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Short filmTranscript
00:01The golden age of television.
00:04I Love Lucy didn't just change American television.
00:06It invented American television.
00:08Back when one screen brought everyone together.
00:11Watching television was a family event.
00:14The shows that shaped us.
00:16The Brady Bunch was part of the American soul.
00:19It's timeless.
00:21The familiar faces.
00:23Ralph Cramden was loved by the honeymooners.
00:27He was a presence.
00:28The unforgettable moments.
00:30Dynasty captured the essence of what the 1980s were about in America.
00:34These are their stories.
00:35Cheers is the pinnacle of how great the sitcom can be.
00:38This is TV We Love.
00:46The year is 1993.
00:48Bill Clinton is in the White House.
00:50Grunge is spilling out of Seattle basements.
00:53And America is halfway between analog comfort
00:56and the digital revolution.
00:58You've got mail.
00:59The internet is something you dial into.
01:02Coffee house culture is fueling Gen X.
01:05And everyone's dancing the Macarena.
01:11And deep in the heart of Utah,
01:13one television show is about to take flight
01:16and make television history.
01:18I have a message for you from God.
01:21Audiences love Touched by an Angel.
01:23I'm an angel.
01:25A what?
01:26Touched by an Angel was that kind of a show.
01:28Whole families could watch together.
01:30The fact that it was so overwhelmingly popular made it a phenomenon.
01:34At our height, I think we had over 28 million each week.
01:39Holy.
01:40Holy is right.
01:42And I love that.
01:43Because we talked about immigration, abortion, racism.
01:48And it did melodrama really well.
01:52There still has never been another Touched by an Angel.
01:56I love the origin story of Touched by an Angel.
02:05TV networks, at that point, they were looking for something
02:09that would work for as large an audience as possible.
02:14In the mid-'90s, CBS did testing
02:18that showed people were really interested in angels.
02:21And I can understand why they would think angels
02:25would be something that they could tap into
02:27as a cultural vein.
02:29So angels have always been around,
02:31and they've always been popular.
02:33Look, Daddy.
02:34Teacher says every time a bell rings,
02:38an angel gets his wings.
02:40That's right.
02:42In the 90s, a lot of pop stars
02:45began using angels in their shows.
02:48Tony Kushner's play Angels in America
02:52came out about that time.
02:54There was a book published in the early 90s
02:56by Sophie Burnham on angels,
02:59and that became a big bestseller.
03:01Tattooed wings on people's backs.
03:04It was just a cultural moment.
03:11So CBS commissioned John Macius
03:14to write a show about angels,
03:16because this is what their testing showed them
03:18people were interested in watching.
03:20I remember getting a phone call from my agent.
03:24He said, I have an opportunity for you to come in and read,
03:31to play an undercover angel.
03:34I said, like, you know, is she an angel with wings?
03:39Like, is it Victoria's Secret Angel?
03:42Like, what kind of an angel are we talking about?
03:44He said, I don't know much more than that.
03:47Just make sure you sound American.
03:50Don't sound foreign.
03:53And so during the conversation after the audition,
03:57one of the producers said to me,
04:00could you try that with your Irish accent?
04:03And I thought, oh, here we go.
04:05I'll be the interesting Irish choice,
04:07but then they'll end up casting an American, you know?
04:10I started doing one of the big speeches
04:14with my Irish accent.
04:16And honestly, I could see everybody in the room leaned in.
04:21John Macius, brilliant writer, created a pilot
04:26with angels who were, shall we say, angels with dirty faces.
04:30They did one version of it that was darker
04:33than the one we know now.
04:37His version was hipper.
04:38The angels smoked and they said dumb things about the boss
04:42because people always rip on their boss.
04:44But the network thought, well, no one's going to want you
04:46to be mad at your boss if he's God.
04:49Monica dropped from heaven into Santa Monica Bay.
04:53And that's where she got her name
04:56because then she meets some guys on the beach.
05:01She says, where are we? And they say Santa Monica.
05:04And then somebody says, what's your name?
05:06Later, and she goes, Monica.
05:08It was kind of dark.
