Miracles (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Miracles is an American drama
television program
starring Skeet Ulrich
and Angus Macfadyen
. Created by Richard Hatem
and Michael Petroni
, the series has sometimes been dubbed a "spiritual version of The X-Files
" by its creators. Following the pilot, David Greenwalt
, co-creator of Angel
(the spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) served as the show's executive producer and head writer for the remaining twelve episodes.
Miracles follows Paul Callan, an investigator of modern miracles for the Catholic Church who questions his faith after repeatedly finding mundane explanations for various supposed phenomena. After he witnesses a true, supernatural miracle that saves his life, only for his findings to be dismissed on a lack of evidence, Paul leaves behind the Church and is approached by Alva Keel to join his organization Sodalitas Quaerito, investigating and cataloguing "unexplainable" phenomena. Along with former police officer Evelyn Santos, Paul and Alva attempt to battle the impending "darkness" before it's too late.
The series premiered as part of ABC's new "Super Monday" line-up on January 27, 2003. Six episodes were broadcast on ABC
before the series was canceled due to low ratings, with its final broadcast episode drawing just 5.7 million viewers on March 31, 2003. The series was preempted a number of times during its run, once for a rebroadcast of the documentary special Living with Michael Jackson
and various other times to air newsmagazine specials about the then-developing Iraq War. Miracles fans, angered by the cancellation and what they saw as ABC's mismanagement of the show's Monday 10:00pm timeslot, began a fan campaign to revive the show. Fans wrote messages on napkins (referencing a plot point in the pilot episode) and mailed them to various networks hoping the show would be revived by another network, however efforts were unsuccessful and the show did not continue past its initial order of thirteen episodes.
), an investigator of modern miracles for the Catholic Church at the Archdiocese of Boston, is feeling frustrated with disappointing groups of believers each time he investigates, and disproves the authenticity of supposed "miracles". Upon the advice of his mentor, Father "Poppi" Calero (Hector Elizondo
), Paul takes a sabbatical. While working in Arizona, Paul receives a phone call from Poppi asking him to investigate the case of a young boy with supposed healing powers in the nearby town of Cottonwood. Paul finally sees a true miracle when he sees that young Tommy Ferguson (Jacob Smith
) can truly heal people, but every time Tommy heals someone, his own rare disease worsens. When Paul is involved in a near fatal car accident, Tommy uses his healing power for the last time and dies healing Paul, but not before both of them see Paul's blood form itself into the words "God is Now Here" on his broken windshield.
His faith restored, Paul returns to the Church, only for the Monsignor to dismiss his report. Paul resigns out of frustration, and later discovers that Poppi never called him about Tommy Ferguson's case. Later, while at a diner, a man named Alva Keel (Angus Macfadyen
) propositions Paul with a job offer at his organisation, Sodalitas Quaerito (Latin for "Brotherhood in search of truth"). Keel tells Paul that his encounter with "hemography", blood forming itself into readable words, is part of a large, dark impending event, and has appeared to six other people in the past 25 years, only every time the message has appeared as "God is Nowhere". Paul teams up with Keel and Evelyn Santos (Marisa Ramirez
), a former police officer, to investigate his paranormal experience and discover a solution to the impending darkness.
Alva Keel and Sodalitas Quaerito interviewed the original six people who saw the "God is Nowhere" message. Chad Goodwell, who murdered five of the "God is Nowhere" witnesses, told Paul that he was told of three other witnesses to the message. He was told by Tommy Ferguson
, who referred to these people as "The Darkness".
Confirmed and named witnesses to the "God is Nowhere" message:
Confirmed witnesses to the "God is Now Here" message:
Confirmed witnesses to both messages:
was sent a screenplay in early 2001 called "Miracles", written by Michael Petroni
and owned by Spyglass Entertainment
. Hatem assumed that he was being sent the script to re-write, and the script would then be made into a feature film. Hatem recalled in "The Making of Miracles" interview on the Miracles DVD set that he was puzzled when he was sent the script to re-write, because he thought it was "pretty wonderful as it [was]". Hatem's agent later confirmed to him that Spyglass actually wanted him to use the screenplay as a jumping off point to create a one-hour television series, "a sort of 'spiritual X-Files
".
