Well, I guess we now officially have a recurring theme within my postings, since this will be the third time I’ve made a comment approximating this one, but can anyone still remember when the majority of the programming on A&E still focused on arts over entertainment? It’s been quite some time, I think we can all agree…though I’m all ears if you’d like to try and defend “The Two Coreys” as art. But I’m trying to keep an open mind about A&E’s new dramatic series, “The Cleaner,” partially because I’ve liked Benjamin Bratt since his days in “Law & Order,” but mostly because I can’t help but be curious about a show which has been described as a cross between “Intervention” and “The Equalizer.”
Producer Jonathan Prince tackled one question right off the bat for those who’ve been annoyed by all the bleeps that have peppered the “Sopranos” reruns on A&E. “There will be no bleeping,” he assured us. “The battle…you guys as writers would love this, the battle of how many shits per script are allowed. You can have two shits, one bullshit, no horseshits, one ass, no asshole. And there’s a rule. It’s math, I think. It’s sort of, you know, in memory of George Carlin, we now know what you can and cannot say on A&E, and we are finding out along the way, but I think you would find that this is less sanitized than what happened to ‘The Sopranos.’ Our content never goes quite to that place.”
Well, now that we know that, what’s the show actually about? In a nutshell, it’s about a guy named William (played by Bratt) who transforms his life by taking control over his addictions and using his story to help others, but what I find particularly interesting about the show is the refusal to confirm or deny the existence of any higher power that might (or might not) be helping him along the way.
“This pact that William Banks has with whoever was listening on that day when he was at his bottom, he chooses to call it God,” said producer Robert Munic, “(but) it’s not a religious embodiment of that. It’s more of his belief system, his faith in whoever’s out there listening to him, because he doesn’t ever expect to get an answer back when he puts it out there.”
Prince elaborated on the situation by offering an on-set anecdote. “We had a director who said, ‘When Ben’s talking to God, I want to put the camera way above so we can see sort of God’s point of view.’ We said to the director, ‘You can’t do that.’ She asked, ‘Why not?’ We said, ‘Because we’re not sure God’s listening.'”