05:10Della Reese's character Tess drank as an angel
05:13and dropped some language bombs.
05:16They resurrected a dead dog in the middle of the show.
05:20It was a very odd show.
05:23And they screened it for focus groups
05:25and nobody particularly liked it.
05:27It didn't test very well.
05:29But something about the idea, the premise of the show
05:32still resonated with CBS.
05:34And they brought in Martha Williamson, who reconceived it.
05:37CBS started a conversation with me about an angel show
05:41because I was the angel girl.
05:44I was the lady who went to church and believed in God.
05:46And so they said, go call Martha.
05:48They gave me carte blanche at CBS to do anything I wanted to
05:52with the original pilot.
05:53And I said to them, I want to throw the whole thing out and start over.
05:56And they said, that's just fine. Throw it all out.
05:59I said, except for Della and Roma.
06:02I interviewed them. They were perfect together.
06:06It was lightning in a bottle.
06:08She totally changed the nature of the show
06:11to make it more upbeat, more wholesome, more family-oriented.
06:15I don't know what it is, but I get a good feeling about you.
06:19They said, you know what? That's where we want to go.
06:22Let's call it Touched by an Angel.
06:24I said, oh, please don't call it Touched by an Angel.
06:26That's such a weird title.
06:27But they said, we're going with Touched by an Angel.
06:30I said, all right.
06:31But then I realized later that people were touched.
06:35That they were moved.
06:37And that was my mandate.
06:39How do we move people with these shows and these scripts every week?
06:46Touched by an Angel essentially took the premise
06:49of It's a Wonderful Life and turned it into a procedural drama.
06:54It's like a cross between It's a Wonderful Life
06:56and Law and Order.
06:58The idea for Touched by an Angel was that an angel in training
07:02would be guided by an older angel to help people here on Earth
07:06who were at a crossroads in their life
07:09to make a decision that would lead them closer to God.
07:13These angels were able to show up at these times of great pain
07:19and offer some light to the darkness.
07:22And God would sort of give them an assignment.
07:25They were the assignment of the week.
07:27And how am I supposed to help him then?
07:29Well, baby, the only way to share this man's pain
07:32is to share his pain.
07:35Usually the younger angel, who is played by Roma Downey,
07:40would come to a town and Della Reese, who was her guardian,
07:45would bring her into a situation where she has to help someone
07:49at a crossroads find God and find God's love.
07:53Roma was meant to be Monica.
07:56She had a long history of working in the theater in London.
08:02But she was relatively new to Hollywood.
08:07Who are you?
08:16My name is Tess.
08:18And you may call me Miss Tess.
08:20Della Reese was a big star.
08:23I got myself an angel standing here by my side.
08:30Della Reese was mostly known early on as a great singer.
08:35Had these amazing hits in the 50s.
08:38Then Della got into film and acting.
08:44And she was very funny.
08:46I know what I just said.
08:47But sometimes I don't think you have the sense God gave the goat.
08:51And I wanted to take advantage of that.
08:54I suppose we should get started. Are you ready?
08:59My agent had said, well, there's good news and there's bad news.
09:03The pilot's been picked up.
09:05And I said, great.
09:07And what's the bad news?
09:09You're moving to Salt Lake City.
09:13I didn't know anything about Salt Lake City,
09:16except I had put one of my very first posters I had on the wall
09:21of my childhood bedroom in Northern Ireland,
09:25was of Donny Osmond.
09:27And Donny Osmond was from Salt Lake City.
09:32CBS wanted to shoot in Salt Lake for budgetary reasons.
09:36We didn't have much of a budget.
09:38And frankly, a lot of people really didn't have a lot of hopes for the show.
09:42So they weren't really giving us all that we needed.
09:45Touched by an Angel got off to a slow start.
09:48We had an order for 13 episodes.
09:51A full order, I think, was 22.
09:54Critics, at least in the beginning, were not terribly kind.
09:57But let's remember that this program is coming out when television is starting to really have some more serious artistic ambitions.
10:07This was the dawn of the prestige TV era.
10:10We were just getting into an age where cable was showing its force.
10:14HBO, for the first time, was doing original series.