When Hatem met with executives at Spyglass, he continued a practice of bringing with him to meetings an item to use as a "good luck charm" by bringing with him the book The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism by Herbert Thurston, which Hatem says Miracles later "evolved into". Thurston was an Anglican minister who investigated spiritual phenomena during the 1920s and 1930s, when, according to Hatem, "spiritualism ("the contacting of the dead through séances and mediums") was still popular in America". Thurston's book examined which phenomena were signs from God, and which were "something else". After discussing this with Megan Wolpert and Suzanne Patmore, executives at Spyglass, Hatem says that "literally what [he] expected would be a 20-minute meeting turned into a three hour meeting, where ideas were flowing back and forth". Hatem claims the show was born "that day, in that room" in March 2001. Hatem, Wolpert, and Patmore liked the idea that a character (Paul Callan) who came from a strict religious background and was raised to believe that any strange occurrence was either a sign from God or a sign from the devil, was suddenly thrust into a world where various phenomena "crossed those boundaries", and could not be classified as "good or bad" because they had elements of both. Hatem believes this is the element that "creates the drama", and makes the show "fun and scary".
Hatem, Wolpert, and Patmore researched various supernatural and religious folklore and found that most of those types of encounters could "find a nexis in [Miracles], and [they] could do all kinds of stories". The three also agreed that "[Miracles] could not be a show about the Catholic Church [...] ABC
was not interested in taking that on". Hatem referenced in the Miracles DVD interview a short-lived series that aired on ABC during the 1997-1998 season called Nothing Sacred
, which centered on the Catholic Church in the 1970s. While the show's main character was raised with a Catholic upbringing, Hatem did not want to make the series about a "Vatican conspiracy". Hatem did however acknowledge that the pilot episode transitioned from religious phenomena to paranormal phenomena, and that the transition between "'religion' and 'general paranormal' [was a huge challenge] all the way through, because the questions kept coming back: 'Is this guy a priest?'; 'How do we explain he's not a priest?'; 'How do we explain that his points of view are not the points of view of the Catholic Church?'". Hatem also acknowledged that as they were preparing to "sell a show whose pilot has priests, and a monsignor", the Church was in the midst of a sex abuse scandal that was being reported in newspapers all over the country. Hatem recalled that "the joke was, '[the show wasn't] on the air long enough to generate controversy'; we would have loved controversy, but we flew so low under the radar that I don't think anyone had a chance to be offended or even construe a way to take offense".
. Among the other actors who auditioned for Paul Callan were Matthew Fox
, known for his starring role on the series Party of Five
and who went on to star in Lost
, and Jason Priestley
, which Hatem says "would have been an excellent casting pun". During auditions, a Miracles producer learned that Ulrich had been sent the script by his agents and managers, and that he had "really responded to it". Matt Reeves, the director of the pilot, was impressed that he was able to exude soulfulness, emotion, and intelligence without speaking.
Hatem said that when casting the part of Alva Keel, a mysterious person was necessary for the role, "someone who would draw Paul away from the Church and bring him into this strange world of paranormal investigation". Donald Sutherland
was an original casting idea, because the producers originally wanted someone who was around the same age as Hector Elizondo, to persuade Paul to leave behind one father figure and follow another. However, after many people auditioned, the producers took note of Angus Macfadyen's ability to without speaking, like Ulrich, portray intensity and mystery. The casting of Macfadyen gave the producers the idea of instead of following a new father figure, Paul Callan would join a group based on "brotherhood", "someone who was more of an age contemporary with Paul".
Hatem recalls casting the part of Evelyn Santos as "difficult, because technically, she doesn't exist in the pilot; she has one shot in the first episode, and in the original pilot, she was played by a different actress". Because Evelyn has no real lines in the pilot episode, extensive casting was not held. After the pilot was picked up, the producers faced the challenge of casting a character "for whom [they] had never written anything". Producers cast Marisa Ramirez very late in the audition process, after the episode "The Ghost" had already been filmed. Ramirez was cast because the producers wanted someone "watchable" and at the same time "normal, and real" as a contrast to Paul and Keel, who had each lived unusual lives. Hatem described the three leads as a "weird, paranormal Brady Bunch
" because of each of the characters' non-nuclear families.
as a powerful influence in the development of Miracles, as well as his own career; in the DVD interview he commented that "if you tell people you want to do something like Stephen King, people will listen to you". He references a book in his personal collection about a haunted apartment complex in Santa Ana, California
, which Hatem claims to "love more than anything"; "I would love to visit the haunted apartment complex in Santa Ana". Hatem recalls enjoying the "haunted gas station mini mart" from the episode The Battle at Shadow Ridge
, which he claimed to possibly be the "goofiest" episode of the series; Hatem said, "If a gas station mini mart can be haunted, then I can go to sleep a happy man; then I know this world is truly a special place".
