"God, the Devil, and Bob" is one of those things that I'm glad to know exists. Just the fact that somebody came up with the idea of a light- hearted religious spoof is uplifting, given the sort of political correctness we're smothered in today.
That said, taken on its own as a show it's definitely worth a watch: the premise is that God is disappointed in humanity and is contemplating "chucking the whole thing and starting over", naturally the Devil is completely on board with the idea, but God insists that he owes humanity one last chance. If just one soul can prove to him that humanity's decent then he'll spare them, and being a sporting deity, he decides to let the Devil pick this one person. And of course the Devil's choice (completely at random, mind you) is all-around slacker and kind-of-a-dick Bob Allman.
Bob gambles, he drinks, he goes to strip clubs, he's not the sharpest tool in the box, he has a dead-end job that's going nowhere and a family that's falling apart at the seams, all in all he's, as God himself puts it, "not my best work"
Despite Bob's somewhat low moral standards, he still manages to end up doing the right thing in the end, and prove that he recognizes what's really important in life, like family and healthy relations with the people around you.
The real driving force of the show is this clear sense of humanity that comes from Bob "average guy" Allman, in his interactions with his family in particular, where he has to deal with his nagging wife, his spoiled and bratty teenage daughter and his young and inexperienced son. It's Bob's job to complete God's "assignments" to prove humanity's decency, and it usually finds him learning a valuable lesson about family and morality. One particularly effective example of this is in the episode where the Devil quits, taking away all the evil in the whole world. This leaves everyone else but Bob a bunch of "golly gee-whiz" spirits of sugars, spice and everything nice. There's no lust, no anger or jealousy, just happiness, joy and butterflies everywhere.
Bob seeks out God, who explains why the Devil is needed: Humans need to grapple with good and evil in order for their decisions to have weight, without evil being good is meaningless. You get the clear sense that these are real people, dealing with very real problems, and it's a very rewarding experience.
In addition to this, the chemistry between God and the Devil is extremely entertaining. The Devil is less Pure Evil and more Needy Friend here. For example he gets upset when God forgets his birthday or misses their golf date, and God in turn continues to be a distant hippie.
This characterization of God Almighty portrays him as a distant, judgemental and uptight hippie who doesn't really understand what it means to be human. God is, after all, all good, while humans, although generally good, have a bit of evil in them as well.
The show demonstrates an extremely positive attitude towards humanity as well as the idea of God. While this cartoon caricature of God might be flawed, it still portrays him as a loving father who's trying his best to understand what it means to be human, which you can definitely understand when you hear his reason for creating us in the first place.
"Why do you think I created man? To have some company"
Besides, how can you not love God almighty blowing off the Devil by telling him to "go to hell"
Similarly, the Devil takes responsibility for everything evil in the world, like gambling, television (the "one thing he's good at") and insane asylums. Alan Cumming strikes a nice balance between truly malicious and just kind of sad, and the show effectively humanizes both God and the Devil as a Father and Son whose relationship has gone awry.
The Devil: "You don't know what it's like, growing up in his shadow, knowing I could be good but never good enough"
Bob: "You think maybe that's why you turned to Evil?"
I was very sad to see that the fate of this lovely little show had already been sealed. I'm not a very religious person, but nonetheless I was raised in a family who took our relationship to God very seriously, but we all had the good sense to realize that to joke around a little with God and Christianity in general should be okay.
After all, if God didn't want to be laughed at now and then, he wouldn't have given us a sense of humor.
That said, taken on its own as a show it's definitely worth a watch: the premise is that God is disappointed in humanity and is contemplating "chucking the whole thing and starting over", naturally the Devil is completely on board with the idea, but God insists that he owes humanity one last chance. If just one soul can prove to him that humanity's decent then he'll spare them, and being a sporting deity, he decides to let the Devil pick this one person. And of course the Devil's choice (completely at random, mind you) is all-around slacker and kind-of-a-dick Bob Allman.
Bob gambles, he drinks, he goes to strip clubs, he's not the sharpest tool in the box, he has a dead-end job that's going nowhere and a family that's falling apart at the seams, all in all he's, as God himself puts it, "not my best work"
Despite Bob's somewhat low moral standards, he still manages to end up doing the right thing in the end, and prove that he recognizes what's really important in life, like family and healthy relations with the people around you.
The real driving force of the show is this clear sense of humanity that comes from Bob "average guy" Allman, in his interactions with his family in particular, where he has to deal with his nagging wife, his spoiled and bratty teenage daughter and his young and inexperienced son. It's Bob's job to complete God's "assignments" to prove humanity's decency, and it usually finds him learning a valuable lesson about family and morality. One particularly effective example of this is in the episode where the Devil quits, taking away all the evil in the whole world. This leaves everyone else but Bob a bunch of "golly gee-whiz" spirits of sugars, spice and everything nice. There's no lust, no anger or jealousy, just happiness, joy and butterflies everywhere.
Bob seeks out God, who explains why the Devil is needed: Humans need to grapple with good and evil in order for their decisions to have weight, without evil being good is meaningless. You get the clear sense that these are real people, dealing with very real problems, and it's a very rewarding experience.
In addition to this, the chemistry between God and the Devil is extremely entertaining. The Devil is less Pure Evil and more Needy Friend here. For example he gets upset when God forgets his birthday or misses their golf date, and God in turn continues to be a distant hippie.
This characterization of God Almighty portrays him as a distant, judgemental and uptight hippie who doesn't really understand what it means to be human. God is, after all, all good, while humans, although generally good, have a bit of evil in them as well.
The show demonstrates an extremely positive attitude towards humanity as well as the idea of God. While this cartoon caricature of God might be flawed, it still portrays him as a loving father who's trying his best to understand what it means to be human, which you can definitely understand when you hear his reason for creating us in the first place.
"Why do you think I created man? To have some company"
Besides, how can you not love God almighty blowing off the Devil by telling him to "go to hell"
Similarly, the Devil takes responsibility for everything evil in the world, like gambling, television (the "one thing he's good at") and insane asylums. Alan Cumming strikes a nice balance between truly malicious and just kind of sad, and the show effectively humanizes both God and the Devil as a Father and Son whose relationship has gone awry.
The Devil: "You don't know what it's like, growing up in his shadow, knowing I could be good but never good enough"
Bob: "You think maybe that's why you turned to Evil?"
I was very sad to see that the fate of this lovely little show had already been sealed. I'm not a very religious person, but nonetheless I was raised in a family who took our relationship to God very seriously, but we all had the good sense to realize that to joke around a little with God and Christianity in general should be okay.
After all, if God didn't want to be laughed at now and then, he wouldn't have given us a sense of humor.