Spiritual TV Series
Over the years, mainstream television has attempted to tackle the spiritual side of life in drama. By spiritual, we’re not talking about witchcraft (Sabrina, Bewitched, Charmed) and vampires (Buffie), or Jeannies in bottles (I Dream of Jeannie), but something a little more likely to be encountered in the more mundane experiences of the day-to-day: looking at living and dying.
When looking death in the face, producers have generally used humor. Two shows that attempted this were Dead Like Me, and Six Feet Under, a series about a family of undertakers. In Dead Like Me, the young protagonist dies unexpectedly and finds herself in the role of grim reaper, helping souls across to the ”other side,” a side that she doesn’t understand nor attempt to explain.
The 1970s series Kung Fu embraced Eastern spirituality. Its protagonist, a half-Chinese Kwai Chang Caine played by non-Chinese David Carradine, was a Shaolin priest who had fled to the American West after reacting to the murder of his master by killing the Emperor’s nephew. The episodes touched on wide-ranging topics, including, of course, racism both ways, as well as:
- Blindness and Self-Pity – Dark Angel (Episode 2)
- Standing up to Bullies – Blood Brother (Episode 3)
- The Problem with Vengeance – Eye for an Eye (Episode 4). “To hate is like drinking salt water. The thirst grows worst.” -Caine
- Peacefuness and Defense - Sun Cloud and Shadow (Episode 8). In this episode, Master Po seems to quote Desiderata: ”As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all.”
- Standing up for Justice – The Praying Mantis Kills (Episode 9)
- Witness confusion and miscarriage of justice - Alethea (Episode 10)
- Internal vs. Visible Bondage – Chains (Episode 11)
- Superstition’s Deadly Effects - Superstition (Episode 12)
- Massacre of First Peoples – The Ancient Warrior (Episode 15)
- Prejudice Against African Americans – The Well (Episode 16)
The show also interwove secondary and tertiary themes into its stories, and characters were written and portrayed with complexity and nuance, for a television series of the time. Even Caine wasn’t always portrayed as holding all the answers, but he respected all those with whom he interacted, and desired to practice non-harming (although he always seemed to end up in a fight scene). In chaplaincy, there is the concept of “meeting the patient where they are,” and Caine knew this concept well, interacting with others. When helping to reassure a young man who thought his soul had been stolen into a photograph, he asked “what gods do you worship?” and constructed a ceremony to destroy the photograph and restore the soul, and then even gave up his own photograph, for the well being of this individual. The episode took care to not portray this individual as merely a simplistic thinker, giving him honor, power and spiritual gifts as well.
The entire series is available for rent and purchase, and episode descriptions are available online. In this age when we celebrate all things ’70s, it might be wonderful to see this series remade, but only if it maintained the deep insights of its original writers.
