As someone who often breaks into spontaneous dance and song, I know the plight of our titular hero, Eli Stone. Granted, I don’t have an intracranial aneurysm located deep in the cortex of my right cerebral artery. I’m just a little crazy. But guess what? There’s no cure for that either.
Anyway, if you watched the series premiere last night, or read Ken Tucker’s B+ review, then you know Eli Stone is an extremely successful lawyer at a prestigious L.A. firm. He has a fiancé who is ridiculously attractive and who presumably hibernates in a tanning bed. He wears contacts or got Lasek, so he doesn’t have to wear those unfortunate glasses anymore. He has a sassy secretary named Patti, who I love because she hates Eli’s fiancé even more than I do. He has a boss played by Victor Garber, who’s supposed to be a smug jerk named Jordan Wethersby, but who I liked anyway, because he’s Victor Garber. He has private George Michael concerts in his head, his bedroom, and his office — whenever the universe is trying to tell him something. Eli Stone has it ALL. Or does he? (My vote is that he does, but that’s not the moral they’re pushing here.)
Eli Stone (notice how I keep repeating his name? Writers tend to dothat in pilot episodes. Or they just name the show after the character,because they think you’re really dense. Does anyone know why the ‘O’ inStone is tilted? Can you legally italicize letters in your name,and if so, who can I see about having my named legally bolded andunderlined?) wants more, by wanting less. Looks like someone just gottheir memo from Jerry Maguire. He wants to change his money-hungry,corporate barracuda ways to cater to the little people, or the peoplehe slept with when he was younger. When Beth introduced us to herautistic son Ben, I was worried we might be headed down a long, windingOctober Road. But Ben wasn’t Eli’s son; he was yet another signfrom the universe that it was time for Eli to reinvent himself. Afterall the code crunching, anagrams, and misleading clues on Lost, I wasprepared for Ben’s building blocks to spell out a cryptic message whichwould result in several DVR rewinds and agonizing frame by framepauses. Not Eli Stone. ”Make peace George Michael.” Pretty hard tomisinterpret that brain buster. I also caught ”lion,” ”gin,””run,” ”root,” ”xray,” ”gum,” ”push,” ”rain+salt,””fish,” ”pig,” ”tool,” ”hill,” ”guy,” ”pry,” ”hay,””hilly,” and I haven’t even gotten started on diagonals.
Speaking of Lost, it seemed ABC was willing to do just about anything to hang on to Lost’saudience for another hour. The public announcements from Oceanic wereintriguing, but I’ll probably draw the line when Eli starts havingvisions of Jacob.
When he wasn’t seeing visions in waking reality, Eli’s acupuncturist(who, according to Patti, can cure tennis elbow and constipation injust one visit!) was helping him see into the past. Though I preferredhis brother’s official medical diagnosis of ”double butt head,” Dr.Chan was a little more insightful. ”Everything has two explanationsEli, scientific and divine. It’s up to us to choose which one we buyinto. Now science explains the enlarged vessel in your head, but doesit explain how the girl you lost your virginity to happened to be suingyour law firm? How her son happened to spell out a message to you withhis blocks?” It’s up to you to decide if it’s divine or a divine plotcontrivance. Regardless, I liked the Dr. Chen, especially when he lostthe accent, handed out the booze, and started getting real.
In the end, Eli won $5.2 mil for the underdog, Beth, and the twoshared a promising look before parting ways. He honoredhis father’s wish by spreading his coffee-canned ashes at the top of the Himalayas, and broke up with his lame fiancé, who,upon hearing she might lose Eli at any moment, chose that very momentto lose him. So I guess he didn’t really break up with his fiancé; I justwanted it to happen so that he’d go eat pot brownies with Beth. But theend, well, according to Eli, ”that’s just the beginning.” I felt waytoo, Eli. In fact, I have a feeling we will spending a lot of Thursdaynights together. Have you met my other friend, Ally McBeal? You should.You two are soul mates.
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Oh Gretchen…as Jerry Maguire himself would’ve probably pointed out, it wasn’t a memo he wrote…it was more of a mission statement.
Gotta love the “You can’t break up with me – I”m dumping YOU” mentality..How grade 10.
Also, I honestly had no idea whether or not you actually liked this show until a few sentences before the end where you say you’ll be spending Thursday nights with him…so, thumb up then?
