'Eli Stone': A supernatural comedic legal drama?
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A shark San Francisco lawyer sees strange visions, is diagnosed with an inoperable brain aneurysm and suddenly changes his ways, helping his little-guy clients.

Is it because of his illness, or is Eli Stone (premiering Thursday, 10 ET/PT) a modern-day prophet used by God to effect social change?

That's one mystery for ABC's newest comedic legal drama, starring Jonny Lee Miller as the attorney with those strange hallucinations — including a crooning '80s pop star, George Michael.

No matter to those clients, including a soldier home from Iraq fighting a custody battle; a farm-worker couple complaining that pesticides caused sterility; and a woman claiming vaccine preservatives caused her son's autism.

Eli's spiritual bent is unusual in prime-time TV, an aspect that attracted ABC's interest.

"Spirituality felt like a cultural phenomenon right now; people are talking about transformation," says co-creator Greg Berlanti. Eli is "more like an Old Testament prophet who was really a crusader for social justice."

Yet too often, "religion and spirituality have been co-opted for political purposes," says co-creator Marc Guggenheim. "The message of the series is that everyone is a spiritual person, even atheists."

Says Berlanti: "A lot of prophets were crusaders for social justice; they had nothing to do with religion. We decided to let Eli be that Don Quixote character, that lawyer everybody wished they had in their corner to take on powers greater than their own."

The show has whimsical touches. Michael appears as himself in four episodes as part of Eli's visions and, in one, as a client. Other characters appear in brief singing and dancing scenes, and the show offers visual tricks, including Eli dodging a biplane coming at him on the street, seen only to him. Though the visions are a mystery to Eli, their meaning becomes clearer as they help him help his clients.

Some viewers will instantly compare the blend of fantasy and law with Ally McBeal, and producers acknowledge a debt to that David E. Kelley series along with his Picket Fences and The Practice, where Guggenheim got his TV start after five years as a Boston lawyer. "I don't think you can do a law show with humor now without it being a descendant" of Ally, says Berlanti, who until now has focused on emotional family dramas such as Everwood and Brothers & Sisters.

But Guggenheim believes Ally rode off the rails when the "zaniness started to overtake the heart and romance" of the show.

Eli is more concerned with "the human condition; it just happens to be set in a law office," says Victor Garber, who plays Eli's boss, Jordan Wethersby. "It's about how a crisis in someone's life affects everyone around him."

Among them are Jordan's daughter Taylor (Natasha Henstridge), who is Eli's fiancée; assistant Patti (Loretta Devine), who quickly learns of his malady; his brother Nathan (Matt Letscher), a neurologist who diagnoses him; Dr. Chen (James Saito), a Chinese acupuncturist who makes sense of his visions; and an idealistic protegée, Maggie (Julie Gonzalo). A recurring mystery is the death of Eli's dad, played in flashback by Tom Cavanagh (Ed).

Garber says the show succeeds creatively largely due to Miller, 35, a British actor (and ex-husband of Angelina Jolie) who has had a limited presence in the USA, most recently in last season's short-lived CBS crime drama Smith. "He has a kind of self-awareness and egoless quality about him that makes him compelling to watch."

Garber has seen his share of legal roles, including Fox casualty Justice. "I didn't need to play another lawyer," he says. But, for an actor with a Broadway background, "a lawyer who bursts out into song? A George Michael song? That's up my alley."

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Gotta have faith: Jonny Lee Miller, left, sees a vision of George Michael in one of Eli Stone's whimsical scenes.