Kay McFadden / Times staff columnist
Investigation of Holy Grail intrigues, then just peters out, on History Channel

	HUGH KRETSCHMER Rick Sadler is among the Poway Bernardo Mortuary "family" featured in "Family Plots," on A&E.
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All that has changed recently. As demonstrated by best sellers like "The Da Vinci Code," Christian history and legend have reclaimed public fancy.

No doubt the swelling number of evangelical church members in America contributed to this shift. But even moviegoers who never kissed a cross have been drawn to the mystic symbolism in "The Matrix," while TV's "Joan of Arcadia" has attracted nonsectarians who like the idea of going girl-to-God.

Despite its resolutely secular image, History Channel is aware of such crosscurrents. Tonight at 10:15, it shrewdly launches a new weekly series called "Investigating History" with an examination of the Holy Grail.

"Investigating History" is hosted and produced by veteran journalist Bill Kurtis. It proposes to present how modern technology and scientific methods can sift fact from fiction surrounding a famous person, event or object.

The timing could be better. History Channel has been investigating itself of late.

Last November, the widely respected network aired a slew of shows related to the 40th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. One was an independent documentary that indicated former President Lyndon Johnson was complicit in the actual murder.

The program, "The Guilty Men," certainly wasn't first to advance such a theory. Nevertheless, an uproar arose. Former Johnson aides Bill Moyers and Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association, demanded History Channel react or retract.

The network appointed three prominent historians to study the problem. Their conclusions were turned into a one-hour special that aired earlier this month. It found the accusation against Johnson insupportable and that History Channel had acted irresponsibly.

In a dishonorable age of side-stepping and finger-pointing on everything from 9-11 to steroid use, History Channel's actions are commendable. I therefore wish I could heartily endorse "Investigating History."

The series is nicely random in its choices. Whatever calculations went into putting the Holy Grail up first, future topics include Billy the Kid, Captain Kidd, the Dead Sea Scrolls (more religion) and Napoleon's alleged mass grave.
 
But the same grab-bag approach doesn't work so well for an individual episode. "Investigating History" has a tendency to pick up lines of thought, drop them and then repeat them in a fashion reminiscent of cross-country trips with a garrulous relative.

Thus we find ourselves beginning tonight with the possibility that the Holy Grail, variously considered a chalice or treasure, may actually have been a document certifying the bloodline begun by a marriage between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.

The item also may have been brought by the Knights of Templar to Rennes-le-Chateau, a village in Southwestern France, and buried there for safekeeping. The program relates the tale of a 19th-century village priest there who may have found the document and used it to blackmail the Catholic Church for money.

So far, not bad, even if there are more "mays" sprinkled through the script of "Investigating History" than Shakespeare used in his sonnets.

However, we next veer into an extended history of the Knights Templars that goes on far too long. It's clear why (the Knights' history is bloody, sexy, dynamic and dramatic) yet their role never is quite on point to the alleged main subject.

The scientific solution that may determine what's hidden at Rennes-le-Chateau also disappoints. After Kurtis excites us with some technological dirty talk, a dig is started while the cameras roll. Abruptly, it is terminated. End of story.

It is dangerous to tease more than you can deliver. "Investigating History" has enough integrity on its side through interviews with historians, archaeologists and other scholars to resist hinting at Geraldo Rivera-like revelations.

One sign of the series' intermittent attraction is that I kept straying to what a great gig Kurtis has, swooping from France to Egypt to Wyoming. He certainly earned that privilege with the award-winning "Investigative Reports"; maybe future installations of "Investigating History" will better fulfill their premise.

'Family Plots'

Someday, the world will be a better place for TV forcing us to use our imaginations again. Audiences will grow tired of people whose lives are even duller than ours but who happen to have landed in front of a camera.

Until then, we're stuck with ideas like A&E's "Family Plots," a new reality skein about a San Diego family of undertakers.

Debuting tonight at 9, this half-hour show is a study in what happens when conflicting goals for a series go unresolved. I'm surprised the producers' heads didn't explode during the pitch.

"Family Plots" presumes there's something inherently wacky about dealing with dead people as if it were a regular business. At the same time, the makers are anxious to reassure viewers that there's nothing wacky about dead people per se. Hmm.

The main characters in "Family Plots" are the family and staff members of the Poway Bernardo Mortuary. They come across like salt-of-the-earth types, which is entertainment code for a nonthreatening demographic cross-section of Nielsen.

Audiences may lapse into dozy comfort. Despite some obvious attempts to perform, the three Wissmiller sisters, their ex-alcoholic dad and their colleagues are so unsurprising that you could leave the TV for 15 minutes and not really miss anything.

Perhaps aware of this deficit, "Family Plots" tries to churn up the zany factor with music and shots of the Poway Bernardo Mortuary people casually doing their thing: making up dead faces, transferring body bags, reflecting on how to deal with grief-stricken clients.

But it's no use. The situations, language and attempted insights are shallow. We've seen "Six Feet Under"; this should have been called "Two Inches Deep."

Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com

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