I believe the “o” in Stone is tilted so it looks like a halo.
I think the tilted “O” is supposed be like a halo…
I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised by this show. Maybe I’m just a cheese-lover, but the parts with George Michael cracked me up to no end. I also loved Beth’s delivery when Eli asked her if the boy was his “Yes. I was pregnant for about 8 years.” I will definitely give this show another watch.
He’s a lawyer in San Francisco, not L.A.
It’s not a tilted “o”– it’s a halo.
I’m a big George Michael fan (no comments) so when I saw the preview, I just had to watch this…and was pleasantly suprised!! I will watch it again next week!
Can’t watch George Michael; ergo can’t watch Eli Stone.
Gretchen, your review is so dense — how could you possibly miss the point of this show? The first reason to watch the pilot, and again, is simple: JONNY LEE MLLER IS SCORCHINGLY HOT. Reason #2: and they showed him in his PJ bottoms. There. Saved you 500 words.
I liked the show. Of course, I’ll watch again just to see Dr.(not)Chen, he’s great.
At first I felt manipulated by no commercials for 15 minutes after Lost to suck me in – BUT – it worked. When we finally got to the first commercial, my husband said WTH let’s stay up til 11 (Eek!) – I like it. We will definitely watch it again. However (note to ABC) if you suck me in then pull it after 3 episodes (which it probably won’t due to the strike) I will be very angry. Anyone remember The Nine and Eyes? Good shows yanked before their time I thought.
I was pleasantly surprised…and its hard to pass up Jonny Lee Miller!
I enjoyed it and will watch it again. However, doesn’t he live in SF? He was on a cable car with his dad and there was one in the middle of the lobby.
Loved it! I hope we see more of Tom Cavanaugh. When will they ever release ED on DVD?!?
Johnny Lee Miller is hot, but aside from that, I enjoyed the episode on its own merits. Though I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it quite so much if Johnny Lee Miller hadn’t been in it.
Also, I hate it when Victor Garber plays jerks, cuz I instinctively love him. And he always plays jerks! But he does it so well it makes me love him more.
OH, and Loretta Devine may be playing “the sassy black lady”, but she’s got it down…so funny!
Lose the fiancée, Eli.
Oh, Patty…I miss “Eyes” still too!
Um, it was a “mission statement”, not a memo!!!
Fresh TV, and Jonny Lee Miller… Enough said, I’ll be there !
He has visions of George Michael videos and he’s engaged to a woman?
Maybe the O is tilted because he’s a little “off…”
I wish Stone would just hook up with Dan Vasser of Journeyman and open a firm. This show will help ease the pain of Journeyman ending, though this is a bit more fanciful. One question, is Jonny Lee Miller balding in real life?
Kind of reminded me of that Travolta movie where he had that brain thing called “astrocytoma” or something like that. He became very prophet like.In any case, Eli Stone was very good and I will continue to watch.
I have to admit that I only kept this show on to see the Oceanic Air commercial after watching the season premiere of Lost. But I found myself getting sucked into the show and plan on watching it again. I love Victor Garber and every time they started playing “Faith” I started cracking up. And with so few new shows to watch I figure why not give this one a chance?
This show was awesome!
Eli is awesome!
Victor Garber is love
Patti is hilarious!
He is so handsome. he posted his personal ad on a celebrities dating site called “Searching Millionaire dot com”. I just visited his profile page. Seems he is very popular there.
Loved it-they need to bring back Laura Benanti-he had a lot more chemistry with her than with Natasha Henstridge.
The previews are an unvarnished appeal to homosexual viewers. “Stone’s” extremely polished dress and appearance would make him at least “metro”, and George Michael’s appearances push it completely over the edge. Without watching the show, the undercurrent is to make a silk purse (acceptability) out of a sow’s ear (perversion – and George Michael is the absolute epitome of that).
I can’t believe your review didn’t acknowledge the huge controversy over this show. There have been articles in the NY Times and on CNN about this episode. The American Medical Association tried to get ABC to pull the episode. The controversy was the message that people should not vaccinate their children because they believe there is a risk of autism. Studies have shown that there is no connection between autism and vaccines. Autism existed before vaccines and the preservative people thought was connected isn’t used anymore, there’s still autism. So please vaccinate your children and consider that the researchers looking at genetic theories of autism are on the right track.