There is a brief space of time at the beginning of each and every episode of an HBO Original Series that provides the setting of the mood for the viewer and an opportunity to run the credits. But I never see the credits. It usually lasts no more than a minute. But that moment provides us with insights about where the produces are going to take us.

If you recall in the Sopranos from episode 1 some six years ago there has been the same signature intro to each and every episode. It has Tony driving across town, through toll booths, passing noted businesses and homes shown throughout the series. And through it all we have Tony driving puffing on a cigar. Nothing of the Sopranos signature intro has changed excepting for a 1 second glance at the Twin Towers. But the real message is found in the lyrics of the song accompanying the signature.

Woke Up This Morning

You woke up this morning
Got yourself a gun,
Your mama always said you'd be
The Chosen One.

She said: You're one in a million
You've got to burn to shine,
But you were born under a bad sign,
With a blue moon in your eyes.

When you woke up this morning
All that love had gone,
Your Papa never told you
About right and wrong.

But you're, but you're looking good, baby,
I believe that you're feeling fine, (shame about it),
Born under a bad sign
With a blue moon in your eyes.

Woke up this morning
Got a blue moon in your eyes
Woke up this morning
Got a blue moon in your eyes
Woke up this morning

You woke up this morning
The world turned upside down,
Lord above, thing's ain't been the same
Since the Blues walked in our town.

Baby, but you're, but you're one in a million
You've got that shotgun shine; shame about it,
Born under a bad sign,
With a blue moon in your eyes.

Woke up this morning
Woke up this morning
Got a blue moon in your eyes
Woke up this morning

The lyrics curiously guide the viewer in each of the episodes and reveal themselves to be foundational to the real issues of the series.

Knowing this from the Sopranos, we can now take this understanding to the brand new HBO Original Series, "Big Love". I take you here in this manner because what is revealed in Big Love is startling and very pleasant for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. That's because it is a vision.

Next: The 50 second Signature Into Big Love

Originally aired: Sunday March 12, 2006 on HBO

Writer: Will Scheffer, Mark V. Olsen

Director: Rodrigo Garcia

Show Stars: Melora Walters (Wanda Henrickson), Shawn Doyle (Joey Henrickson), Joel McKinnon Miller (Don Embry), Jolean Wejbe (Tancy Henrickson), Jeanne Tripplehorn (Barbara "Barb" Dutton Henrickson), Harry Dean Stanton (Roman Grant), Grace Zabriskie (Lois Henrickson), Ginnifer Goodwin (Margene Heffman), Douglas Smith (VI) (Ben Henrickson), Bruce Dern (Frank Harlow), Chloe Sevigny (Nicolette "Nicki" Grant), Daveigh Chase (Rhonda Volmer), Bill Paxton (Bill Henrickson), Amanda Seyfried (Sarah Henrickson)

All Guest Stars: Matt Ross (Alby Grant), Mary Kay Place (Adaleen Grant), Tina Majorino (Heather Tuttle)

As a publicity stunt for the premiere, HBO sent out cards that looked like wedding invitations to the wedding of Barbara Dutton, Nicolette Grant, and Margene Heffman to Bill Henrickson on March 12, 2006 at 10 p.m. The wedding invitations even had the return address as Sandy , Utah .

Jeanne Tripplehorn who plays Barbara Henrickson, Bill's first (and legal) wife, says that at first it was very difficult for her to relate to the role. She couldn't understand why a wife would willingly share her husband with other women. As far as I am concerned, she is in for a big surprise.

Although the events of the show take place in Salt Lake City, Utah, it is actually filmed mostly in California, where men in much greater numbers juggle threee women in their lives. Another curiosity is that executive producer Tom Hanks was briefly LDS when he was a small child. (What might this tell you?)

The First Episode

This new HBO Original Series makes it redundantly clear that nobody should be confused about what religious persuasion this new family is bonded to. There’s a statement at the beginning and at the end. They belong to a cult, not the LDS Church. The show is both filled with juicy material and yet very moving. Star Bill Paxton is excellent and believable as the man with three wives, seven kids and a thousand problems. There are no garments, nor is there a single reference to the Book of Mormon.

The episode opens with everybody virtually kissing everyone else. Bill is returning from work and is being welcomed home by each of his wives. The affection is quite mundane were it not that three wives who are “bonded through time and all eternity” are present for a whole family dinner. While juggling the act of accepting greetings from each of his wives and kids, the routine of the evening is ultimately interrupted and Tom roused from bed with a call from Joey in the middle of the night with news that Tom’s father was gravely ill at the compound and needs to go to the hospital. When Tom and first wife arrive at the compound, it has every appearance of a third world country or parts of Kentucky I have visited in the past. Dad is found on the floor unconscious in the livingroom (later to be discovered to be suffering from chronic arsenic poisoning), with mother demanding that Tom leave him alone and that he is alright.Tom's parents have it together in the same way that Tony Soprano's parents have it. Later at the hospital in a fit of anger mom tries to manhandle him out of the hospital bed being sympathetically restrained by the good man, Tom. Throughout all this Tom is taking calls concerning the imminent opening of a new addition to his hardware store chain which eventually comes off clean with all three wives in attendance, just not close by..

