(RNS) — With the abundance of legal codes, death and, well, genocide, the story of Moses’ journey through the desert isn’t exactly begging to be made into a comedy.
But “The Promised Land” does just that. Written and directed by Mitch Hudson — a crew member for “The Chosen,” the popular film series depicting Jesus’ life — “The Promised Land” leans into the irony baked into the biblical narrative, using the “mockumentary” style made famous by hits like “The Office,” “Parks and Rec” and “Abbott Elementary.”
The pilot episode, which has racked up over 140,000 Instagram followers and 450,000 views since it debuted on YouTube two weeks ago, features Moses dealing with every absurd complaint the Israelites bring to him. For starters:
- “This water is too bitter.”
- “My son is 14 and he won’t move out.”
- “What do I do about this pestilent growth on my foot?”
Meanwhile, Moses’ sister Miriam has decided she’s a musical prodigy, and there’s an escaped Egyptian soldier in the camp trying desperately — and hilariously — to go undetected.
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Hudson grew up in a Christian home in Virginia where he was raised on “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “VeggieTales,” he told Religion News Service in a recent call from the set of “The Chosen” in Midlothian, Texas. He spent his teen years living in Bahrain and earned a film degree from Liberty University in 2015 before joining the crew of “The Chosen” in 2018.
Then, in 2021, two fellow Liberty alumni in the film world (who are now producer/associate producer on “The Promised Land”) approached Hudson with the idea of doing “Moses in the style of ‘The Office.’” RNS spoke with Hudson about how that idea came to life, the influence of “The Chosen” on the new show and what fans can expect next. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What made you say yes to this concept?
At first, I was kind of like, how does this even work? What kind of funny is it? Monty Python funny, where it’s a bit more of a lampoon, a bit more critical? I wasn’t super comfortable with that. But then I was looking at it, and I was like, you know, the story of Moses has a lot of irony, and irony, a lot of times, is the basis for humor. I rediscovered the story in Exodus 18, where Jethro comes to Moses and basically says, you’re doing this all wrong. I was like, man, a father-in-law coming in to visit — this could be pretty funny. We can relate to a father-in-law who’s got different ideas of how to run things. So I wrote a pilot, and a plan for a whole series.
The story of Moses and the Israelites isn’t always lighthearted. What has it been like to transform this difficult content from the Bible into a comedy?
As I’m writing, I have the Bible open. I’ve got some biblical commentaries that are helping me understand the material as best I can. I think what makes shows like this funny is how genuine they feel. And so I want to make sure that we were all as authentic as possible, and part of that is finding what moments allow for jokes, and what moments I need to take seriously, because they’re serious to the characters. So I’m trying to walk that line of, where do the jokes stop? And there are a few moments where that’s going to come up, like when we have the golden calf, and some of the key failures of Moses and his family. When it feels like the characters are hurting, we’ll go through that with them, but then we’ll get back to the lighter parts. And I think this style allows for that.
