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Eli Stone

Eli Stone is an American television comedy-drama created by Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, who also serve as executive producers alongside Ken Olin who directed the pilot, with Melissa Berman producing.

The show stars Jonny Lee Miller in the title role of attorney Eli Stone. In the first episode, Stone is discovered to have an inoperable brain aneurysm which is causing hallucinations. His acupuncturist, Dr. Chen, suggests that his hallucinations are actually divinely inspired visions of the future. These visions often predict future cases and events, including an impending earthquake.

Produced by ABC Studios, After Portsmouth and Berlanti Television, the series was officially greenlit and given a thirteen-episode order on May 11, 2007, and it aired as a mid-season replacement in 2008. It also aired on Channel Seven in Australia, M-Net in South Africa, CTV in Canada,, Antena 3 in Spain and on AXN in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Sony in Latin America, ProSieben in Germany, FOX Life in Portugal and TV2 in New Zealand. In Poland, the show premiered on September 8, 2008 on Fox Life. Eli Stone premiered on January 31, 2008 at 10 PM Eastern/9 PM Central, following the return of Lost; its first season finale aired April 17, 2008.

On May 13, 2008, ABC officially announced that the show had been renewed for the 2008-09 season. Moreover, in Canada, CTVglobemedia announced that they will send down the series to CTV's relaunched "A" television system for the 2008-2009 season. Season two will premiere on Tuesday, October 14 at 10 PM Eastern/9 PM Central.

Premise

Greg Berlanti, who co-writes the show with Marc Guggenheim, described Eli Stone in Variety as "a Field of Dreams-type drama set in a law firm where a thirty-something attorney, whose name is the title of the show, begins having larger-than-life visions that compel him to do out-of-the-ordinary things. Eli suffers from an inoperable brain aneurysm that causes him to have realistic hallucinations which often relate to the plot of that episode, and he may in fact be a modern day prophet.

Pop singer George Michael has figured prominently throughout the series, and each episode has been named after a song of his. Berlanti is a fan of Michael and tried hard to get him to appear on the show, and it turned out that Michael is a TV junkie. This led to the singer agreeing to do several episodes, including one in which Stone represents him in the case of a teen girl who plays the song "I Want Your Sex" in protest of an abstinence-only sex education program in her school.

The show's legal setting, mixture of comedy and drama, and use of fantasy sequences has drawn comparisons to the series Ally McBeal from some critics.

Autism controversy

The debut episode attracted controversy due to its plot line, which depicts the hypothesis that autism is caused by a mercury-based preservative formerly used in common childhood vaccines, and treats the hypothesis as being credible and legally compelling. This hypothesis is not supported by scientific evidence, but has contributed to decreased vaccination rates that endanger children. The American Academy of Pediatrics asked ABC to either cancel the episode or include a disclaimer emphasizing that mercury is not used in routine childhood vaccines, and that no scientific link exists between vaccines and autism. ABC instead decided to present a written notice and voice-over after the episode saying "The preceding story is fictional and does not portray any actual persons, companies, products or events", with a second card directing viewers to the autism web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cast

Jonny Lee Miller - Eli Stone
Natasha Henstridge - Taylor Wethersby
Loretta Devine - Patti Dellacroix
Matt Letscher - Nathan Stone
Sam Jaeger - Matt Dowd
James Saito - Dr. Chen
Julie Gonzalo - Maggie Dekker
Victor Garber - Jordan Wethersby

Recurring Characters

Laura Benanti - Beth Keller
Jason Winston George - Keith Bennett
Tom Amandes - Martin Posner
Tom Cavanagh - Mr. Stone
George Michael - as himself

Episodes

DVD Release

On September 2, 2008, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the complete first season of Eli Stone on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time.