tv show preview: eli stone

so many questions come to mind when i think of abc's new show eli stone...i mean, ELI STONE, which premieres tonight. for starters, what is george michael's role in this? does he play a godlike figure? or an angel perhaps? is abc actually expecting that the audience will be able to move past the fact that it's george michael and accept his character as a holy figure? i'm assuming the main character guy is a prophet, called to do something to help people in some way. how are these callings made, exactly? through george michael's music? i mean, do the musical stylings of WHAM really bring out the best in a man? i'm pretty sure the last time i was stuck listening to "Faith" i wanted to shoot somebody. also, how many times will there be a scene where prophet-guy is singing along to a george michael that nobody else can see? is this intended to be some comic relief? because i've seen it probably 30 times in commercials already and it's never been funny. nor is it funny when the prophet-guy faints or has a giant plane fly over his head.

while i was wondering who exactly will be drawn to watch this show, i remembered that abc is placing it right after their hit show Lost. this obviously makes some sense as they can probably draw in tons of viewers that otherwise wouldn't give two craps about this. however, there's also quite a bit of risk in making such a move. what percentage of abc's audience will make a lasting judgment of eli stone after that first show? and also, what percentage of that audience will be watching for no other reason than because it was on after Lost? if both of those percentages are high, and if the pilot sucks, then eli stone will walk the wide road unto death, and the initial 13 episodes is all we'll see. if the pilot is above average, then this might even last 3 seasons. my prediction lies somewhere in between: 24 episodes