Eli Stone
ABC | Release Date: January 31, 2008
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
9
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: Eli Stone offers a well-stirred mix of character comedy, relationship drama, legal cases and musical numbers. Read full review
91
TV Guide MagazineMatt Roush
Season 2 Review: As leaps of faith go, yes. And faith--in visions both magical and musical--has everything to do with Eli Stone's divine appeal. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker
Season 1 Review: With these superb supporting players [Victor Garber, Tom Amandes, and Loretta Devine] helping drain away any potential drippiness from the show's magical-realist trappings, Eli Stone proves as solid as a rock. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyTim Stack
Season 2 Review: In this warm, charming episode, the underappreciated legal show proves it's still fit to practice. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterBarry Garron
Season 1 Review: There's a strong supporting cast, including Loretta Devine as Stone's no-nonsense secretary, but the big attraction is Miller's Stone and his transformation from heartless corporate lawyer to protector of the little guy. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineMatt Roush
Season 1 Review: Adorably quirky and emotionally surprising, Eli Stone is a legal drama the same way Pushing Daisies (how I miss it) is a mere whodunit. Read full review
80
Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
Season 1 Review: It's hard to say which is more unlikely: That a corporate legal fang could be God's prophet; or that the Almighty would spread His word through visions of George Michael; or these matters could be blended into a daffily funny and affecting television show. Read full review
80
San Jose Mercury News/Contra Costa TimesCharlie McCollum
Season 1 Review: Effortlessly mixing drama and wit, mysticism and biting social commentary, there is a real glow to Eli Stone that will brighten your day and lift your spirits. That is a very rare thing on television. Read full review
80
The New York TimesGinia Bellafante
Season 1 Review: There’s a cynicism balancing the upbeat goofiness of Eli Stone. Read full review
80
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 2 Review: A quality series that's the TV equivalent of comfort food, the emergence of Eli Stone from the Hollywood firmament may qualify as a minor miracle among more cynical viewers. Read full review
75
New York PostLinda Stasi
Season 1 Review: Lots of fun. The acting and comic timing, when called for, are tremendous - and Miller's got the heft to carry it off. Read full review
75
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 1 Review: It's hard not to like a show that extends its warmth even to characters you expect to be unsympathetic and that expands its entertainment vocabulary to music, dancing and flights of fancy. Read full review
75
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 2 Review: For now, let's leave concerns for the future to Eli. In the present, things are looking good. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 2 Review: Like most ABC shows, Eli Stone could stand to prune its cast and deepen its writing. But that's focusing on the glass half empty. So let's just be glad that this good-hearted show made it through the previous TV season and "Big Shots" didn't. Read full review
70
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: It's a formula nevertheless--one that renders Eli Stone engaging but not fully involving, particularly once the vision/trial/puzzled-looks-from-colleagues ground rules are established, based on a sampling of two subsequent hours. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd
Season 1 Review: What makes the show worth watching are some old-fashioned character relationships; no single performance tears up the place, but together they make something interesting. Read full review
70
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: Eli Stone, lightweight and proudly quirky. Read full review
70
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: Eli Stone is not quite there yet; the characters are pretty thinly drawn in the first few episodes, and the law cases seem heavily tilted toward the "little guy" side. Read full review
70
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 2 Review: Eli is hard not to like, whether or not you buy him as a prophet. Read full review
67
NewsdayVerne Gay
Season 2 Review: Interesting detours, and a worthy show--but at times just a smidgen too self-righteous and melodramatic. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyRobert Abele
Season 1 Review: Eli Stone is another lawyer hour disguised as feel-good rehabilitation fluff, with Eli now compelled to use his sharklike courtroom mojo to take up the causes of wronged underdogs against the kinds of heartless corporate clients his blue-chip firm typically represents. Read full review
60
Washington PostTom Shales
Season 1 Review: Maybe it should be considered substitute programming, until more solid and substantial dramas return. On that level, it doesn't totally blow, bro; it's actually quite tolerable. Read full review
60
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 2 Review: A show with such a weird mix of tones and subject matters needs a strong cast to even have a hope of working, and for the most part, the ensemble remains sturdy. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Season 1 Review: Though Berlanti doesn't always get the balance right and there's no telling whether people will glom onto Eli the way they did Ally, having seen three episodes and been entertained through most of them is saying something, at least. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley
Season 1 Review: Eli Stone is uneven and seems uncertain about what it wants to be when it grows up, it has rather endearing moments. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesDoug Elfman
Season 1 Review: The tone of this odd show (created by Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, and initially directed by Ken Olin) is both sweet and wacky, as if it were made by David E. Kelley, he of "Ally McBeal." But it's missing something. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 2 Review: The series as a whole has a much better sense of itself, and a more confident tone, since Eli, his colleagues, and the viewers all understand that the guy is in fact a visionary. The coyness of season one is gone. The show, cocreated by Greg Berlanti, nonetheless falls short of being destination television. Read full review
40
SalonHeather Havrilesky
Season 1 Review: Sadly, no matter how spunky and weird Eli Stone might be at times, at its heart it's Slick Yuppie Lawyer Makes Good, for the millionth time over. Read full review
40
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: Despite a good cast led by Jonny Lee Miller as Eli, and despite the happy San Francisco setting, Eli Stone is a bag of too-familiar tricks. Read full review
30
NewsdayDiane Werts
Season 1 Review: Eli Stone is fated to flounder. Read full review
30
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm
Season 1 Review: It's not the worst thing you've ever seen, innocuous entertainment (despite the inoculation controversy) that, like Boston Legal, includes the occasional entertaining musical number. Read full review
30
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: Eli/Ally not only isn't the most original character of the season, he's not the most sharply defined, either. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalDorothy Rabinowitz
Season 1 Review: The main deadly force in Eli Stone is its scripts, which are ever so spritely in tone, ever so dumb in essence. Read full review
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