Richard Hatem joked that he and David Greenwalt adopted mundane as the "buzzword" of the series, although they never told anyone because "that's not what a network likes to hear". Hatem and Greenwalt used the idea of "mundane" throughout the series as a way of showing the audience that strange occurrences can happen in everyday places. Hatem recalled that despite hoping and expecting that the series would be on the air for as many as ten seasons, he and Greenwalt had not fully mapped out a "ten-season-long mythology" of the show where the question "Darkness or light?" would ultimately be answered. Hatem references the "two kinds of episodes of The X-Files
: 'stand-alones', and 'mythology episodes'", and holding a preference for stand-alone episodes because when the mythology starts to be unraveled, "that's when it becomes no fun anymore".
Richard Hatem lists "Saint Debbie" amongst his favorite episodes, partly because of its theme, and claims to be one of the few people who like the episode. Hatem says that "Saint Debbie" is the only episode to include "no real psychic phenomena", but is rather the story of an "everyday miracle".
. Despite generally positive reviews from critics and a small loyal following, Miracles failed in the ratings, and the mismanagement of the show's timeslot was largely blamed. Three more episodes aired throughout March 2003 before ABC cancelled the series on April 3, 2003. The Miracles message boards on ABC's official website were closed 24 hours later. The show placed 105th in the Nielsen ratings during its six episode run, averaging 6.53 million viewers.
The remaining seven episodes produced were never aired in the United States
. Canada
's VisionTV began airing the show on October 3, 2003 and aired all 13 episodes, marking the first time the latter seven episodes were broadcast on television. VisionTV later aired the entire series again on Monday nights from January through March 2004 and 2005.
released the entire series on DVD in Region 1 on April 19, 2005. The 4-disc set features six commentary tracks, five deleted scenes, a 30-minute interview with series creator Richard Hatem
, and a rough cut of a series promo.
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
starring Skeet Ulrich
Skeet Ulrich
Bryan Ray Trout , best known as Skeet Ulrich, is an American actor best known for starring in the CBS drama Jericho as Jake Green and for portraying Billy Loomis in Scream...
and Angus Macfadyen
Angus Macfadyen
Angus Macfadyen is a Scottish actor.Angus Macfadyen was born in Glasgow and was brought up partly in Africa, France, the Philippines and Singapore. His father was a doctor in the World Health Organisation. He was once engaged to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.Angus attended the University of...
. Created by Richard Hatem
Richard Hatem
Richard Hatem is an American television and film screenwriter and producer. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America . He is also a professor on staff with the University of California, Los Angeles , teaching a television writing class.-Early life:Hatem was born in Burbank, California and...
and Michael Petroni
Michael Petroni
Michael Petroni is an Australian film writer and director.Petroni worked in the early 1990s as a comedy writer and performer on Australian television, and appeared as "Psycho Bob", an American serial killer character, in The Big Gig and DAAS Kapital .In 1994, he moved to Los Angeles to study...
, the series has sometimes been dubbed a "spiritual version of The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
" by its creators. Following the pilot, David Greenwalt
David Greenwalt
David Greenwalt is an American screenwriter, director and producer.He was the co-executive producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and co-creator of its spinoff, Angel. He is also co-creator of the short-lived cult television show Profit...
, co-creator of Angel
Angel (TV series)
Angel is an American television series, a spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffys creator, Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt, and first aired on October 5, 1999...
(the spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) served as the show's executive producer and head writer for the remaining twelve episodes.