10:16And critics were starting to really gravitate towards those more complicated types of shows.
10:22Three Emmys, you're at the very top of the darn heap.
10:24Touched by an Angel was not a complicated show.
10:27It was not a critic-friendly show.
10:29One of the reviews in TV Guide was,
10:32this show will probably be off the air before you even read this.
10:38You know, we're bounced around from time slot to time slot.
10:41And it's hard for a show to pick up traction and to find a loyal audience if the audience doesn't know what night it's going to be on or what time it's going to be on.
10:52They put in Wednesday night at 9, which is sort of crazy because this is a kind of show that you would watch with the family.
10:59And you'd want your kids to come watch it because of the nice, wholesome values.
11:03So 9 was a little late and they were about to kill it.
11:06They started airing it, but then they put a pin in it.
11:09And that pause pin is usually the kiss of death.
11:12My first commandment is, thou shalt not forgive.
11:15God does forgive.
11:16Not in LA.
11:17To me, this was just the way it worked.
11:19Well, of course, this will get canceled.
11:21And that's just, you know, the usual way things go out here.
11:25Touch by an Angel premiered on CBS when CBS was a low-rated network.
11:39It was in third place, even fourth place at times.
11:42And they were really struggling to find their way and get a new audience.
11:46That's why Touch struggled as well, constantly moving time slots, not really finding any sort of traction.
11:52The ratings were sort of too marginal that first season.
11:57And yet Touch by an Angel started to do well in the flyover states.
12:02It became a hit in the south and in the middle of the United States before it kind of penetrated the coasts.
12:11Particularly for people of faith, there was nothing like this on television.
12:18It was almost like we were a bit of a joke.
12:22That we had a show that talked about God respectfully.
12:28You know, it wasn't the norm at that time.
12:32At any time, really.
12:34By the end of the first season of Touched, the word had gotten out that there was a show that didn't make fun of people who believed in God.
12:44And they were starting to come around the show and support it only to discover that we were in fact on the bubble.
12:54There was a big campaign for people to write in and try to save the show.
13:00Fans began to write in and say how much they loved the show.
13:07You know, this was like people literally taking to writing letters, making phone calls.
13:14Save Touch by an Angel.
13:16USA Today did a big, big push to help save the show.
13:21We're so grateful to the fan base for activating.
13:26They made a lot of noise.
13:28Hallelujah!
13:29And even though we were limping to the next green light, they would drop us another one.
13:36Okay, you can do one more.
13:38We don't know what our fate's going to be, but we're going to, you know, do our damnedest to make a great show.
13:44Then they tried us out on Saturday night on what they called America's Night of something.
13:50And it was Dr. Quinn, they had the Chuck Norris, Walker, Texas Ranger, and they had Touched by an Angel.
13:56So it was a big family night show.
13:58The second season had come and gone.
14:00It wasn't their biggest nightmare, but certainly, why keep it around?
14:04We were on the chopping block until Les Moonves came in and said, wait, something's going on here.
14:13And he saw the potential.
14:15If numbers keep growing, you find a place where to give them a chance to grow.
14:22And that wonderful soil was Sunday night at 8 o'clock.
14:26We landed in that Sunday night time slot.
14:29And then it was, it sort of all clicked.
14:32Which in hindsight makes total sense.
14:34A religious oriented show on Sunday night, of course.
14:38And I think that audience found it as well.
14:41Putting Touched by an Angel on Sunday night was sort of a slam dunk.
14:45How silly of you.
14:47Of course, people who were of that part of the audience were going to go to church, be with family, end the day by watching the show with their kids.
14:55So that really helped.
14:57Moving the time slot paid off with Touched by an Angel turning into a mega hit for CBS.
15:02And before you know it, we had 15 million people, 18 million people, 20 million people.
15:10We found a very comfortable home in the top ten for years and years.
15:16There were even times when we beat friends and ER.
15:22Nowadays a show can get a million people and that's considered a hit.
15:25It was really exciting, frankly.
15:27Because suddenly you thought, wait, I'm on a hit.
15:31This doesn't happen very often.
