Clark referenced it in the comments of another post, but for those of you who haven't heard, TNT is launching a television program next month that is set in Oklahoma City called Saving Grace.. It stars Holly Hunter and her southern accent as an OKC police detective battling all sorts of personal demons following the death of a relative in the Oklahoma City bombing. She is helped along the way by an angel named Earl sent from God to help her with her one last chance at life. Really.
Here's a preview:
OK. We poke a lot of fun at different things and personalities in the local area, but the truth of the matter is that we all love Oklahoma City and all it's quirks, and we take a lot of pride in the place we call home. When I first heard about Saving Grace, I was pretty concerned about how we'd be portrayed, and it does seem, at least from the preview, that those concerns were well-founded. The apparently all-powerful above-the-law "Richest Cattleman in all of Oklahoma" makes an appearance. There apparently is still an area of Oklahoma City that doesn't support cell phone service. The angel in this show chews tobacco, for crying out loud. It looks like it's going to be an hour's worth of walking, talking stereotypes.
The one thing that gives me hope is the names of the characters:
Grace Hanadarko
Butch Stillwater
Rhetta Rodriguez-Ardmore
Ham Tipton
Lonnie Purcell
You get the point. This appears to be the laziest group of writers in the history of Hollywood. They can't even come up with original names for the characters, so they just named them after towns in the state. And while this helps explain the ridiculous generalizations and furthers my fears that the show will be absolutely terrible, it also gives me hope that it will be canceled and forgotten very quickly.
Saving Grace debuts July 18th on TNT, and you can be sure we'll have a full report of all the carnage right here shortly thereafter.
