Martha Williamson wasn't really thinking about creating and producing another TV series this season. She was "too tired" from putting out 22 episodes of "Touched by an Angel" each season.
But the executives at CBS had other ideas. They wanted another series from Williamson - now."They really wanted another `Touched by an Angel' show, and they decided to come to `Touched by an Angel' to look for it," Williamson said. "And I was honored by that, so we said. `All right, Let's see what we can do.' "
What she ended up doing was creating "Promised Land" - a series with the same feel-good, uplifting spirit as "Touched."
"Promised Land" is about laid-off factory worker Russell Greene (Gerald McRaney) who packs up his family - his wife (Wendy Phillips), mother (Celeste Holm), children (Austin O'Brien and Salt Lake-native Sarah Schaub) and his nephew (Eddie Carr) - and hits the road. The family hasn't got much money, but they work their way from town to town in search of the real America.
"On `Promised Land,' we have a very specific point of view," Williamson said. "And that is, there's a difference between the United States and America. And that (the United States) is always going to, at some point, disappoint you. . . . But America is always something that is there for you."
That's the idea she took to CBS.
"I . . . said, `We want to do for America what "Touched by an Angel" has done for God,' " Williamson said. " `Touched by an Angel' is not religious, it's spiritual. And `Promised Land' we want to make patriotic, not political."
And she has strong feelings about how patriotism is perceived - and how it should be perceived.
"We want to take back the word patriotism from those lunatics in camouflage outfits who have taken it for themselves, perverted the word and said that you can only be a patriot if," Williamson said. "And now we use the word patriot and it is misleading. You don't know if you're talking about Nathan Hale or Timothy McVeigh."
Russell himself questions America in the show's pilot, which airs as an episode of "Touched by an Angel" on Sunday at 7 p.m. on CBS/Ch. 2. He gets a bit of help from the angels (Roma Downey and Della Reese) that puts him back on track.
Beginning Tuesday at 7 p.m. on Ch. 2, the Greene family sets out across America, determined to do right and to help others.
"If you look at it, we are dealing with the same issues on `Touched by an Angel' or `Promised Land' that `NYPD Blue' and `Law & Order' deal with. We just come from a very different point of view on `Touched by an Angel,' which is . . . God's point of view," Williamson said. "Some of these experiences came from my own family. And seeing that sometimes there wasn't a whole lot of money in my sister's family."
She remembered showing up at her sister's house in Pleasant Grove one Christmas after she'd had "a particularly successful year" with all sorts of electronic equipment. Her nieces and nephews had only $5 apiece and could buy one present for one other member of the family.
Those presents included thrift-store buys and personal coupons for things like making beds.
"I'll never never forget that Christmas," Williamson said. "I have no memory what I gave those kids, but I remember what each one of them gave each other."
If that sounds corny or old-fashion, well, that's too bad.
"That's the miracle of `Touched by an Angel' or `Promised Land.' At the end of the day, there will be a solution suggested. And that is - look to yourselves, look to God, look at what you have and realize that there is nothing corny, there is nothing old-fashioned about finding within your family the power in the positive," she said.
Which is what attracted McRaney to the series.
"When I read the script, it said something very important to me about people believing in the possibilities of this country and of the spirit that is this country," he said. "It sort of sticks a pin in the bubble of cynicism, and I like that."
The ever-passionate Williamson said the inspiration for "Promised Land" was the nationally televised Oklahoma City service for the victims of the bombing in that city. She had recently had minor surgery and was laying in bed when the people of America were asked to go outside and ring bells.
"And I got out of bed and I found some dumb little bell - some ugly little thing with an angel on it that somebody had given me. And I went outside of my front door and I stood in my bathrobe and I rang this bell," Williamson said. "And I could hear bells ringing up and down the street. And I don't know if those were . . . conservative right or liberal left bells. They were American bells, and I sobbed for my country.
"And when (CBS programmers) said, `I want you to find something else to say,' I went to that moment. And in some small way, once a week on Tuesdays, `Promised Land' is going to ring that bell."
WISH HIM WELL: For those of you who may have missed it, KSL-Ch. 5 anchorman Dick Nourse will be off the air for the next few weeks. He'll be undergoing surgery for prostate cancer.
A fixture on Ch. 5 for more than 30 years, this is Nourse's second bout with cancer. Hopefully, he'll once again make a full recovery.