Eli Stone Fodder

Review: Something To Save

The Good

It was a stroke of genius to incorporate performance enhancing drugs into the show. For those of you who didn’t catch the last episode, Keith and Matt are representing a client who is a professional baseball player who killed one of the team coaches with a foul ball. The district attorney is willing to drop the charges if the athlete admits to using performance enhancing drugs. The case didn’t conclude during this episode which left a nice cliff hanger for next week. It was interesting to see Jordan turn on Eli when he unofficially fired him by taking all of his clients away and kicking him out of his office.

The Bad

I mentioned my frustration last week at how Dr. Chen’s role seems to have dwindled a bit. Connie, TV Fodder’s resident wizard, reasoned that James Saito, the actor who plays Dr. Chen, was leaving to work on another show. It seems that Connie may unfortunately be correct. Even though a connection was revealed between Dr .Chen and Eli’s father, Chen is apparently being replaced by an unknown psychiatrist whom Eli needs to see in order to keep his law license. While Dr. Chen may not leave yet, he could very easily be replaced by this shrink as the mentor/guide persona. Visions will be transformed into memories and the results will be the same, albeit from a psychological rather than alternative and holistic perspective. Dr. Chen is a strong character with plenty of potential growth and while this is a business and actors come and go, it would certainly be a shame if Dr. Chen/James Saito left “Eli Stone”.

The Ugly

While the steroids storyline is rather promising, it is somewhat distasteful because of its not so subtle comparison. The actor playing the baseball player resembles the controversial Barry Bonds. Bonds, for those of you who aren’t fans of America’s past time, has been accused of cheating via steroids and for lying under oath in front of the United States Congress. The crack about head size from the assistant D.A. during the episode is parallel to the ongoing joke about how Bonds’ head size has almost doubled since he supposedly started using performance enhancing substances. While the storyline is sound, it could have and should have been written with a little more respect to a person and a situation that hasn’t reached its conclusion.

Sadly, this is my final post for TV Fodder. I would like to take the opportunity to thank Mac, Rachel, Connie and the rest of the Fodder staff for making my time here a great experience that I will not soon forget.

Good luck to all of you and much success in all your endeavors.

Cheers,

Ozzy

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Posted by Ozzy on March 7, 2008 8:49 PM
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