Miracles follows Paul Callan, an investigator of modern miracles for the Catholic Church who questions his faith after repeatedly finding mundane explanations for various supposed phenomena. After he witnesses a true, supernatural miracle that saves his life, only for his findings to be dismissed on a lack of evidence, Paul leaves behind the Church and is approached by Alva Keel to join his organization Sodalitas Quaerito, investigating and cataloguing "unexplainable" phenomena. Along with former police officer Evelyn Santos, Paul and Alva attempt to battle the impending "darkness" before it's too late.
The series premiered as part of ABC's new "Super Monday" line-up on January 27, 2003. Six episodes were broadcast on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
before the series was canceled due to low ratings, with its final broadcast episode drawing just 5.7 million viewers on March 31, 2003. The series was preempted a number of times during its run, once for a rebroadcast of the documentary special Living with Michael Jackson
Living with Michael Jackson
Living with Michael Jackson is a Granada Television documentary, in which British journalist Martin Bashir interviewed Michael Jackson over a span of eight months, from May 2002 to January 2003...
and various other times to air newsmagazine specials about the then-developing Iraq War. Miracles fans, angered by the cancellation and what they saw as ABC's mismanagement of the show's Monday 10:00pm timeslot, began a fan campaign to revive the show. Fans wrote messages on napkins (referencing a plot point in the pilot episode) and mailed them to various networks hoping the show would be revived by another network, however efforts were unsuccessful and the show did not continue past its initial order of thirteen episodes.
Plot
The series begins as Paul Callan (Skeet UlrichSkeet Ulrich
Bryan Ray Trout , best known as Skeet Ulrich, is an American actor best known for starring in the CBS drama Jericho as Jake Green and for portraying Billy Loomis in Scream...
), an investigator of modern miracles for the Catholic Church at the Archdiocese of Boston, is feeling frustrated with disappointing groups of believers each time he investigates, and disproves the authenticity of supposed "miracles". Upon the advice of his mentor, Father "Poppi" Calero (Hector Elizondo
Hector Elizondo
Héctor Elizondo is an American actor. Elizondo's first major role was that of "God" in the play Steambath, for which he won an Obie Award...
), Paul takes a sabbatical. While working in Arizona, Paul receives a phone call from Poppi asking him to investigate the case of a young boy with supposed healing powers in the nearby town of Cottonwood. Paul finally sees a true miracle when he sees that young Tommy Ferguson (Jacob Smith
Jacob Smith (actor)
Jonathan Jacob Charles William Smith is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his role in the film Cheaper by the Dozen and its 2005 sequel.-Life and career:...
) can truly heal people, but every time Tommy heals someone, his own rare disease worsens. When Paul is involved in a near fatal car accident, Tommy uses his healing power for the last time and dies healing Paul, but not before both of them see Paul's blood form itself into the words "God is Now Here" on his broken windshield.
His faith restored, Paul returns to the Church, only for the Monsignor to dismiss his report. Paul resigns out of frustration, and later discovers that Poppi never called him about Tommy Ferguson's case. Later, while at a diner, a man named Alva Keel (Angus Macfadyen
Angus Macfadyen
Angus Macfadyen is a Scottish actor.Angus Macfadyen was born in Glasgow and was brought up partly in Africa, France, the Philippines and Singapore. His father was a doctor in the World Health Organisation. He was once engaged to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.Angus attended the University of...
) propositions Paul with a job offer at his organisation, Sodalitas Quaerito (Latin for "Brotherhood in search of truth"). Keel tells Paul that his encounter with "hemography", blood forming itself into readable words, is part of a large, dark impending event, and has appeared to six other people in the past 25 years, only every time the message has appeared as "God is Nowhere". Paul teams up with Keel and Evelyn Santos (Marisa Ramirez
Marisa Ramirez
Marisa Carolina Ramirez is an American actress.-Early life:Ramirez attended an all-girls' school in Alhambra, California at the Ramona Convent Secondary School. Her career began at age 13 when she was brought to the attention of a major L.A...
), a former police officer, to investigate his paranormal experience and discover a solution to the impending darkness.
