CURRENTLY IN TELEVISION: Strange journeys

JIM COGGINS

The Odyssey, a TV miniseries presented last May 11-12, seems to have been an attempt to cash in on the current interest in fantastic tales and ancient mythology (as evidenced, for instance, in the success of the two regular series Hercules and Xena). The Odyssey, an epic poem written about the 9th century B.C. by the Greek poet Homer, is a classic tale. It should have made an epic movie teeming with special effects.

The result, however, was disappointing. The story was boring, and the characters neither interesting nor attractive. I enjoyed it far less than the written translation I was forced to read in university.

The miniseries, however, caused me to reflect on the belief system reflected in the story. Homer filled his tale with references to the Greek gods. The human characters in the story are not moral. Yet why should they be? The gods in the story are sexually promiscuous; they quarrel and fight with each other over often petty slights; they use human beings as pawns in their games; and their responses to humans are often cruel, arbitrary and inconsistent.

It was interesting to note that in order to make the story palatable to a modern North American audience, the gods were made to appear somewhat more united, more moral and more loving than they were in Homer's original poem. Nevertheless, the contrast between pagan understandings of God and the revelation of God through Jesus Christ and the Bible was startling. The God of the Bible is unrivalled, all-knowing, all-powerful, holy, just and loving. In the desire to be tolerant and open-minded, many North Americans (including many Christians) seem to have assumed that all religions worship such a concept of God. The reality is not so. The true God, revealed in the Bible, is unique. He is also far more attractive and worthy of worship than any of the pagan concepts of God with which North Americans seem to be so fascinated nowadays.

The Odyssey miniseries failed, I think, because it could not take the Greek mythological gods seriously, but on the other hand it did not dare to treat them as fictitious or laughable either--because the producers had no other concept of God to take their place.

The Herald is still seeking a regular columnist or columnists to comment on television.

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