15:3320 million people were watching this show every Sunday night.
15:38They were trying to reach as wide a demographic as possible because the specificity of religion was never mentioned.
15:47You know, these were not Mormon angels or Catholic angels.
15:51They were just angels.
15:53God won't let you down.
15:54The whole thing is essentially about God, but it's got nothing to do with religion.
15:59There is no doctrine, short of a few things.
16:03God loves you.
16:04Have you got something against God?
16:06Yes.
16:07But short of that, this is not denominational.
16:10They're really careful that these are unbranded angels.
16:15It was very much a spiritual show, not necessarily a Christian show.
16:19There were so many stories that came from the personal lives and the personal passions of our writers.
16:26And they put their hearts and souls into it and it shows up all over the screen.
16:30Action!
16:31I don't want to out them, but I'm rather sure there are heathens in the writing staff.
16:34Not everyone sort of were church goers.
16:38I was like the token Catholic.
16:40We had New Age people.
16:41We had Jewish people.
16:42I'm Jewish.
16:43Glenn Berenbine was Jewish.
16:44We had writers of every faith.
16:47As Martha always said, this is a show about spirituality, not religion.
16:52Hello, I'm Monica.
16:54We tried our best to be a water cooler show.
16:58You can be my age.
16:59Back off.
17:00I'm working here.
17:01You know, CBS, they didn't just want to preach to the choir.
17:04Big broadcaster, they want a broad net.
17:06They want to get everybody to watch their show.
17:09So I think they were going for a very inclusive perspective.
17:14One is black.
17:15One is white.
17:16One is young.
17:17The other is older.
17:18Where almost any kind of American could feel comfortable watching it.
17:23And obviously they did since the show at its high point was watched by 25 million people.
17:29That's astounding in today's television markets.
17:32There were other really big shows happening at the time.
17:36But the fact that Touched by an Angel was neck and neck with ER says something about what the audience wants and is hungry for.
17:47What made Touched so groundbreaking was that we did more than entertain.
17:54I know that you have the AIDS virus.
17:58Oh, my God.
17:59That we really got into some of the deep stuff that you wouldn't have expected to see at 8 o'clock on a family show on Sunday night.
18:08No!
18:17I think audiences love Touched by an Angel because every week they knew they could see a story that was surprising.
18:27Touched by an Angel dealt with tough subjects.
18:31Our whole family could sit together and watch a TV show and talk about it.
18:36And maybe bring up a subject that we wouldn't have talked about otherwise.
18:39You think you can hide behind this Bible?
18:41Or that phony smile?
18:43Or a white sheet?
18:44I know who you are, you hate monger.
18:47People think of it somehow as a soft show.
18:51But we dealt with very dark material.
18:54There were episodes about everything from alcoholism to divorce to death to child trafficking.
19:02We did an episode about a young man with HIV.
19:07It doesn't matter that they're HIV positive up here.
19:11I should think that it matters very much.
19:13I felt like nobody ever shied away from, you know, real important social issues.
19:20Things that were important to families.
19:22Everything from illness to, you know, alcoholism or drug addiction or suicide.
19:29You know, the things that can break a family.
19:32Detective McCovey has something to say.
19:34I don't want to hear from him!
19:36I was a cop, and I shot and killed a black kid because a black guy killed my wife.
19:45And there's a speech that I give in a church saying that I was mad at all of you.
19:51And it was a black church because of that.
19:54And I'm sorry.
19:55Never thought of myself as a bigot before, but...
20:01But I guess I was.
20:03Good episode.
20:06We understood who was watching.
20:08And we didn't want to do anything to alienate them.
20:12But we also wanted to challenge them sometimes to, you know, let's show grace to everybody.
20:21People got certain messages of encouragement and faith week after week after week.
20:28And that's such a powerful message.
20:30I think that's why people at its heart love the show.
20:33And I'll also give full credit to Roma Downey and Della Reese and John Dye.
20:38You know, it was a wonderful, magical sort of casting of these three actors who are all beautiful human beings.
20:46And that came across on screen.
20:48Roma Downey was beautiful, but not sexy.