Hemography
Central to the show was a mysteriously recurring message that at different points is interpreted as either "God is Now Here" or "God is Nowhere". This message was often seen through hemography, the act of blood forming itself into readable words. Alva Keel says that the Catholic Church considers this act a miracle. Over the course of the series, it was revealed that in the past 25 years, eleven people had seen at least one variant of this message; nine had seen "God is Nowhere", one had seen "God is Now Here"; Paul's blood spelt both messages, but only ever witnessed the "God is Now Here" message.Alva Keel and Sodalitas Quaerito interviewed the original six people who saw the "God is Nowhere" message. Chad Goodwell, who murdered five of the "God is Nowhere" witnesses, told Paul that he was told of three other witnesses to the message. He was told by Tommy Ferguson
The Ferguson Syndrome
"The Ferguson Syndrome" is the first episode of the television series Miracles. Its only airing in the U.S. was on January 27, 2003 on ABC. It first aired on Canada's VisionTV on October 3, 2003.-Synopsis:...
, who referred to these people as "The Darkness".
Confirmed and named witnesses to the "God is Nowhere" message:
- Gretchen Albright
- Danielle Franklin
- Kenneth Webster
Confirmed witnesses to the "God is Now Here" message:
- Chad Goodwell
Confirmed witnesses to both messages:
- Paul Callan
Main cast
- Skeet UlrichSkeet UlrichBryan Ray Trout , best known as Skeet Ulrich, is an American actor best known for starring in the CBS drama Jericho as Jake Green and for portraying Billy Loomis in Scream...
as Paul Callan, a former investigator of modern miracles for the Catholic Church. Paul was an orphan from a very young age; his mother died, sometime before he turned seven, of an unknown ailment, and he never met his biological father. When he was seven years old, he spent two weeks at St. Jerome's Hospital being treated for pneumoniaPneumoniaPneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
, which he nearly died from. Paul resigned from the church after the monsignor dismissed his report on the Tommy Ferguson case. He then teamed up with Alva Keel and Evelyn Santos and began working for "Sodalitas Quaerito". - Angus MacfadyenAngus MacfadyenAngus Macfadyen is a Scottish actor.Angus Macfadyen was born in Glasgow and was brought up partly in Africa, France, the Philippines and Singapore. His father was a doctor in the World Health Organisation. He was once engaged to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.Angus attended the University of...
as Alva Keel, a former Harvard professor. On November 16, 1985, while minoring in Linguistics at Cambridge University, he began his senior project, a study on bird calls and recorded several of them on tapes. While playing them back five days later, he began hearing his mother's voice repeating "Alva...Alva..." amongst the bird calls. In 1998 he founded Sodalitas Quaerito, a small business that investigates and catalogues various phenomena, to fund his research. - Marisa RamirezMarisa RamirezMarisa Carolina Ramirez is an American actress.-Early life:Ramirez attended an all-girls' school in Alhambra, California at the Ramona Convent Secondary School. Her career began at age 13 when she was brought to the attention of a major L.A...
as Evelyn Santos, a former police officer and single mother. The father of her child, John, is in prison. Little is known about how she came to work with Keel, but it was revealed in a deleted scene that she was shot in the head in the line of duty, and had a parnormal experience where she believes she saw that there was nothing on "the other side".
Recurring cast
- Hector ElizondoHector ElizondoHéctor Elizondo is an American actor. Elizondo's first major role was that of "God" in the play Steambath, for which he won an Obie Award...
as Father "Poppi" Calero, Paul's mentor throughout his entire life, who is a father at the church where Paul grew up and used to work. Appeared in the pilot episode, and then reappeared in later episodes of the series. - Jacob SmithJacob Smith (actor)Jonathan Jacob Charles William Smith is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his role in the film Cheaper by the Dozen and its 2005 sequel.-Life and career:...
as Thomas "Tommy" Ferguson, a ten-year-old boy from Cottonwood, ArizonaCottonwood, ArizonaCottonwood is a city in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 11,171.-Geography:Cottonwood is located at ....
with healing powers. His power was discovered after he hugged his grandmother, who had lung cancer, and told her he hoped she felt better; his grandmother then left the hospital two days later, when her cancer completely disappeared. Sacrificed his own life to save Paul Callan's after his car was hit by a train, leaving him in a state of near death. Tommy appeared in the pilot episode, and then appeared as a ghost in the episodes "Little Miss Lost" and "Paul is Dead".
