The Second Coming

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I, for one, wish he'd never come back at all...
SPOILERS AHEAD!!! As I don't have a TV, and had never heard of this mini-series, I didn't know what to expect from The Second Coming and hired it purely on the strength of its plot synopsis, which sounded interesting. Dear God! (Every pun intended.) If someone told me that this had been written by a class of thirteen year-olds who had been given the project of turning the second coming into a school play I wouldn't have been surprised. Why, oh why, did they decide to portray Jesus mark II as what amounted to an idiot savant? Is there anything in any of the gospels to suggest this? Okay, an ordinary bloke, but a Great Northern Moron. I don't think so. Apparently all Jesus did to impress people was his miracles, because according to this take his preaching sure as h*ll never impressed anyone. Certainly without the night into day stunt Mr Jesus Eccleston would have been floundering without a canoe, a paddle, or any kind of following at all. And the odd little gay polemics put in willy-nilly, without rhyme or reason. Other than, of course, Russell waving to his QAF fan base. Jesus turns up in the pub to recruit 'disciples' (more gormless Northern losers and, of course, the gay writer's standby - the harpy woman, nag, nag, nagging away). Gay rights are rammed down his throat to no real purpose, almost like Russell thought he 'owed it to the lads' to put Jesus on the spot. I can't really see the real Jesus coming out with "Well, I've nothing against it personally, mate." Only someone truly middle class and woolly could imagine Jesus to be quite this wet. And don't start me on the ending. 'Please come in and eat rat poison because the only way we can be truly free is if God dies'. It was like an Eddie Izzard sketch of God as Bill Gates. "Hello, I'm Bill Gates, and now you've pointed out to me that my global domination is cramping your style I'm going to give it all to you, my customers." And eat the rat poison, of course. I'm often mystified by the ratings on Amazon, but the high rating on this one takes the biscuit. Never mind Jesus for the new millennium - this is Jesus for brainless MTV lads. God help us all indeed.

Good beginning, good acting but ultimately unsatisfying
As much as I wanted to love another piece starring Christopher Eccleston and directed by Russel T. Davies, I just couldn't get behind this one. Christopher Eccleston is great as ever, anchoring a movie about the second coming of Christ and his best friend Judith (note the rather obvious symbolism in that name) is a great actress as she portrays a woman trying to figure out her newly miraculous old friend. However, once the plot gets going and Eccleston reveals himself to the world, there's something rather unsatisfying. Setting up a "third testament or judgment day" scenario is just going to invite the producer and writer to make up something that is fairly popular for television viewers. It's either going to be preachy or Everything I Learned I Learned in Kindergartern. In fact, it turns out to be a little bit of both. While Eccleston manages to cope with a character that is both spirit and flesh - divine and confused as hell - there's really not much he has to work with. When gay skinheads confront him at a pub, one wonders why he's so unbearably vague, but then again that was just a scene the writer threw in for a sermon. Either way, this is the kind of superficial sermonizing that one expects from either Anne Rice or Tim LaHaye. It's pretty obvious that the writers are atheists (or agnostics) and they are trying to advance an agenda. This isn't a deal breaker, but the execution leaves one cold. This is also a shame considering how JMS was so great wrestling with issues of religion and spirituality in Babylon 5 - The Complete Television Series (5-Pack) even coming to some of the same conclusions. Yet where JMS made me think, this series makes me go "eh, so Davies is an atheist. Good for him."

