Family

Christina and I finished watching Eli Stone a few weeks ago. It’s a TV show, which ran from 2008 to 2009 (nearly 20 years ago!) and which is described on IMDB as “San Francisco lawyer Eli Stone begins to see things, which leads him to discover a brain aneurysm. But his visions lead him to accept cases with little monetary gain but a lot of moral goodness.”

I do not know how Eli Stone came on our radar but we’re glad we watched it as it’s full of “moral goodness” which basically does not exist anymore these days. In some ways, it’s a very dated show but it is also about how things need to be again if we want to live in a saner way. It’s worth watching in 2026.

Eli Stone (played by Jonny Lee Miller) is an initially typical lawyer who suddenly gets a brain aneurysm which makes him have visions of the future but also makes him a good person. During the show, he discovers Maggie Dekker (played brilliantly and beautifully by Julie Gonzalo) who, like him, is also a lawyer and a very good person.

At the beginning of the show, Eli Stone is engaged to Taylor Wethersby (played by the sculptural Natasha Henstridge) but, following the brain aneurysm, realise that they don’t belong to each other. They decide to remain friends. Taylor discovers Matt Dowd (played by Sam Jaeger), another lawyer in the firm and, initially, the arch enemy of Eli Stone, and they fall in love. But Eli’s influence is strong and, as the show evolve, Eli and Matt become good friends as Matt is also transformed into a good person.

Jordan Wethersby (played by Victor Garber) owns the lawyer firms and is the father of Taylor Wethersby. He is ruthless but also has a compassionate heart. Patti Dellacroix (played by Loretta Devine) is Eli Stone’s personal assistant and is the voice of reason which sometimes prevents Eli from doing too many stupid things out of kindness. She’s also a good person.

Nathan Stone (played by Matt Letscher) and Frank Chen (played by James Saito) are two important support characters. Nathan is Eli’s brother and he is also a doctor who discovers the brain aneurysm. Frank is an acupuncturist who helps Eli to interprete his visions.

Jeremy Stone (played by Tom Cavanagh) is Eli’s and Nathan’s dead father. But he keeps appearing in Eli’s visions. He also had a brain aneurysm which, eventually, caused his death. He is an important character who (with a good dose of suspension of disbelief) explains what is happening with Eli.

Finally, George Michael also plays a very important role in the TV show. He appears at important times and even gives a concert for free during one of the episodes. When I was at high-school, I loved his 1987 album, Faith, with fantastic songs such as I Want Your Sex (which he explains the meaning during one episode of the TV show), Father Figure, Monkey, Kissing A Fool and, of course, the amazing Faith song as well.

Christina and I have just finished watching the last episode Travelers, described on IMDb as “Hundreds of years from now, surviving humans discover how to send consciousness back through time, into people of the 21st century, while attempting to change the path of humanity.”

During the three riveting seasons, I started to grasp that, in essence, Travelers was about the difficulty for people coming from the future to respect the protocols they had been ordered to adhere to:

• Protocol 1: The mission comes first.
• Protocol 2: Never jeopardize your cover.
• Protocol 3: Don’t take a life; don’t save a life, unless otherwise directed. Do not interfere.
• Protocol 4: Do not reproduce.
• Protocol 5: In the absence of direction, maintain your host’s life.
• Protocol 6: No inter-team/deep web communication except in extreme emergencies or when sanctioned.

Interestingly, given that travelers from the future are still human beings, Protocol 4 is one of the most difficult protocols to follow. Sure, it is easy not to reproduce but it is very difficult not to develop feelings for someone else and, hence, have this natural urge to build something together.

In other words, for me, Travelers is an interesting exercise in exploring the dynamics of different kinds of couples, especially when one partner is from now and the other one from the future (and has taken the body of the original partner).

The couples

The first and most adorable couple by far is Marcy Warton (played by MacKenzie Porter, a well-known Canadian actress and singer) and David Mailer (by Patrick Gilmore). As Marcy would say at the end, David is the most decent human being of them all. From the first sight of “new” Marcy to the last, David is in awe and is in love.

The second couple is Kathryn MacLaren and Grant MacLaren, respectively portrayed by Leah Cairns and Eric McCormack. Grant is the boss of the team of travelers and Kathryn, Kat, is his wife, who, little by little, come to realise that Grant is not the Grant she knew before. A couple goes beyond just looks.

The third “couple” is quite atypical. Trevor Holden (by Jared Abrahamson) is the oldest of the group of travelers but is sent in the past in the body of a young high-school athlete. He is the old wise man. Initially, he has a young girlfriend, Rene Bellamy (by Alyssa Lynch) who Trevor nicely lets go and, later, he falls in love with the older Grace Day (by Jennifer Spence), a programmer from the future.

Philip Pearson (portrayed by Reilly Dolman) is unfortunately sent into the body of a heroin addict and a large part of the story is about him getting help to become sober. Initially, Marcy, as a medic, is the one helping him but, at one point, Jenny (by Stephanie Bennett) is sent from the future with a miracle cure… which is unfortunately abused by Philip.

Carly Shannon (played by Nesta Cooper) is the tactician aka bad ass from the future. Unfortunately for her, she comes in the body of a woman whose husband, Jeff Conniker (by J. Alex Brinson) is a violent husband and a cop too. Of course, she beats the hell out of him but, during the show, another conscience is sent to Jeff’s body and things become good… until things become bad again.

A last note about a multidisciplinary artist

MacKenzie Porter is a great actress who plays the adorable and beautiful Marcy Warton. She is a very good singer too and she has a number of her songs on her YouTube channel. One example is: