The 411 on the COD for GCB

Wait, do people still use the term 411? Do people even know what it means? Time for a quick lesson! Let me tell you a tale about a time when people didn't have Google or Apps on their phones that gave them all of the information they could ever want. Long ago, if you needed to order your favorite take-out, you had to either: A. Go to the restaurant and order in person.  B. Look up the number in a very large book with very thin pages and very small print.  C. Call 411, also known as Information. And this, oh youthful one, is why we use (used?) the term, 411 in a synonymous way with information.

Holy Mexico, We Got Cancelled!

Now that that's out of the way...let's talk about GCB. Last week when I saw the episode revolving around a Mexican kidnapping, I knew GCB could not last. I mean, Nancy Botwin took 4 seasons before her Weeds crew got involved with a Mexican drug lord. For GCB to attempt something so desperate in the first 10 episodes showed a lack of direction for the show as a long term success. 


But if you ask me, it was doomed way before that. Any show with a name that has to be abbreviated is probably not off to a good start. The title, Good Christian Bitches, just won't fly in a society where the primary goals seem to be putting a lock on birth control and gay marriage. Add an abbreviated title to a controversial subject (religion), put the show on Sunday night (church night), and you have a recipe for disaster on par with that Australian millionaire who's building Titanic Two. 

Not everything is bigger in Texas.

I hear you out there saying, "But Kristin Chenoweth is so cute!" True. Yet it's been proven a few times before that her bite-sized cuteness is too big for TV. Of course Chenoweth wasn't the only problem with GCB. The ultimate reason GCB can't resurrect is the same for all TV shows that end; they can't find an audience. 

No one at church looks this good.

The dramatic scenarios that GCB presented were all too real within the spectrum of the wealthy religious community. In other words, it hits too close to home for church ladies to see themselves portrayed as  catty women stabbing each other in the back. I, for one, found the episode based on setting up the single people in the church uncomfortably realistic. Because if you are truly following the Lord, you should be married by now. GCB could have taken off if more people in religious communities knew how to laugh at themselves, but instead, it served as a mirror reflecting all of the most embarrassing parts of being associated with a church. 


One might think that the show would appeal to a non-religious crowd. That they would take their chance to make fun of the religious right. But the material seemed too far-fetched for people who are not a part of that community to catch the nuance of truthiness in it. That, and maybe non-religious people don't want to make fun of religious people. Just recently a study showed that people who do not adhere to religion are more compassionate than those who do. 

Just another day as a conservative Christian woman.

Even if that has nothing to do with it, it's safe to say that neither the left or the right, the religious or the non-religious were interested in what GCB had to offer. Whether offended or apathetic, the would be audience that GCB could have benefited from just never embraced the idea of hot church ladies dealing with Glee type issues in a Desperate Housewives way. 


And for the few people who were watching, the small group of Christian ladies who could recognize their best friends in every single line of dialogue and felt twinges of conviction at the absurdity of the behavior of Chenoweth and her friends, the watching had to be kept a secret. That's right. The social conversations that keep television shows afloat these days could never happen with this guilty pleasure. For this demographic, watching GCB was accompanied with a level of shame due to the simple facts that the religious like to keep their sex and their spirituality separate, and there is no such thing as holy humor. 


I guess it's fair to say that GCB out-Christianed itself.