Miracles

Miracles

A horror series that aired on ABC in 2003.

The Set-Up: Daddy-obsessed, Church-sanctioned miracle investigator Skeet Ulrich decides to take time off from the church – having lost his faith. He moves to the desert and gets a job building houses. He’s recruited for one last investigation. Tommy Ferguson, a kid who mysteriously heals people. The catch, every time the kid heals someone, he himself gets sicker.

Skeet is then in a terrible accident. As Tommy heals him, Skeet notices his own blood spelling out the words, “God is now here.” He is contacted by creepy table-thumping Angus Macfadyen and some chick whose name I don’t remember. He tells Skeet that six other people experienced the same thing – only they saw the words, “God is nowhere.” Skeet joins their non-profit (because no one ever pays them?) ghost-busting group called Sodalitas Quarito.

It turns out Skeet is “special . . . but he’s also vulnerable to things like this.”

Typical episode: Something really fucking weird happens. The gang is called in. Skeet flirts with a cute girl. The gang comes up with a theory for the weirdness. No one believes the gang. Somebody beats up Skeet. The gang realizes that they were slightly wrong about the supernatural weirdness and show up just in time to see the supernatural weirdness work itself out.

The style: Somewhere between The X-Files and Supernatural.

Typical Dialogue: “I think the dark is its own thing, too. I think it can do stuff. And sometimes I think it wants something.”

More Dialogue: “I wish I had an explanation for that, but I don’t.”

My Favorite Dialogue: “You ever hear a horse scream?”

Special Guest Star: Gloria Stuart. She’s really good in a mediocre episode. Wow, she’s old. And Shannon and Bernard from LOST.

My favorite episodes:

• 1.1 “The Ferguson Syndrome” The opening scene is uber creepy – setting up a dark, menacing atmosphere for the show. The cinematography is fantastic in this opening episode, and it is beautifully shot. None of the following episodes look half as good. Skeet gets hit by a train.
  
• 1.5 “The Bone Scatterer” I first saw this episode just after seeing Mysterious Skin for the first time. What a fucking depressing day. This episode might not be as good as I give it credit for, but I find it intensely effective. Chris Marquette is excellent in it. Skeet gets hit by the sheriff.
  
• 1.6 “Hand of God” Karl from LOST (“They’re coming right now! Whaaaaagh!”) saw the same message Skeet saw. Only his interpretation was a little different. This episode throws a subversive twist into the plot of the series. Even though I liked this episode, the direction was especially lazy and ordinary. Skeet gets hit by an iron.
  
• 1.11 “The Ghost” All the issues meshed into one episode for your convenience. Parent/child issue? Check. Someone’s faith is rewarded, but not? Check. And the direction in this episode is really good. Skeet gets hit by a lamp.
  

Special mention:

• 1.7 “You Are My Sunshine” is a poorly written episode. However, it has one of the funniest edits I’ve ever seen in a show. That one moment nearly makes up for the rest of the episode. Skeet gets hit by a girl.
  

My Least favorite:

• 1.2 “The Patient” Too much flirting, not enough ghost busting. Too many tinkling pianos. And the silly twist ending . . . gross. The guy who wrote this episode, also wrote my least favorite episode of Profit.
  
• 1.10 “Saint Debbie” Sample dialogue “There’s your miracle.” Ugh. The town people rally together. And perhaps the most inappropriate musical cue ever. Almost good, then completely botched.
  

How many episodes were produced? 13. But ABC has a habit of only airing 6 of any given one season wonder.

Was there much continuity? Almost all the previously-ons feature the same snippets of dialogue from the pilot – giving the illusion of serialization (“Everybody has a dad. I just never knew mine.”). In reality, there is very little continuation from one episode to the next. The first, sixth, and the final episodes are the only ones that directly deal with a larger “mythology.” The final episode only recalls the mythology, more than it deals with it.

Tommy vanishes for long stretches at a time. In the final episode, Skeet seeks help because he is being haunted by Tommy, but Tommy hasn’t shown up since episode three or four.

Skeet often claims he’ll keep in touch with someone, but they are never heard from again.

In “Hand of God,” Skeet is faced with the idea that it is his divine purpose to hunt down and kill four people. This is mentioned in passing only once more.

Why was it canceled? The Invasion – I mean liberation – of Iraq. As a result of the extensive coverage of the war, Miracles kept getting shuffled around. Supposedly, even avid fans couldn’t keep up with the airings.

Was there closure? The final episode gives closure to Skeet’s relationship with Dead Tommy, although I was unaware this was an issue until the last episode.

However, in the final scene of the series, there is a scene that “caps” the series off so to speak. It’s a cool development, but I have no fucking clue what it means. Clearly there was more to come.

Any unattended issues: Skeet never catches up with his daddy, whose significance is never revealed. And we never learn about the “darkness” or the final three that Karl from LOST was going on about.

What was the meaning behind Skeet’s vision(s)? We’ll never know, and since the show is generally ambiguous, I don’t feel the need to know. But clearly there was more to this mystery that is left blatantly undeveloped.

I’m left curious about where the show was planning to go.

The verdict:
Before buying this DVD, I did as much research as I could, since I didn’t want to buy some Highway to Heaven/Touched by an Angel knockoff , but with more blood. To the show’s credit, it’s not. It never comes down either way regarding God or religion. In one episode, Skeet awkwardly describes heaven to a child as a place where all the houses are filled with clowns. “But I don’t like clowns.” “Well, they’re really more like performance artists.” It’s mostly a monster-of-the-week kind of show, with faint developments here and there.

The pilot shares more than few qualities with Carnivale – including a rainstorm of blood. But after that, the series settles in for fairly predictable plots. The show is bleak and creepy most of the time, but as it progresses, it gets less and less stylish. Sometimes the show is compelling and eerie. Sometimes painfully trite.

The plotting is often a little lazy. Macfadyen’s dialogue is regularly ridiculous. The other chick in the group is kinda useless. Except she’s got a bullet in her head (mentioned only once) and she continually delivers the clunkiest, touchy-feeliest dialogue. Skeet mostly underplays his part – very well. Kind of a sleepy performance. Meanwhile Macfadyen comes off as a spastic shit in comparison.

The parent/child issues are omnipresent and help the show consistently tap into emotionally resonant mysteries. The show is often preachy, but not about religion and not in a way that’s out of character for the speaker. Ultimately, the show never breaks out of its formula, but it does subvert it nicely. It surprises me with how good it is, only to drop the ball and suck. Just when I give up on it, it gets good again. In the end, Miracles feels somewhere in the middle. It has strong moments, but overall, it’s a little weak. If more attention had been spent on the “darkness” subplot, it would have been a hell of a lot more interesting.

Miracles Prediction: I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me sooner, but clearly Skeet’s father was going to turn out to be one of those he would have to kill . . . probably.