eli stone

If you were to cast Johnny Lee Miller in a new television series, wouldn’t you want to take advantage of his British accent and rakish good looks? I suppose you can’t if that series is about a straitlaced San Francisco lawyer, but it doesn’t hurt to daydream about the Miller of Trainspotting and Hackers while you’re watching him play Eli Stone. If you haven’t already seen one of the many, many commercials from the show, it’s about a young lawyer whose life is interrupted when he starts having strange visions and interpreting them as messages from God. He uses these messages to help other people – much to the chagrin of his snide boss and selectively distant fiancée (played by Natasha Henstridge).

Eli Stone is not wildly fantastic TV, but it is heartfelt and easy to watch. When the cases Eli is trying fall flat and you find yourself getting distracted, Miller makes some broken facial expression and your sympathies swell. In the pilot, he receives life-altering news with his CAT scan results, and his fiancée chooses that moment to question her commitment to their relationship. Heartbreaking enough on its own, the look on Miller’s face is enough to make you take a hit out of Henstridge. Is this how it went down with Angelina, Johnny?

Miller reads these scripts well. He can tell when his audience is vulnerable to loosing interest, and he really turns it up. I’m not sold on the show, but I’m sold on him. You can read my full review over at Metromix.

Eli Stone premieres Thursday at 10pm on ABC