Compelling Drama from Maverick Writer-Producer
This 2003 UK made-for-TV movie attempts to deconstruct Western sacred myth, plays around with established religious dogma, and hopefully shakes up people's worldview a bit. The Second Coming does fall flat here and there, but it (mostly) hits the high bar that it's set for itself. This is the kind of thought-provoking drama that US viewers have to import, as most American networks wouldn't touch the subject matter with the proverbial ten-foot pole. Steve Baxter (Christopher Eccelston) is in every sense a nobody: an ordinary doofy-looking bloke living in Manchester, England, working in a video store. A scene at the beginning of the film establishes his painful lack of success with women, and he's barely begun to work up the courage to approach the one woman who really interests him: his newly divorced mate, Judy (Lesley Sharp). Their just-budding romance is interrupted when out of the clear blue, he's hit with a revelation that he is, in fact, the son of God. After wandering on a moor for forty days, Steve returns to Manchester and begins announcing who he is. His friends worry that he's gone off his rocker, but he immediately attracts the interest of the Vatican, as well as a handful of demons. To convince people of his divine bona fides, Steve stages a miracle in a football stadium, and once he has the attention of the world's media, announces that humanity has five days to produce a third testament. He doesn't know specifically who'll write it or what form it will take, only that he'll know it when he sees it. A lot of The Second Coming deals with notions of faith and doubt, belief and skepticism. People's reactions to Steve are shaped very much by their spiritual outlook--not only in his circle of acquaintances but in the world at large. There are wonderful mock news reports of people rioting and protesting and even killing themselves over his revelations, and it all rings very easy to believe, given the current state of the world. Some people react with violence and hysteria, while others completely brush off Steve as a crackpot. It's those people in the middle, not sure of what to believe, whose reactions are the most interesting. Steve's dual humanity/ divinity provides a nice thread throughout the story: he can work miracles, but he's also an ordinary guy who needs to eat and sleep and use the bathroom. The script (Russell T Davies) is for the most part tightly focused and moves at a fast pace, with good development for all the main players. The dialogue is razor-sharp and thought-provoking and very funny, in a dry, ironic English way. Davies doesn't hold back many punches in his exploration of what's wrong with humanity: greed, apathy and laziness, lack of concern for others, violence, intolerance. Conventional, organized religion takes quite a beating. Nobody is mocked for having faith, but the overwhelming message of the story is that people have to take responsibility for themselves (one excellent exchange of dialogue points out that we don't need a miracle to cure world hunger; people can do that themselves--if they want to). There's also a refreshing emphasis on the importance of free will. The drama builds nicely to a fairly gut-wrenching denouement, but the final ten or so minutes disappoint. The resolution is apt to anger a lot of viewers, but it's not offensive so much it's pat. The movie spends two-plus hours delving into the complexity and ambiguity of good and evil, then offers a solution that seems absurdly simplistic. Such a terrific buildup deserves a more satisfying payoff. Another problem is that the demons don't have much to do, apart from sowing dissent. They have a nice, creepy buildup--and their prime mover, Johnny Tyler (Mark Benton) is a multifaceted embodiment of that soul-draining evil, self-pity--but their motives, when revealed, seem tacked-on and spurious. There's a suggestion that their primary modus operandi is fostering despair, but this idea isn't developed to its full potential. There's also a subplot involving Steve's mortal father Frank (Peter Armitage) that serves no purpose except killing off a supporting character; anyway, Steve's otherworldly paternity doesn't add much to the story. Despite these quibbles, The Second Coming is well worth checking out, particularly for the performances of its cast. Every actor in this production does knockout, class-A work. Eccleston rules the show as Steve: warm, funny, vulnerable, giddy with his new discoveries, overwhelmed by his role and sense of responsibility. He puts across every emotion wonderfully, with terrific body language and expressions, rarely missing a note or overplaying anything. He has a great foil in Lesley Sharp, whose portrayal of Judy is wholly sympathetic: her love for Steve never wavers, despite her doubts about his mission. Again and again, it's Judy who asks the big, important questions, and Judy who cuts through the confusion to find the answers--even when the final truth comes to her at great personal cost. Ahsen Bhatti does good, solid work as Steve's best mate, Pete. In a nice touch, nobody in the cast is physically stunning, which makes a lot of sense given the film's earthy, warts-and-all view of humanity. The directing (Adrian Shergold) is crisp and economical and incredibly effective, and Murray Gold's modern, edgy score adds a lot of dimension. The look of the film is mostly gritty, urban-industrial realism: dirt and garbage and old buildings and hole-in-the-wall pubs. The production has a distinctive look and feeling and energy that enhances the whole notion of God-among-the-ordinary. The film has a mood and vibe that immediately sells its world to the viewer--not an easy thing to do, but it looks effortless here. I would recommend this film with only the reservation that some may find the ideas it presents offensive; I'd suggest a rental before a purchase. The ending is a letdown, but there's plenty of strengths to outweigh the weaknesses. If you're looking for a challenging and thought-provoking piece of entertainment, I'd recommend giving The Da Vinci Code a pass and checking out The Second Coming instead.