20:53Which made her attractive to women as much as she might have been to men.
21:00And she was such a gentle character that kids could probably relate to her very easily.
21:06You know, sometimes, Joey, you have to remember the bad things so that you can learn from them.
21:12So Roma Downey grew up in Northern Ireland and had a very, very hardscrabble childhood.
21:21I think maybe because of that difficult childhood, the struggles just to survive, she always has had this generosity of spirit and sweetness.
21:32She was just graceful.
21:35Like, it just oozed out of her, the gracefulness.
21:38And that's how Roma Downey is.
21:41She lives that way, too.
21:43My son was like two.
21:45And Roma's daughter was about the same age.
21:47So sometimes her nanny would come and say,
21:49But these kids think my son could go play in their trailer with her daughter because the kids were born.
21:53And so Roma had a very, like, motherly, this is a family situation thing.
21:58And I think that really resonated with everybody for a long time.
22:03I had my daughter on the series.
22:06I'm sure my pregnancy was a challenge.
22:12You know, many other shows they can write into.
22:15That the character gets pregnant, but it really wasn't an option untouched by an angel.
22:21I carried very large sun hats.
22:24I carried big bags of shopping.
22:26I was standing behind car doors.
22:29I was leaning over couches.
22:31Sit, sit.
22:32Commander, could you help me out here?
22:35Even though we thought we were being so clever, you know, my face was just getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
22:46There was real chemistry between Roma and Della.
22:49And people could see that, I think.
22:52Della with her big, you know, the higher the hair, the closer to God, right?
22:58Roma and Della.
23:00There was a real mother-daughter relationship.
23:06Are you all right?
23:07A little bit.
23:08Roma lost her mother very early as a child.
23:11And Della is just earth mother to all.
23:15And the two of them had something special that had to be written to.
23:20Della Reese became like a mother to me.
23:23Oh, baby.
23:24There is great joy.
23:26Great joy.
23:28But God told us there'd be days like this, too.
23:31I loved her with all of my heart.
23:34Our friendship lasted right up to the very end.
23:41The moment she hit the set, it was always, well, hello, everybody.
23:45And there's this prayer.
23:46And she had this immense energy that was incredibly embracing.
23:52The way she treated us was how she ended up showing up in the scripts as well.
24:02And we wanted that authority figure.
24:04She was the supervisor.
24:06So you listen to me.
24:07Are you listening?
24:09Later when I met my husband, Mark Burnett, I warned him.
24:13I said, she's not a handshaker.
24:16She's going to give you a hug.
24:18So be prepared.
24:19She said, that's my baby girl.
24:21And if you hurt her, I will have you killed.
24:25And he started to laugh, you know, because he thought dark humor.
24:29And she said, oh, no, I'm not kidding.
24:31Della is Della.
24:33What you saw on the screen was Della.
24:38And John, when he was added to the show in the third season,
24:41as the Angel of Death, he fit in very nicely.
24:44I mean, Della and Roma and John were a trio.
24:47You are looking good.
24:50No, baby.
24:51You know that you're the one who looks good.
24:54Come on, baby, we got work to do.
24:56All right.
24:57John died.
24:58How perfect of a name is that for the Angel of Death?
25:00And I think part of what made John work as the Angel of Death
25:04was his instinct that death is not something to be terrified of.
25:11It is a natural culmination of life.
25:15And I think he was able to capture that.
25:18He was a true Southern gentleman.
25:21He was easy on the eyes.
25:23And, you know, you could only hope when your time comes
25:27that as lovely an Angel as John Dye would show up for you.
25:32John and I used to crack up all the time and tell jokes together.
25:36We'd look at these scripts and we'd go, wow, really?
25:39That's kind of corny, isn't it?
25:42That's really corny.
25:43What are we going to do with this?
25:44And he just became the third member of our family.
25:48So Touched by an Angel had a relatively small ensemble cast of our Angels.
25:54But what that gave us was unbelievably big casting opportunities for our guest stars.
26:14When you look back now at Touched by an Angel, you'll be astounded by the kind of A-list talent that were part of that roster.
26:24Folks like Bryan Cranston.
