JULY 9, 2006
ARTICLES OF FAITH
by Michael Taylor
For this episode, we started by trying to develop a story involving a hate crime. The Matthew Shepard case was on our minds; if you remember, it was the case where a young Wyoming man was brutally beaten and murdered by two other young men, ostensibly because he was gay.
A couple of our staff writers took a whack at the story, but it ended up seeming a little straightforward and predictable. Even in the Matthew Shepard case, there were things that were discovered later that made the case less black and white than it initially appeared.
I saw an opportunity to twist the story in an unexpected way and, with the blessing of the original writers, took another whack at it.
Naturally, any violent crime is abhorrent but hate crimes can be particularly shocking, because you have people being targeted solely because of their race or their religious beliefs or, as in the Matthew Shepard case, because of their sexual orientation.
And yet sometimes it seems as though we have a tendency to locate hatred in the most obvious places, paint our villains in ways that make them seem like alien bogeymen instead of people we can relate to in some way, as uncomfortable as that might make us.
We overlook the way hatred can lurk in the background of the sort of thoughts and attitudes that typify much broader segments of the population. And I'm, of course, not excluding myself.
I wasn't looking to preach here, but basically I told myself, "Well, what if there's a case where we have a crime where it looks like we've got a pretty obvious villain with a pretty obvious motivation, but then it takes a turn and we realize -- or rather Johnny realizes -- that there's something different going on here, something more complex, less black-and-white, something that implicates us as a culture in a wider way?"
It's not a matter of trying to make the audience complicit, to implicate them in the crime in some way. But any time you can suggest to them that this isn't something to just 'tsk-tsk' about and forget, but instead to do a little bit of soul searching, you're going to end up with a deeper and more interesting story. At least that was my goal here.
And, by the way, having written a first-season episode called "Dinner with Dana," I also saw an opportunity to do something else pretty cool. Bring back Dana Bright.
I've always loved Kristen Dalton's smart and sexy character and was frankly disappointed that our stories sort of took us away from her, so there was less of a reason to keep her on in a continuing role.
I always thought that she was a great match for Johnny. Dana's very much her own woman -- dynamic, successful, beautiful (of course) -- and yet, as you see in that earlier episode (if anyone wants to revisit it on DVD), she's also got some vulnerability. She's got scars, a lot like Johnny does.
I just thought they made a cool match, but that's not the way it worked out as Johnny's life and Dana's life set them in different directions. (OK, here's what I really think: Johnny, Dana ... are you both crazy?! You should be together, anyone can see that. So, c'mon, Johnny, you're not getting any younger and the world's gonna end soon anyway. Go after that babe!)
But when I realized that there was a natural role for the news media in this episode, I immediately thought, "Why not bring Dana back?" The prospect of putting these two back together and seeing what happens was another incentive for doing the story in the first place. So I hope you enjoy Johnny and Dana's little reunion, and I hope you enjoy the episode as well.
Oh, and by the way, as my former boss Lloyd Segan said in his blog, I've been with this show since the beginning, and I just want to say here that it's been a great trip. So I'm wishing -- with the rest of you -- for a Season 6 and even a Season 7.
I know Johnny's got a lot more adventures and trials ahead of him and, who knows, maybe Dana will show up again...
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