Television Review - Eli Stone

ABC, 10 PM EST, Tuesdays

Rating (after four episodes): 1 out of 5 Stars

On the one hand, I’m tempted to thank the writers and producers of Eli Stone for allowing me to see this second season before buying the first on DVD, which I’ve been very close to doing on a number of occasions. But, on the other, I just want to know what happened over this past summer break that turned a charming, funny, well-acted romantic comedy with a soft sf twist into this morass of smarmy, cutesy, scream-at-the-tv-stupid nonsense, where every single episode seems to be worse than the last. I just do not understand what… what… as Moe says, “I’m chokin’ on my own rage here!” Please allow me a moment to collect myself while you and I, gentle reader, look back on happier times for this series.

Last Season:

Eli Stone (played by Johnny Lee Miller) is an attorney for a high-powered law firm in San Francisco. He is originally shown to be a career-oriented, ruthless shark—the perfect protégé for the firm’s leading partner, Jordan Wethersby (Victor Garber), and fiancée for Wethersby’s daughter, Taylor (Natasha Henstridge)—until he begins having these horrifying “visions”. I say horrifying because they frequently involve George Michael dancing and singing. Anyway, these visions lead Eli to do things he had heretofore never really cared about, mainly to defend and represent people who could never pay for his services. He goes to see his neurologist brother, Nathan (Matt Letscher), only to be told there’s nothing medically wrong. He goes to Dr. Chen (James Saito), an acupuncturist and holistic medicine practitioner, and finds a friend who helps him remember things he had forgotten. The visions continue, affecting Eli’s life and career in mostly detrimental ways, although he does help a few people along the way, but when he finally puts his own life in danger Nathan begins to equate Eli’s erratic behavior with their deceased father’s own oddity. Nathan examines Eli again and finds an inoperable tumor in Eli’s brain, the same thing their father had.

The season continued as the story unfolded. Eli and Taylor broke up and she gravitated toward Matt Dowd (Sam Jaeger), an attorney in the firm that has all of Eli’s former ambition but none of his humanity. Eli himself became attracted to Maggie Dekker (Julie Gonzalo), a very pretty and soulful attorney who’s unfortunately engaged—although she is attracted to Eli as well. And then there’s Patti Dellacroix (Loretta Devine), the firm’s funny, sassy receptionist who acts as Eli’s staunchest supporter and anchor to the real world—probably my favorite character all around. Also, Jordan began to believe in Eli, and even started thinking about changing the focus of the firm to a more “little guy”-oriented business plan, a move which was none too popular with senior partners Martin Posner (Tom Amandes) and Marci Klein (Katie Sagal), who tried to have him removed as managing partner by the board of directors. Eli’s visions led him into more and more uncharted territory, culminating in his convincing the Mayor of SF to close the Golden Gate Bridge because of an earthquake. The earthquake, of course, occurred and collapsed the bridge and Eli was hailed as a hero by everyone who knew—which was a lot of people. All of this on the eve of the newly-developed surgery that was to remove the tumor—and possibly the visions—from his brain.

Headline: IQs in San Francisco Drop Precipitously! Scientists Baffled!

The second season opens with Eli having gone four months without a vision. He’s seeing a psychiatrist (Sigourney Weaver) in an attempt to show that he is emotionally fit to resume his legal practice. Then Nathan has a vision of Jordan trapped inside a collapsed building. Nathan, under the direction of Dr. Chen, comes to find that Jordan is trapped in a stairwell and that the rescue teams are looking in the wrong place. Eli takes this information to the authorites only to find that he has to go to court to get anyone to believe him. In court, he is opposed by Posner, Klein, and Jordan’s own daughter, Taylor. I could only listen to these three argue with Eli in court with my face buried in my hands—while watching I couldn’t help screaming, “Sure, just because he’s been right about everything else—like an EARTHQUAKE—doesn’t mean he’s right now! It’s only been FOUR MONTHS!!!” How could they have forgotten? By the end of the episode, we find that Sigourney Weaver was a messenger from God (I’ve always suspected as much) and that Eli or his brother has to have the tumor, so Eli takes it back, along with the visions. Oh, and, by the way, Jordan was found in the stairwell—right where Eli said he was.

Next, Eli falls in love with Katie Holmes (haven’t we all?), who guests on the show to play a clumsy attorney named Grace who’s leaving the country in a couple of days. They go out a couple times, fall for each other, and she leaves. Meanwhile, Eli is representing a man (Ken Howard) whose son was killed in Iraq but who doesn’t want his son to get a military funeral since his son hated the war. During the case, we’re shown a video the son sent to his mother about how great everything was going over there and, once it becomes clear that Howard is losing the case, he shows an e-mail in which his son complains and blames his father for getting him into the Army. The judge, stating she has to go with the best evidence as to the son’s true wishes, decides that an unsigned e-mail is more conclusive than a videotape. I’m not arguing that it was wrong, just that it made no sense.

In the third and fourth installments this year, Jordan, who has decided to follow Eli into “feel-good” law business, is sued for control of the firm by Posner and Klein. They win, only to find that Jordan actually owns the building their offices are in so they have to move. On the way out, though, they try and bring as many associates as possible with them, luring Dowd and even Dekker. By the way, Maggie’s engagement is broken when Eli has a vision of her fiancée cheating on her with another woman. But of course she gets angry with Eli about it—leading to me screaming at the tv again.

Bottom line:

I see here that Eli Stone’s ratings have dropped this season. Unfortunately, I understand completely why that is. At the end of last season, when Eli’s earthquake prediction became pretty much common knowledge, I had thought this show was going to take us somewhere we hadn’t been before. Most shows like this are pretty formulaic: Guy has weird power that no one knows about or believes in, goes around helping people secretly using this ability in secret so no one will think he’s crazy. This looked like it was going to break that mold by having everyone know who he is and what he does. Instead, they all seem to just forget what happened a few months ago, or even a couple days ago, when it suits the writers. Buffy the Vampire Slayer handled this whole thing perfectly, now that I think of it. The kids in her class knew she did things but never made an issue of it—except on Prom Night when they gave her an award. But they didn’t just “forget” that it happened. Unfortunately, it’s beginning to look more and more like very shortly we’ll all be able to just “forget” Eli Stone entirely.

-Sam Christopher

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