"ONWARD DAUGHTER OF GOD!" (God to Joan of Arc)

Congrats again to Barbara Hall for winning the 2004 Humanitas Prize for hour-long episodic television yesterday. Barb won for the pilot episode of Joan of Arcadia. She was competing as a finalist against John Wells for an episode of ER, and Joy Gregory, one of the other writers on Joan. I haven't seen Barbara for nearly a year, so it was nice to have a few moments to chat with her again. I'm so proud of her and what she is doing with this show. It seems surreal because I remember hearing about the concept from her three years ago when we were meeting for RCIA. She wanted to know if it would be presumptious to make a show with God as a character. I told her, "Do what you have in your heart." It did seem like a crazy idea at the time, so it is great and weird to go to an awards banquet, packed with elite Hollywood people, and see Joan take an award away from ER! Very cool.

Of course, the viciously unfair propaganda piece Angels in America also won. But in an election year, that kind of thing has to be reckoned an irreistible temptation for the industry, so I'm not going to let it dilute Barb's award in my consciousness. Nope.