Origins
Series creator Richard HatemRichard Hatem
Richard Hatem is an American television and film screenwriter and producer. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America . He is also a professor on staff with the University of California, Los Angeles , teaching a television writing class.-Early life:Hatem was born in Burbank, California and...
was sent a screenplay in early 2001 called "Miracles", written by Michael Petroni
Michael Petroni
Michael Petroni is an Australian film writer and director.Petroni worked in the early 1990s as a comedy writer and performer on Australian television, and appeared as "Psycho Bob", an American serial killer character, in The Big Gig and DAAS Kapital .In 1994, he moved to Los Angeles to study...
and owned by Spyglass Entertainment
Spyglass Entertainment
Spyglass Entertainment is an American film production company, co-founded by Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum in 1998. The studio was founded with an investment from European media conglomerates Kirch Group and Mediaset, and a five-year distribution deal with The Walt Disney Company...
. Hatem assumed that he was being sent the script to re-write, and the script would then be made into a feature film. Hatem recalled in "The Making of Miracles" interview on the Miracles DVD set that he was puzzled when he was sent the script to re-write, because he thought it was "pretty wonderful as it [was]". Hatem's agent later confirmed to him that Spyglass actually wanted him to use the screenplay as a jumping off point to create a one-hour television series, "a sort of 'spiritual X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
".
When Hatem met with executives at Spyglass, he continued a practice of bringing with him to meetings an item to use as a "good luck charm" by bringing with him the book The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism by Herbert Thurston, which Hatem says Miracles later "evolved into". Thurston was an Anglican minister who investigated spiritual phenomena during the 1920s and 1930s, when, according to Hatem, "spiritualism ("the contacting of the dead through séances and mediums") was still popular in America". Thurston's book examined which phenomena were signs from God, and which were "something else". After discussing this with Megan Wolpert and Suzanne Patmore, executives at Spyglass, Hatem says that "literally what [he] expected would be a 20-minute meeting turned into a three hour meeting, where ideas were flowing back and forth". Hatem claims the show was born "that day, in that room" in March 2001. Hatem, Wolpert, and Patmore liked the idea that a character (Paul Callan) who came from a strict religious background and was raised to believe that any strange occurrence was either a sign from God or a sign from the devil, was suddenly thrust into a world where various phenomena "crossed those boundaries", and could not be classified as "good or bad" because they had elements of both. Hatem believes this is the element that "creates the drama", and makes the show "fun and scary".
Hatem, Wolpert, and Patmore researched various supernatural and religious folklore and found that most of those types of encounters could "find a nexis in [Miracles], and [they] could do all kinds of stories". The three also agreed that "[Miracles] could not be a show about the Catholic Church [...] ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
was not interested in taking that on". Hatem referenced in the Miracles DVD interview a short-lived series that aired on ABC during the 1997-1998 season called Nothing Sacred
Nothing Sacred (TV series)
Nothing Sacred is an American drama series that aired from 1997 to 1998 on ABC. The series was created by a Jesuit priest named Bill Cain and producer David Manson.-Synopsis:...
, which centered on the Catholic Church in the 1970s. While the show's main character was raised with a Catholic upbringing, Hatem did not want to make the series about a "Vatican conspiracy". Hatem did however acknowledge that the pilot episode transitioned from religious phenomena to paranormal phenomena, and that the transition between "'religion' and 'general paranormal' [was a huge challenge] all the way through, because the questions kept coming back: 'Is this guy a priest?'; 'How do we explain he's not a priest?'; 'How do we explain that his points of view are not the points of view of the Catholic Church?'". Hatem also acknowledged that as they were preparing to "sell a show whose pilot has priests, and a monsignor", the Church was in the midst of a sex abuse scandal that was being reported in newspapers all over the country. Hatem recalled that "the joke was, '[the show wasn't] on the air long enough to generate controversy'; we would have loved controversy, but we flew so low under the radar that I don't think anyone had a chance to be offended or even construe a way to take offense".
Casting
The production team had many ideas for casting, and Richard Hatem says that Skeet Ulrich was one of the first ideas for an actor to play Paul Callan. However, the producers believed that Ulrich was "unavailable", and that he was taking a break from acting and living with his wife and kids in VirginiaVirginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
. Among the other actors who auditioned for Paul Callan were Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox is an American actor.Matthew Fox may also refer to:* Matt Fox , American songwriter and producer a.k.a...
