The Families Man

Tele-Thoughts

I thought my readers (maybe as many as four people) might be interesting in knowing about the new HBO series premiering March 12th about polygamy. The program is titled Big Love and is produced by (among others) Tom Hanks. The series stars Bill Paxton as Bill Henrickson the owner of a chain of hardware stores in the Salt Lake area who just happens to be a fundamentalist Mormon and married to three wives (one of whom is played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, who kind of vanished after Micky Blue Eyes). Undoubtedly the show is aiming to capitalize on the success of other HBO programs that have featured unusual families such as The Sopranios and Six Feet Under. The LDS Church PR people are predictably uneasy about the program out of concern that it will work against the institutions century plus long effort to distance itself from its former polygamous practices, they have thus issued this statement to the press regarding the matter. In response it has been floated that Big Love produces will air a disclaimer before or after each episode informing viewers that the LDS Church no longer endorses polygamy and that an estimated twenty to forty thousand people mark the extent of its practice in America today.