Series · Prime Video · 2009

The Middle

A working house, played for laughs, that still believes the house is the point.

Frankie Heck is tired, and the show thinks her tiredness is funny and honorable at once. That is rarer than it should be. The kids are odd, selfish, and still brought to the table. The father is not a punch line who vanishes.

Use it when the evening needs a family that is not rich and not ashamed of not being rich.

The eight

Industry
8/10
Frankie works. Mike works. The bills are a character.
Household
8/10
The Heck family is the whole show. They fail in each other's direction.
Piety
4/10
Church is occasional and not mocked as the enemy.
Courage
5/10
The courage is showing up to a job and a school play you cannot afford.
Republic
5/10
A small Indiana town. The institutions are tired and still there.
Temperance
6/10
The jokes are at the chaos of a full house, not at modesty.
Truth
7/10
It does not pretend the middle class is a brand. The car really will not start.
Stewardship
7/10
The children are the stake. The parents do not leave.

Live historicallyAfter it, do one unglamorous job the house has been postponing. Frankie would.

Series · Prime Video · 2025

House of David

Scripture as a drama. Use it only with the chapter open beside it.

David's story is already the greatest drama of a household and a throne that the culture has. Filming it can help a house see the sheep and the court. Filming it can also add motives the text does not, and those motives will stick if nobody opens Samuel. Watch an episode and then read the chapter. Correct the episode where it wandered. That practice is worth more than the series.

The eight

Industry
6/10
Sheep, a court, a giant's field. The world has work in it.
Household
6/10
A father and his sons. The house is the nation's problem.
Piety
8/10
The subject is anointing, obedience, and a God who picks the overlooked son.
Courage
7/10
David walks toward the fight the army will not.
Republic
6/10
A kingdom, a prophet, a failed king. Political and theological at once.
Temperance
5/10
Battle and beauty. The beauty should not outrun the text.
Truth
6/10
It depends on Samuel. Where it invents, it must be caught.
Stewardship
7/10
The whole point of the story is the king who is coming, and the one who was not Saul.

Live historicallyRead 1 Samuel 16 or 17 aloud. If you watch the episode after, the chapter wins every dispute.