show. Donahue’s comments are more plausible in light of the fact that ABC cancelled other shows at the time like Second Noah that brought in better ratings.
Like some recent commentary on The Real O’Neals, many reviews of Nothing Sacred were glowing. It was “High-minded... Too smart for TV,” said Joanne Ostrow of the Denver Post at the time.
Even when ABC moved the show from Thursday to Saturday night and boosted it with a huge advertising campaign it finished last in the ratings.
“We have a television program that has offended tens of millions,” said Brent Bozell, head of the Media Research Center. “It has a tiny audience and few sponsors. The company responsible for it is taking a public-relations beating. Nonetheless, Disney/ABC stays with Nothing Sacred and junks better-rated series.”
As history repeats and The Real O’Neals plummets in the ratings, critics sensing a culture war skirmish are circling the wagons. The show was initially panned, but media are starting to rally to its side. “The Real O'Neals may not be great just yet, but it's already growing into itself,” Vulture promised Wednesday.
“It’s a weird clash of tone that shouldn’t really work, but somehow does,” commented The Atlantic on Mar. 2.
E! touted the cast’s support of the show even after it faced backlash from “some Catholics,” while Buzzfeed celebrated the fact that the actor who plays 16-year-old gay Kenny is gay himself.
Entertainment Weekly and Yahoo chimed in with their support as well.
Hopefully the ratings will speak for themselves and ABC will have to bury another show that is being kept alive because of the network’s ideology.
