If you saw an episode of "Journeyman" and didn't like it, you won't like this. It's about a pompous lawyer (Johnny Lee Miller from Trainspotting), who considers the "Holy Trinity" to be Armani, accessories (cars), and ambition. He's got his cushy job, corner office, sassy personal assistant (Loretta Devine from "Grey's Anatomy"), and a hot fiancee (Natasha Henstridge from The Whole Ten Yards). But then one day, while consulting on a lawsuit concerning a drug that caused a child to develop autism, he starts to hear the George Michael song "You Gotta Have Faith." After a few instances of asking everyone he meets if they hear the music too, he resolves to going to an acupuncturist like his secretary suggests.
After Dr. Chen sticks a needle in his forehead, Eli remembers that he lost his virginity to that song...and he lost it to the woman whose son developed autism. Now the music makes sense. His law firm tried to appease her by giving her thousands of dollars in compensation, but what she really wanted was for them to discontinue the product so that no one else's child would be affected. She begs him to take her case and when he goes over to her house and sees her son building a wall out of toy alphabet bricks, he sees that the boys subconsciously wrote something like "George Michael says have faith." So he accepts her offer. He also decides to ask his doctor brother Nathan (Matt Letscher from "Joey") to give him a brain scan, which gives his brother the opportunity to goof off, saying "You have conjoined butts in your cranium, it makes you a double butthead." Nice one.
Later on, he has dinner with his fiancee and her dad (Victor Garber from "Alias"), who happens to be his jerk of a boss who refuses to compensate the autism client. He goes onto the balcony to clear his head and somehow he ends up in a vision where he's on the edge of a mountain with a can of coffee. Then he wakes up to his fiancee and his brother begging him not to jump, because apparently he was on the edge of the balcony. Woops. Afterwards, Eli starts hearing a trolley bell, so he goes back to Dr. Chen who sticks the needle back in his forehead and pulls out the memory of when Eli rode a trolley with his drunken dad. His brother calls him back to tell him the results of his scan and reveals that he, like their dad, has a ticking time bomb in their head, an aneurysm, that causes the visions and audible hallucinations. There's a chance his dad had the same "gift." His lovely girlfriend chooses this time to tell him that she's not sure if they should get married.
He goes back to Dr. Chen to tell him about his condition, and good old Chen dropped his fake Asian accent and then fessed up to his actual background, which was pretty funny. But then they got some beers and talked out Eli's issues. In the end, he resolves to go to that mountain, which he remembers from a postcard his dad gave him, and spread his dad's ashes per his request. His mom delivers the ashes to the court house in a coffee can like in the vision. After all the mushiness subsides, he pleads to the jury to forgo the fact that there isn't much evidence to substantiate his client's claim and just have enough faith to choose his side. He wins the case.
After Dr. Chen sticks a needle in his forehead, Eli remembers that he lost his virginity to that song...and he lost it to the woman whose son developed autism. Now the music makes sense. His law firm tried to appease her by giving her thousands of dollars in compensation, but what she really wanted was for them to discontinue the product so that no one else's child would be affected. She begs him to take her case and when he goes over to her house and sees her son building a wall out of toy alphabet bricks, he sees that the boys subconsciously wrote something like "George Michael says have faith." So he accepts her offer. He also decides to ask his doctor brother Nathan (Matt Letscher from "Joey") to give him a brain scan, which gives his brother the opportunity to goof off, saying "You have conjoined butts in your cranium, it makes you a double butthead." Nice one.
Later on, he has dinner with his fiancee and her dad (Victor Garber from "Alias"), who happens to be his jerk of a boss who refuses to compensate the autism client. He goes onto the balcony to clear his head and somehow he ends up in a vision where he's on the edge of a mountain with a can of coffee. Then he wakes up to his fiancee and his brother begging him not to jump, because apparently he was on the edge of the balcony. Woops. Afterwards, Eli starts hearing a trolley bell, so he goes back to Dr. Chen who sticks the needle back in his forehead and pulls out the memory of when Eli rode a trolley with his drunken dad. His brother calls him back to tell him the results of his scan and reveals that he, like their dad, has a ticking time bomb in their head, an aneurysm, that causes the visions and audible hallucinations. There's a chance his dad had the same "gift." His lovely girlfriend chooses this time to tell him that she's not sure if they should get married.
He goes back to Dr. Chen to tell him about his condition, and good old Chen dropped his fake Asian accent and then fessed up to his actual background, which was pretty funny. But then they got some beers and talked out Eli's issues. In the end, he resolves to go to that mountain, which he remembers from a postcard his dad gave him, and spread his dad's ashes per his request. His mom delivers the ashes to the court house in a coffee can like in the vision. After all the mushiness subsides, he pleads to the jury to forgo the fact that there isn't much evidence to substantiate his client's claim and just have enough faith to choose his side. He wins the case.
The problem with this show is that Eli isn't really all that pompous to begin with, so his "reformation" is kind of weird. If anything he's just being encouraged to be proactive and to make a difference. Devine is the source of comedy. She scolds him when he yells for her, saying "There's an intercom! I swear, it's like we work in a cleaners." And she talks back to him when he orders her to stop avoiding calls and emails from his fiancee, saying: "You take all the fun out of this job." Eli, the character as a whole, is okay, but I hope he gets a different love interest, because Henstridge is rather boring. I'm interested in where the visions will take him and when--like during court--but I was also interested in that when I watched "Journeyman." So I guess after a while it might get tiresome, unless the characterization is amped up. We'll see this week, Wednesday at 10p.m.
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