, known for his starring role on the series Party of Five
Party of Five
Party of Five is an American teen drama television series that aired on Fox for six seasons, from September 12, 1994, until May 3, 2000.Critically acclaimed, the show suffered from low ratings and after its first season was slated for cancellation...
and who went on to star in Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
, and Jason Priestley
Jason Priestley
Jason Bradford Priestley is a Canadian-American actor and director. He is best known as the virtuous Brandon Walsh on the television series Beverly Hills, 90210, a role which catapulted him to recognition in the early 1990s....
, which Hatem says "would have been an excellent casting pun". During auditions, a Miracles producer learned that Ulrich had been sent the script by his agents and managers, and that he had "really responded to it". Matt Reeves, the director of the pilot, was impressed that he was able to exude soulfulness, emotion, and intelligence without speaking.
Hatem said that when casting the part of Alva Keel, a mysterious person was necessary for the role, "someone who would draw Paul away from the Church and bring him into this strange world of paranormal investigation". Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
was an original casting idea, because the producers originally wanted someone who was around the same age as Hector Elizondo, to persuade Paul to leave behind one father figure and follow another. However, after many people auditioned, the producers took note of Angus Macfadyen's ability to without speaking, like Ulrich, portray intensity and mystery. The casting of Macfadyen gave the producers the idea of instead of following a new father figure, Paul Callan would join a group based on "brotherhood", "someone who was more of an age contemporary with Paul".
Hatem recalls casting the part of Evelyn Santos as "difficult, because technically, she doesn't exist in the pilot; she has one shot in the first episode, and in the original pilot, she was played by a different actress". Because Evelyn has no real lines in the pilot episode, extensive casting was not held. After the pilot was picked up, the producers faced the challenge of casting a character "for whom [they] had never written anything". Producers cast Marisa Ramirez very late in the audition process, after the episode "The Ghost" had already been filmed. Ramirez was cast because the producers wanted someone "watchable" and at the same time "normal, and real" as a contrast to Paul and Keel, who had each lived unusual lives. Hatem described the three leads as a "weird, paranormal Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz and starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis. The series revolved around a large blended family...
" because of each of the characters' non-nuclear families.
Development
Richard Hatem says that the backdrop of the stories of Miracles were intentionally made to be those of everyday life, to better connect with the audience. Hatem acknowledged Stephen KingStephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
as a powerful influence in the development of Miracles, as well as his own career; in the DVD interview he commented that "if you tell people you want to do something like Stephen King, people will listen to you". He references a book in his personal collection about a haunted apartment complex in Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana is the county seat and second most populous city in Orange County, California, and with a population of 324,528 at the 2010 census, Santa Ana is the 57th-most populous city in the United States....
, which Hatem claims to "love more than anything"; "I would love to visit the haunted apartment complex in Santa Ana". Hatem recalls enjoying the "haunted gas station mini mart" from the episode The Battle at Shadow Ridge
The Battle at Shadow Ridge
The Battle at Shadow Ridge is the eighth episode of the television series Miracles. It was never aired in the United States, and first aired on November 21, 2003 in Canada on VisionTV.-Plot:...
, which he claimed to possibly be the "goofiest" episode of the series; Hatem said, "If a gas station mini mart can be haunted, then I can go to sleep a happy man; then I know this world is truly a special place".
Richard Hatem joked that he and David Greenwalt adopted mundane as the "buzzword" of the series, although they never told anyone because "that's not what a network likes to hear". Hatem and Greenwalt used the idea of "mundane" throughout the series as a way of showing the audience that strange occurrences can happen in everyday places. Hatem recalled that despite hoping and expecting that the series would be on the air for as many as ten seasons, he and Greenwalt had not fully mapped out a "ten-season-long mythology" of the show where the question "Darkness or light?" would ultimately be answered. Hatem references the "two kinds of episodes of The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
: 'stand-alones', and 'mythology episodes'", and holding a preference for stand-alone episodes because when the mythology starts to be unraveled, "that's when it becomes no fun anymore".
