This year, ABC's annual showing of The Ten Commandments is Saturday night rather than Sunday; I've always been curious as to why an Old Testament story is shown at Easter, but we'll let it go for now. NBC's showing "Jesus Christ Superstar" live this Sunday evening, and I have an opinion on that, but not having seen the musical in any format, it's probably a good idea that I don't share it. TCM has their traditional movie marathon over the week, including Ben-Hur, King of Kings, and Easter Parade. At any rate, at least television is doing something to acknowledge the day TV
I have seen a couple of productions of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and your wariness of the content is appropriate. It's not a very good musical, but it does have one transcendent moment: "I Don't Know How to Love Him" may still be the best song to emerge from any Andrew Lloyd Webber work, and the way the lyric captures what Mary Magdalene must have felt as such a witness to extraordinary events borders on profound. When it's done right I get chills every time. I didn't watch the NBC performance, but I saw Sara Bareilles' take on this on YouTube, and it was wonderful.
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