26:26He's still going to have to spend some time up in Psychiatry.
26:29What?
26:30We had brand new stars to be.
26:32We had Brie Larson.
26:34Still, he lives in the boys dormitory.
26:37James Marsden.
26:38You can't do that.
26:40Oh, no? Who's going to stop me?
26:41Pedro Pascal.
26:44What are you doing here?
26:46Aren't you a little old?
26:47Watch it, buster.
26:49America Ferrara.
26:50Then you think, oh my gosh, I worked with Jack Black when he was just like, you know, a kid.
26:56Really, never mind.
26:57Hey.
27:04We had movie stars on Touched by an Angel.
27:08Kirk Douglas.
27:09There will be a bar message today.
27:15Mine.
27:16And we say, really?
27:18They're going to do this?
27:19Are you sure?
27:20It's jaw-dropping.
27:22We had A-list stars.
27:24Carol Burnett.
27:25Debbie Reynolds.
27:27Ernest Borgnine.
27:29Debbie Allen.
27:30Oscar-winning people.
27:32Rita Moreno.
27:33It's so good to be back.
27:34And it wasn't just, you know, like a good payday for them.
27:38Hello.
27:39It's because they wanted to be on.
27:41But they had other people.
27:42Long lists of unlikely and sometimes very interesting guest stars like Muhammad Ali.
27:49What's going on?
27:50Mr. Ali is a friend of ours, Tim.
27:52We had this wonderful opportunity to call people up and say, we want to do something with you.
27:59What do you care about?
28:01We went to Muhammad Ali.
28:03And he said, bullying.
28:05Strength is not just about muscle.
28:08You have to know what you're fighting for.
28:10Big actors, big athletes, big celebrities were open to hearing from us.
28:17We had Dr. Maya Angelou.
28:19She just took my breath away.
28:21Talk about a legacy.
28:22Maya Angelou wrote a poem just for our episode called Touched by an Angel.
28:31Love costs all that we are and all that we hope to be.
28:37Yet it is only love which sets us free.
28:41A lot of secular actors wanted to be on a show that had 25 million people watching it.
28:48It was great exposure.
28:49It was a quick commitment.
28:51They weren't coming on for, like, an extended arc.
28:54It was a one-shot deal.
28:55Every week is a new case.
28:57I love the fact that every week Touched by an Angel was set in a different location.
29:00It gave you, as a writer, a chance to explore entirely different worlds.
29:06We never had the same set from week to week to week.
29:10And that was a huge challenge.
29:12The challenges were we were in Salt Lake City.
29:15And so it was like, okay, how can you make Salt Lake City look like New Orleans or look like the Sudan?
29:23One week we were shooting the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
29:27The next week we were shooting Sally Ride in Space.
29:31We took one street of Salt Lake City and turned it into Beijing.
29:36And it worked. I mean, it worked beautifully.
29:38The biggest challenge was always, can we keep the mountains out of the shot?
29:42Because once you saw mountains, that restricted you a lot.
29:46But Salt Lake City was amazingly versatile.
29:49And we did, well, we had over 200 episodes.
29:54We believed on the show that every episode needed a really good cry.
30:00And we wanted to guarantee that in every episode.
30:03We had a classic four-act structure.
30:05And if you know that at the end of Act Three, the dark night of the soul for your hero,
30:09someone dies, someone is in deep distress, you can work backwards and build story from that point.
30:17There was always that moment where the angel revealed herself.
30:22Who are you?
30:24I'm an angel.
30:26A what?
30:27And it was sort of the heart and soul of each of the episodes.
30:31Whatever I had been wearing, I would, it would change miraculously.
30:35Monica?
30:37Now I was wearing some sort of white dress, white and flowy.
30:41I had a little bit of extra light.
30:43Holy. Holy is right.
30:45And it was kind of an ethereal moment.
30:49You could pick any episode.
30:51Act Four, when the lights, the heavenly lights would shine over the angels.
30:55And there was a radiant glow behind her.
30:58As we in the room said, the glow job scene.
31:04You're telling me you're an angel?