Themes
Richard Hatem addressed in DVD commentary and interviews some of the show's more frequent themes.Parent losing a child
This theme was used to some degree in the following episodes:- "The Ferguson Syndrome", wherein the Fergusons lose their son Tommy after he saved Paul's life
- "The Patient", wherein Dr. Bauer loses his daughter Raina to Sakovsky's syndrome
- "Little Miss Lost", wherein Rosanna Wye has to confront her missing, deceased child after 60 years
- "The Bone Scatterer", wherein Travis Prescott's miscarried brother Jimmy acts as his guardian angel
- "Mother's Daughter", wherein the Cotrells are forced to give up their daughter Hannah and stop Lucinda Morgan Bryant from committing suicide
- "The Ghost", wherein Larry Kittredge is haunted by the poltergeist of his deceased son
- "The Letter", wherein Georgia Wilson receives letters from her dead father, ghostwritten through a death row inmate
- "Paul is Dead", wherein Paul loses Evelyn's son Matty at a playground
Other themes
Richard Hatem addressed the theme of the episodes "The Ghost" and "The Letter", which were both "conceived" around the same time. Both episodes explored the idea of living people making contact with the spirit of someone who used to be a part of their lives, but who was now deceased. In "The Ghost", Larry Kittredge believes his dead son Kevin is haunting the realty office where he works; in "The Letter", Georgia Wilson begins receiving letters from her dead father, written through his murderer, death row inmate Edward Dubek. In both episodes, the conclusion both characters reached was it was best to save a "terrestrial relationship" (Larry Kittredge's relationship with his wife and Georgia Wilson's relationships with Paul and Poppi) rather than continue to explore a "possibly unreal spiritual relationship".Richard Hatem lists "Saint Debbie" amongst his favorite episodes, partly because of its theme, and claims to be one of the few people who like the episode. Hatem says that "Saint Debbie" is the only episode to include "no real psychic phenomena", but is rather the story of an "everyday miracle".
Post-cancellation
Had the show been an "enormous success", Richard Hatem says a "modest plan was in place of where the show would have gone". The series would have continued the mythology of Paul's destiny: whether or not Paul was destined for good or evil, and the amount of control he had over his own destiny. Ideas included more close-ended stories and further exploring the backstories of Alva Keel and Evelyn Santos, as well as some ideas for unproduced episodes which were "very much in vein of the thirteen [produced episodes]"; however, the producers never saw much further than that.Episodes
| # | Title | Written by | Directed by | Original air date |
|---|
Broadcast history
Miracles premiered on January 27, 2003 at 10:00 as part of ABC's new Super Monday line-up. The network finished in fourth place in the ratings that night, with the premiere of Miracles being seen by over ten million viewers in the United States. After three episodes aired, the series was pre-empted for several weeks, "for several different reasons", according to series creator Richard HatemRichard Hatem
Richard Hatem is an American television and film screenwriter and producer. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America . He is also a professor on staff with the University of California, Los Angeles , teaching a television writing class.-Early life:Hatem was born in Burbank, California and...
. Despite generally positive reviews from critics and a small loyal following, Miracles failed in the ratings, and the mismanagement of the show's timeslot was largely blamed. Three more episodes aired throughout March 2003 before ABC cancelled the series on April 3, 2003. The Miracles message boards on ABC's official website were closed 24 hours later. The show placed 105th in the Nielsen ratings during its six episode run, averaging 6.53 million viewers.
The remaining seven episodes produced were never aired in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's VisionTV began airing the show on October 3, 2003 and aired all 13 episodes, marking the first time the latter seven episodes were broadcast on television. VisionTV later aired the entire series again on Monday nights from January through March 2004 and 2005.
DVD release
Shout! FactoryShout! Factory
Shout! Factory is an entertainment company founded in 2003 that was started by Richard Foos , Bob Emmer and Garson Foos initially as a specialty music label...
released the entire series on DVD in Region 1 on April 19, 2005. The 4-disc set features six commentary tracks, five deleted scenes, a 30-minute interview with series creator Richard Hatem
Richard Hatem
Richard Hatem is an American television and film screenwriter and producer. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America . He is also a professor on staff with the University of California, Los Angeles , teaching a television writing class.-Early life:Hatem was born in Burbank, California and...
, and a rough cut of a series promo.
Awards and nominations
| Year | Category | Nominee(s) | Episode | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music | W.G. Snuffy Walden, Joseph Williams | N/A |