Page 1 / 2 - Home

The Book of Daniel revolved around the Webster family, a conflicted but tight-knit unit who dealt with a mountain of personal and professional problems.

Rev. Daniel Webster (Aidan Quinn) popped painkillers to deal with the daily drama and had regular conversations with Jesus Christ (Garret Dillahunt). Daniel's wife, Judith (Susanna Thompson) guzzled martinis and struggled to keep her family at peace.

Daughter Grace (Alison Pill) was a complex mélange of contradictions, and adopted Asian-American son Adam (Ivan Shaw) was secretly dating the daughter of a senior church member. Golden son Peter (Christian Campbell) was gay, a Republican, and still dealing with the death of his twin brother.

“I know this is asking a lot of people, but (they) have to realize, on both sides of the issue, to back out of it and trust … their own judgment with a remote control device and make their own decisions on whether they're going to watch something or not,” Kenny says.

“There's no threat to anybody from free television or pay television or anything like that. Nobody's sneaking into their house and forcing their family or their children to watch NBC. We can all change the channel.”

Kenny is particularly saddened that TV viewers won't get to see the Daniel episode that was scheduled to air Friday (Feb. 3). In that episode, which Kerry says is “one of the best episodes I've ever seen, that has ever been produced,” Peter is gay bashed and ends up in a coma.

“It was an episode that even the AFA could love,” Kenny says. “The family had gathered around the bedside, and it took them all back to a time two years ago when his identical twin brother, Jimmy, was lying in a bed dying of leukemia. Peter, at the time, was coming out and learning who he was and falling in love and not knowing how to deal with it. The family was going through this turmoil.

“It shows a lot of why they are who they are and where they came from, but more than that, it shows their incredible and intense caring for each other under extreme circumstances. I'm just sorry that most people won't ever get to see that.”

Daniel fans still have a chance to see unaired episodes on nbc.com. The peacock's official site will webcast the remaining new episodes at 8 p.m. EST Fridays. The show will also likely be released on DVD.

As for Kenny, he's regrouping and moving on to new projects. He has already written another script and remains optimistic about his career and his life in general.

“I love to write, so I‘ll write all the time. I‘ll get over this in a matter of a few days, and I‘ll move on. It‘ll be a chapter in the past that I‘ll be saddened by, but it‘s not going to knock me out of the writing business--as I‘m sure they would hope,” Kenny says with a laugh.

“It is exhausting to put something like this up and … push that boulder up the hill every week. It's the toughest thing I've ever done, is to run a show. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world now to work on somebody else's show and let them take the phone calls and the heat.”

Page 1 / 2 - Home