This episode provided valuable character development. In spite of some bias I have read concerning the friction between the wives, this does not prove out. They are tight, work together like an Relief Society Presidency meeting, and lean on each other’s shoulders. Anybody who thought polygamy required conformity or women who are willing to be dominated or abused have much to learn from this series.

The first episode closes with Tom going to bed with his first wife, smartly slipping his first Viagra into his mouth, slipping into bed with her laying on her side away from him. As he cuddles up , her eyes widen noticably and out of her mouth comes with a kind tone “Not tonight honey”. He rolls over to his back creating a large tent in the covers. On his face there is something of a snicker, the kind of snicker that speaks to the fact that it is probably OK with the idea anyway. While gazing at the ceiling, he mutters, "Honey, I think mom is trying to kill dad."

It may disappoint some, but this is not series that is going to showcase the ugliness of tortured women in captivity. Although in this episode there is a poinant scene where Tom has a conversation with a 14 year old youth of the camp which he had seem to know from an earlier time. In it, she mentions she is marrying the Roman, the prophet of the compound. The prophet is in fact something of an emaciated mobster who is tailed by his son everywhere he goes. Well, Tom is openly disturbed at the news and exclaims, "no, you mustn't. Nevertheless, I am more please with the value of the first episode than I had expected, thinking that it would take some time to warm up to the characters.

We shall see where this goes from here. As you know, with me when the line is crossed and I reject something, it turns out permanent.

Sin: Intellectual Error - Part 1

In preparation for this discussion, previous topics have related to the now acknowledged errancy of all versions of the Bible(s) read today brought about by conspiring men of old. Previous to that I have spoken at length to the error brought to doctrines by men from the Middle Ages using pagan philosophies. Where so much of the Bible has previously been extracted, pagan philosophies become necessary to sustain the tenets of sola scriptura in our day. Much as the cement of a retaining wall requires rebar to hold it together.

Lest no one misinterpret, the Bible was never meant to be the end all and be all of God's word, closed to His wisdom for the past 1500 years. As noted in Protestant topics in Blogstream, most discussion ignore the edict that the Bible stands alone and explains itself. This would be good is the Protestants had other scripture. But they commit error in going to the wisdom of man and earn a just curse for doing so.

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For the great mainstream of average Christians it is enough in naming sins and insisting the congregation to avoid the worship of idols, steer clear of profanity, Sabbath sacrilege, adultery, temple prostitution, and theft. But there are some sins that are not so easily recognized. Most members are not even prepared to commit these sins. Perhaps both members and pastors hardly think they are sins at all! But presumably everybody would agree that the actions are undesirable.

The seventeenth-century French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche, shows wisdom in pointing out the cause of the sins of individuals. In Volume III of his Recherche de la Verite, chapter one, he wrote: "Error is the cause of human misery; it is the insidious principle that has shaped the evil in our world; it is error that has given birth and preserves in our collective souls all the evils that afflict us. We should not hope for true and solid happiness except in working seriously to avoid it."

Although adultery and sodomy, theft and murder are commonly regarded as overt actions, their beginnings are in our thinking. Sin is to often the result of intellectual error. Scriptures plainly teach it. For example:

• "It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways" (Psalm 95:10).


• They wear stiff necks and high heads; yea, and because of pride, and wickedness, and abominations, and whoredoms, they have all gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men. (2 Nephi 28:14


• "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23 ).


• "As he thinks in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7).


• Satan doth stir up the hearts of the people to contention concerning the points of my doctrine; and in these things they do err, for they do wrest the scriptures and do not understand them. (D&C 10:53)


• "The heart is deceitful above measure and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9).


• And my vineyard has become corrupted every whit; and there is none which doeth good save it be a few; and they err in many instances because of priestcrafts, all having corrupt minds. (D&C 33:4)


• "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries..." (Matthew 15:17).

These verses are supported by many concrete instances in the Old Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants, provide the evidence that sin is at first mental and only afterward overt.

Likewise, righteousness is also intellectual at first and only later seen in conduct. 2 Peter 1:2-8 is a passage many Christians seem never to have read. It begins with Peter’s prayer beseeching God for blessings of knowledge, where as his marvelous power has given us everything, pertaining to godliness through knowledge. We even acquire divine nature by means of God’s promises which we must know and understand. In escaping the lusts of this mortal world, we should diligently add knowledge of the spirit to our faith, without Godly bestowed virtues we would otherwise find ourselves barren in the knowledge of Christ. And in not returning to the pure intellect of God, we substitute the wisdom of man.