Dark and disturbing look at the 'Death of God'
The Second Coming is a short telemovie written by the screenwriter Russell T. Davies, who is also the main screenwriter for the new series of Doctor Who. The story begins when a young working class man, Stephen Baxter, dissapears mysteriously for a month, before he returns rambling about being the 'son of God.' At first everyone thinks he has completely lost his sanity, friends, family, and strangers alike. As the sincerity (though not the rationality) of his beliefs become apparent, his friends, family and former girlfriend grudgingly try to accept this rambling mystic back into their fold. Baxter claims he is Jesus, the perfect fusion of the divine and human. He begins to preach that he is indeed the Messiah and calls everyone to visit a stadium in London to see an upcoming miracle. Drawing out only the most loopy and eccentric, Baxter goes into the stadium but nothing happens; then, a 'miracle' occurs (sunlight appearing in the middle of the night in the stadium) which 'proves' he is who he says he is. After this he announces there will be a judgement; humanity must come up with a 'Third Testament' or else the world will come to an end. He also claims that hell is full and heaven is empty, and the time has come for a new beginning. What follows is a dark descent into chaos as demons (led by Satan) possess people and try to bring down the Messiah, most cruelly by possessing those most close to Baxter (including his father and the man who dated his ex-girlfriend) as well as the police charged with protecting Baxter. The world outside also plunges into chaos and violence and indeed the world seems to be coming to an end. Then, Baxter meets up with his ex-girlfriend. After a brief re-ignition of their romance, she invites him to eat spaghetti. She then confronts him with a dark and hideous truth; the third testament is not about writing a new bible, or a new creation, but is the judgement of humanity on God. The judgement on God for all the evils done through history in the name of religion, as well as the suffering caused to people by the existence of the supernatural, is such that it is better that God never existed at all; hence Baxter's ex-girlfriend puts rat poison into his food and claims he must eat it and die, not to atone for sin but to literally destroy himself, so that religion and all its evils are purged from humanity forever. God must die if humans are to be free, and Baxter's girlfriend claims this is what God himself has planned. At first tempted to destroy her, Baxter uses his omniescence to examine this claim, and finds that she is right. He then poisons himself and this is the end, of Baxter and God. The series ends with a interview with Baxter's ex-girlfriend. She says there is still evil in the world, but at least now it is only human evil and hence it has a human solution. Because God is dead, there is no need to suffer the much greater evil of religion. The thesis of this series is quite disturbing and its delivery visceral and shocking. Of course there is also the theological paradox that God cannot actually die, at least not in his own Being (which in itself classical theists have understood as possessing qualities which make it indestructible and eternal). The main point of Davies seems to be more that in our society (Western society at least) God is dead and we have killed him, in large part because we have examined religion in its various forms and found the evil in it to far outweigh the good, and hence it belongs to the dustbin of history and we need to solve our problems using our own efforts, without relying on any divine help. A dark nihilism is implied throughout this series through which we must pass before we can finally be free, and overall the concepts are quite close to those of the radical skeptic, Neitzsche. We can of course question and reflect on whether it makes sense to say if God exists and if we are better off in a totally secular society which has entirely abolished religion. As Europe and many other Western countries enter a time when Christianity is dying and people are becoming atheists or agnostics or are turning to Eastern religions like Buddhism, it does make sense to ask whether the God of Christian thought, which dominated Europe for 1500 years, is truely dead, and is being replaced by new ways of meaning and transcendance, secular and religious. It is interesting to note that as Christianity has declined, wicca, secular humanism and atheism, rationalism, consumer capitalism, Buddhism and Islam have rushed in to fill the gap, and certainly many people find other ways of filling that 'God shaped hole' in our hearts. In the end, the question is what is Reality, and how can we know and relate to that reality, and whether or not the religious way of doing so is still meaningful in the world as it now is. The answer Davies seems to give is a very strong no, and that answer is stated in the strongest imagery possible Davies can bring to bear using the medium of television.

acting good, plot falls apart
I found this to be first an interesting idea for a plot. Jesus Christ comes again as Steve Baxter. Perhaps the most interesting idea was the question on how to understand Steve as 'Son of God'. As in most contempary film, they emphasize his humanity. It has a interesting but poor plot. In addition, it was over symplistic and disengenious to human experience. However it did engage me, perhaps because I thought much of the story and the characterization of God/Steve Baxter had high potential, which I hoped at some point would be realized. As far as being great for discussion: I am not buying that ticket!! The primary question being, 'Is God the problem?' Best Line 'Evil is a lazy thing.' Johhny