Promised Land | |
---|---|
Genre | Drama |
Created by | Martha Williamson |
Starring |
Gerald McRaney Wendy Phillips Austin O'Brien Sarah Schaub Eddie Karr Celeste Holm |
Theme music composer | Marc Lichtman |
Composer(s) | John Batdorf Ray Colcord |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 68 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Steven Phillip Smith Martha Williamson |
Producer(s) | Jon Andersen Danna Doyle David Ehrman Arnold Margolin William Schmidt William A. Schwartz Debbie Smith Robert J. Visciglia, Jr. E.F. Wallengren |
Camera setup | Single-camera |
Running time | 45–48 minutes |
Production company(s) | Moon Water Productions CBS Productions |
Distributor | Americana Entertainment CBS Television Distribution |
Release | |
Original network | CBS |
Original release | September 17, 1996 | – May 20, 1999
Chronology | |
Related shows | Touched by an Angel |
Promised Land is an American drama series which aired on CBS from 1996 to 1999. It is a spin-off from another series, Touched by an Angel.
Promised Land features Russell Greene (Gerald McRaney) who was on a divine mission. In the premiere episode, which aired as a special episode of Touched By an Angel, angels Tess and Monica asked Russell, recently laid-off from his factory job, to "redefine what it means to be a good neighbor and recapture the American dream." To do this, Russell and his family traveled around the country in a beat up Airstream trailer, helping people in need, looking for work, and learning from their experiences. Russell's family included his wife Clare (Wendy Phillips), who was licensed to homeschool their kids while they were on the road; his mother Hattie (Celeste Holm), who updated a hand-embroidered map to show all places they had traveled; and his teenage son Josh (Austin O'Brien), daughter Dinah (Sarah Schaub), and young nephew Nathaniel (Eddie Karr), who had been abandoned by Russell's troubled brother Joe (Richard Thomas). Erasmus was an old friend of the family who lived in Chickory Creek, the small town in Kentucky where Hattie grew up. The family frequently returned to Chicory Creek to celebrate holidays and rest. Occasionally they were assisted by Tess or other angels while they tried to help people overcome their personal problems or rekindle their lapsed faith.
Early in the second season, Claire found out that she was pregnant, but tragically their infant daughter, Grace, died soon after her birth in the season's final episode. In the third season, the family decided to settle down and moved into a run-down small house in a poor neighborhood in Denver, Colorado. Russell convinced the owner to let them live there rent-free in exchange for the renovations he made to the house and Claire got a job at a guidance counselor at the local high school where Josh and Dinah enrolled as students. Russell volunteered working at the Ridley Center, a neighborhood teen center. Living next door to the Greenes in Denver were Shamaya and her teenage brother L.T., a former gang member having problems with going straight. Bobbie, an unwed mother with an infant son, was Josh's girlfriend, and Margot was a friend of Dinah's. In the series final episode, Hattie married an old friend of the family and Russell quit the Ridley Center and took a job at a policeman.