Evidence of where the Orthodox Protestant is today and after the Crucified Christ, The Jew can be found in the most basic of scriptural, even biblical discussions. Beginning ever so economically, Heb 5:8 ends a somewhat milky discourse on Jesus Christ on how Christ was made perfect through suffereing. (Still unknowable by so many Christians of our day)

Hbr 5:8-14 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec. Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which [be] the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk [is] unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, [even] those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Rarely have these verses received serious attention excepting for LDS circles.

Hebrews 5:12-6:3 rarely receives serious attention either. In these verses God rebukes some of us who could become teachers but who refuse to prepare ourselves with true knowledge, playing with the word of righteousness like a baby. We should. We should go to college, it tells us.

The following continues the warning for a total dependence upon the closed canon Bible in any translation.

There is always the deceit, treachery, and sham. Can you imagine the shock and withering despair in watching your husband intimately embrace another man, or your wife intimately embrace another woman? Or, perhaps you are suspicious only and searching, you find your husband’s or wife’s profile on http://gay.com . There are an estimated 1.7 million to 3.4 million American women who once were or are now married to men who have sex with men. Tens of thousands of women are associated with support groups to help them cope. And it is written that they are becoming younger and younger as their men become more and more embolden.

It has been acknowledged that a large percent of married men who engage in homosexual activity do so for the fantasy and consider themselves heterosexual. Surprise, surprise . Stories of brokered marriages that are maintained in spite of homosexual excursions by either spouse or both, are always cloaked in respectability and “honesty”, when both partners deeply offend the institution and God. The secret is maintained by the offended to protect the offender.

“In the 16th century, Queen Anne of Denmark had eight children with King James I of England, known not only for the King James Bible, but also for his devotion to male favorites, one of whom he called ‘my sweet child and wife.’" So, with the New International Version of the Bible so soft on Sodomy, one can only wonder how soft the King James Bible became as a consequence of King James, himself, being Gay.

The air has left my lungs with this revelation. Any thoughts? Anybody? Is it making any better sense why in these latter days The God of Abraham has provided us ongoing scripture? He must be so saddened and enraged by the filth we have spread before Him and continue to reveal to His eyes.

And although we may not be offending Him in this manner, how guiltless can we safely be? Please, don’t talk to me of the perfect mercy available to us as we wallow in this sort of sin. I don’t want to see it.

Well, here we go. Anticipating the new HBO series to replace the Sopranos is going to be special. So much of what HBO has been doing has been so well researched and always setting a new standard. We’ll get to the new series a bit later.

Another HBO original series Deadwood has really surprised the Bishop family. We have nearly lost interest in the Sopranos as a result. The dialogue has been so entertaining, absolutely remarkable following the different characters.

It has be a blast continuing the adventure in visiting blogs dedicated to Deadwood. There was some dispute prior to the arrival of “Mr. W.” as to whom has been the most evil. Then there has been the wonderment of the bathtub lady in the opening credits. We are so glad it isn’t Deadwood that is being terminated.

But where can HBO go to replace a blockbuster like the Sopranos; my goodness.

Well, you probably have heard. I think it’s going to be a blast. Big Love starring Bill Paxton as the challenged polygamist Utah husband of three is a series produced by Tom Hanks. Reviews indicate this is not going to be about a lot of sex. But this is going to be an education for America.
A meaningful dialogue will be initiated about a subject more difficult to breach than same sex marriage. The increasing left leaning Orthodox Christianity has brought homosexuality into the mainstream with churches and a Bible. Now do you think polygamy is going to stay on the TV and have no effect on American culture? (I'm giggling).

What has me really chuckling is Big Love 's sharpest move. Making the viewer identify with husband Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton), who comes across not as an exploitative patriarch but as a decent man stretched to the limit by his attempts to do the right thing by these women and their families. WOW, how bout that for breaking LDS stereotypes. From the street, each house looks separate, but their backyards join to create an alternate moral reality. Further, Bill's wives don't exactly fit the polygamous stereotype of sisterly love and obedience either. Bill is a scarce commodity and each of them what a piece of him. That particular feature will cause some anguish for those who wish to demonize this Old Testament lifestyle.
The expectation among the naive will be that polygamy involves some sort of obedience trial where the women turn into obedient lambs and lose their own minds. Not.

I am mostly looking forward to this new HBO original series because the dialogue the series will produce in the rest of America will be quite entertaining. Deadwood is the dialogue within; Big Love is the dialogue without.
Mrs. Bishop's favorite movie of all time is “Paint Your Wagon” where Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin star in something of an LDS spoof where Polygamist roles are reversed. And come to think of it, in that movie the viewer was made to identify with the poor husbands trying to do the right thing by her. Some of you might be interested to know that my wife loves the movie no less after becoming LDS than before.

I can't wait for the August premiere......How bout you?