31:06The revelation scene was the big moment on every show.
31:12It was a deeply meaningful scene and moment.
31:16That it was emotionally fulfilling to an audience to be weeping.
31:20Hopefully not because it was a terrible episode, but because it was emotionally moving.
31:26If you can get people to laugh, cry, or have their emotions swell,
31:31that's a really effective way to do television.
31:34The revelation scene did that every time.
31:36You sound like you got a real good case of the blues.
31:49We used music in a way that most shows never did.
31:53I remember street jamming with Justin Timberlake.
31:59God must have spent on you.
32:03Hey, don't give up your day job.
32:06It was always such an important part of it.
32:08From our opening song, Walk With You, sang by our great Della Reese herself.
32:17And Della got to sing in quite a few episodes.
32:22Music always woven so skillfully.
32:26Martha's always loved music.
32:29And loved bringing music into the show and hiring guest stars who were musical performers.
32:34We had a tragedy once where our guest star could not show up.
32:40And we had to scramble and rewrite a show over the weekend.
32:44And I went to Della and I said, Della, can you sing as many songs as I throw at you?
32:50And she says, yeah, and we'll bring in my friends too.
32:52And we did a show with Della Reese, B.B. King, Dr. John, Al Hurt, Hal Linden.
33:01It was one of our best shows ever.
33:07Oh, yeah.
33:08There was a lot of music in Touched by an Angel, but not all just because of Della.
33:15We did have country music stars come to us because they felt that was also their audience.
33:19Wynonna was one of all of our favorites.
33:23It was our hundredth episode that we filmed with her that was so powerful and poignant.
33:29Happy birthday to you.
33:33Mwah!
33:35CBS wanted to do something special, of course, for the 100th episode.
33:39And it was always on my mind.
33:40It would be a songwriter who was struggling with something in her life.
33:45What would be the worst thing you could imagine is losing your own child.
33:49This is it, Monica.
33:51I'm gonna lose my baby.
33:52One of his wishes was to meet Celine Dion and we actually went to Canada and worked with Celine, one of the great moments of our lives.
34:02And the last thing he really wanted was to see his mother write the song that had been in her head for so long and to complete that song.
34:10All the colors of the rainbow.
34:13And at the very end of the show had that song singing just as that little boy went to heaven and he broke all of our hearts.
34:24And it was really so deeply touching.
34:28And to this day, if I catch a glimpse of that episode, it really just made me cry.
34:33Do you know what it's like to get two superstars, Winona Judd and Celine Dion, to agree to be on the same show at the same time?
34:44And it was great to celebrate that we had gone that far, especially the first two seasons.
34:49Not sure the show's gonna get canceled and tend to earn the 100th episode.
34:53It's a beautiful thing.
34:58Who is that?
34:59When Valerie joined us very late in the show, she was just a breath of fresh air.
35:08We needed a real shot in the arm.
35:10Valerie Bertinelli, my goodness, I mean, she was America's sweetheart for so many years.
35:16And she played a brand new angel who had just been created.
35:20I'm homesick.
35:22I know, baby, but you've got a job to do here.
35:23I really enjoyed working with Val, who played the role of Gloria.
35:29I was excited when Valerie Bertinelli was gonna join the show because, of course, she was bringing a whole new audience to the show who might not have been paying attention to it.
35:36But she was very open and wonderful. And I think she brought that honesty to her character.
35:42As with all television shows...
35:45It's going to be worse than I thought.
35:47Yes.
35:49We'd better get going.
35:51There's an end date.
35:54There is business aspects of the decision, audience size aspects of the decision.
36:01I just think it was ultimately time for it to go and for it to end.
36:07CBS had just bought Sunday night football.
36:12And they kept running overtime.
36:14And that became difficult and unpredictable.
36:16People were saying, is it touched on? Is it not on? So it became a logistical problem as well.
36:23There was a sweetness and a sadness to it ending up, really because we had all been on it so long. We had all become such a family.
36:33You know, I think everything runs its course.
36:38It was the dream job. It was getting to write for female characters who had something important to say.
