Eli Stone: Patience
By fred | April 11, 2008
(S01E11) Thursday night was all about comedy, and the NBC comedies being back, but as every Thursday night for a few weeks now, it always ends up with another episode of Eli Stone, a really fun show that I didn’t really like that much at first, but because it got better I had no choice but to finally fall for it.
And if in the past few weeks it hasn’t done as good as one might have hoped, (doesn’t help to get poor-performing reruns as lead-in, of course,) that doesn’t mean the episodes themselves haven’t been great, they really have, and there’s still a little chance that it will get renewed for a second season.
While the show has evolved and gotten better over time, there’s no question about that, and despite the obvious “clue” this episode gave us indicating that most likely writers might have an idea of where they’re intending to go with it, I couldn’t help but wondering if this show maybe lacked a clear vision of what it was, and what it was not.
I’ll explain what I mean : I thought the whole case with the chimps was nothing but pathetic and incredibly silly. No, not silly, plain stupid actually. There is just no way we should be getting a trial about some gay chimps, not in this show. I could have totally see that happening on Ally McBeal, a show which often - at first - has been used to describe Eli Stone.
But the two are (or have become) extremely and completely different. Because Ally was living in her own crazy world, a world where she would dance to music no one could hear, a world where she would see dancing baby running around, a world filled with craziness and unusual things, but it wasn’t her. Or, it wasn’t just her. Everyone was “crazy”. It’s not just the Biscuit, it’s everyone. It was a show where they had everyone going out and having fun in a bar where Barry White would come and sing, it was a world where lawyers used their shoes or nose to make a point, it was a world where judges asked to see the lawyers’ teeth before making any decisions.
Things were crazy, but it was the show, and it was why we loved it so much. But that was never the case in Eli Stone. Here, everyone in out in the “real” world, no one sees dancing babies, no judge would ask to see anyone’s teeth, and no one can practice lawyer as a child. Here, even Eli himself isn’t crazy, not on that way. He just happens to have a brain aneurysm, and that means he sometimes has moments where he goes to “another reality”, he’s sucked into a vision.
But other than that, he’s just a normal guy, living in the real world, like anyone else in the firm or on the show. It’s not the same as with Ally McBeal, and that’s why Ally could have had a case about a couple of gay chimps had been separated, that’s why she could have had one of the chimp to actually testify, but not here, not on Eli Stone. No, here it just doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t fit, it’s just stupid.
This show was not done that way, it was never going the crazy way, and so it can’t just have that, it just can’t work, not for me, I can’t. When Taylor asked to have a chimp on the stand, everyone should have laughed at her and that was it. Actually, things should have never gotten that far to begin with.
That whole plot was stupid and really had me worried whether or not they actually realized what kind of show they made so far, because it not a the one where you ask questions to a chimp. It doesn’t mean that Eli Stone isn’t as good as Ally McBeal, or that it’s better, just that they’re different.
Also, for Matt to go and ask Eli for tips on how to date his ex-fiancée, and for him not to realize Eli make using him - and by that I mean obviously lying to him, only proves that Matt isn’t that smarter that Maggie, really. And I’m not sure I like this relationship, but at least it didn’t make me throw up.