36:43And it spoke to me that America loves having this place in their entertainment menu. That they welcome this. It was deeply satisfying to have the success of Touched by an Angel demonstrated week after week.
37:02I think it was over 200 and something episodes we made. And maybe it was time to hang it up. But there was a lot of tears, of course, saying goodbye.
37:14And so we knew that we were kind of winding down. And it might be time to say, let's take a look at where we're headed.
37:24So we weren't canceled. You can't cancel God. But it was really by a beautiful and lovely mutual agreement with the folks at CBS. It was time to say goodbye.
37:44I think Touched by an Angel does still resonate 30 years on.
37:53Because the timelessness of the core message will never go away.
37:59All of us need to believe in ourselves and to believe in our community and to realize that all of us have the ability to make change.
38:05And that's what they told people on a weekly basis. You don't think things are good in your life now. I'm here to tell you, you can find a way to fix it and I will support you. That's huge.
38:18Touched by an Angel revealed that even when we thought the era of being able to pull off such an earnest, sincere, completely non-ironic program was over.
38:31Touched by an Angel proved that you could not only do that stuff, but people liked it. Even though critics might have a hard time celebrating schmaltz, sometimes schmaltz, if done well, can actually be interesting.
38:46Along comes a show that was about faith and morals. This was slightly religious and obviously had an audience that really embraced it as something a little different than what else was on TV.
38:59In that age of sarcasm. And I think that's one reason why it did quite well at the time.
39:06And it did melodrama really well. I don't care what people say. Sometimes a good manipulated cry is just what the doctor ordered.
39:16We had a very unique show. Nobody ever quite knew what to do with it or how to categorize it. And that's okay.
39:24With all due respect to the members of the press, it was your profession that really has been the least kind to us.
39:30But the people, in spite of what you wrote about us initially, have continued to watch and have watched in great numbers.
39:36There were a lot of people who could have made a lot of fun. And they didn't.
39:42Touched by an Angel was two female leads. And that was an important example of how female leads could actually carry a spiritual primetime drama.
39:51Where up until then, we'd seen mostly men like Michael Landon, Highway to Heaven, as stars of these kinds of shows.
39:58So it did break new ground to that degree. And that was pretty astounding.
40:03Very uncommon to have not one, but two female leads.
40:08And very uncommon to have female characters that like each other.
40:14Indeed, not just like each other, but loved each other.
40:17Excuse me.
40:18And so I think that gave it a particular heartbeat.
40:23I mean, they were two women running a one-hour drama for all that time.
40:27That was a big deal.
40:29It seems almost every season, someone's trying, God friended me. You know, God is my best friend. Where's God?
40:36There's so many shows that try to get that secret sauce that Touched by an Angel has. And that's part of its legacy.
40:43Perhaps the biggest impact on me personally was the fact that it saved lives.
40:55And I am not hyperbolic about this.
40:59We received letters from people saying, I was going to do myself harm.
41:03And I heard that message on television and I called for help.
41:08I called a suicide hotline.
41:10To see in writing, the show changed my life.
41:15The show's helped us have a conversation in our family to address our mother's alcoholism.
41:21No! I haven't had enough!
41:24This helps me heal from the suicide of my child.
41:28Like these were real people sharing the real impacts of a TV show on their lives.
41:35What other show has done that?
41:40That's a massive thing to me.
41:43So Touched by an Angel does have a legacy.
41:45God has given you a second chance. Take it.
41:48It's a legacy of individuals whose lives have been changed for the better.
41:51It's a legacy of individuals whose lives have been changed for the better.
42:21It's a legacy of doing all the changes in the world.
42:24Right.
42:25It's a legacy of a living experience.
42:28Like this, it's not a legacy of the love.
42:29It's a legacy of a living experience.
42:31This is a legacy of people's lives in the world.
42:33We're not gonna be doing it.
42:35It's a legacy of my life.
42:37This is a legacy of the love of the love of the Mid-Test.
42:39And I must be not a legacy of the Connection Awards.
42:41I have a legacy of the love of the Englishочкиhips.
42:43And I will be in the culture of the ways of the Lord's Paralyse.
42:46And I have to be in the world.
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