Joan of Arcadia


Joan of Arcadia is an American fantasy family drama television series telling the story of teenager Joan Girardi, who sees and speaks with God and performs tasks she is given. The series originally aired on Fridays on CBS for two seasons, from September 26, 2003, to April 22, 2005.
The show was praised by critics and won the Humanitas Prize and the People's Choice Award. It was also nominated for an Emmy Award in its first season for Outstanding Drama Series. The title alludes to Joan of Arc and the show takes place in a fictionalized version of the town Arcadia, Maryland.
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Premise

Joan Girardi is a 16-year-old girl living in the town of Arcadia, Maryland. She is the middle child of her family, which includes elder brother Kevin, a former jock who has been left a paraplegic after a car accident, and younger brother Luke, a brainy nerd. Joan's father, Will, is the town's police chief. In the pilot episode, God appears to Joan and reminds her that she promised to do anything he wanted if he let Kevin survive the car crash. He appears to Joan in the form of various people including small children, teenage boys, elderly ladies, transients, or passersby. God asks Joan to perform tasks that often appear trivial or inconsequential—such as enrolling in an AP Chemistry class or building a boat—but always end up improving a larger situation.
These plotlines are interwoven with more realistic matters, such as the relationships within the Girardi family. Various storylines that span multiple episodes deal with the consequences of Kevin's accident, Will's job as a police officer, mother Helen's career as an art teacher, and Luke's aspirations to be a scientist.

Characterization of God

God is portrayed with a very human personality, and does not appear to favor any particular religion, saying there are "different ways to share the same truth". He quotes Bob Dylan, Emily Dickinson, and the Beatles rather than any scripture or verses. The series examines God from a more metaphysical standpoint than a religious perspective.
God is also depicted as having a sharp sense of humor. In the episode "Touch Move", he tells Joan that he has to send her "down there". When Joan is worried he means Hell, he laughs and clarifies he meant the school basement. In another instance, She appears in the form of a woman exercising and says, "Why do people always try and discern my deeper meanings? This is the kind of thinking that starts wars."

Cast and characters

Main cast

  • Joe Mantegna as Will Girardi, the father of Joan, Kevin, and Luke. He moved his family from their home in Chicago when he was offered the job of Chief of Police in Arcadia, Maryland. Mantegna had a development deal with CBS and liked the script. He was also involved in casting the other characters.
  • Mary Steenburgen as Helen Girardi, Will's wife and mother of Kevin, Joan, Luke. An artist, Helen dropped out of art school after being raped by an unknown perpetrator. She works as the secretary at Arcadia High School and becomes the art teacher in "State of Grace". She was raised in the Catholic faith but was never confirmed; after moving to Arcadia, she considers going back to the Church.
  • Amber Tamblyn as Joan Girardi, the middle child of the Girardi family who talks to God. He often gives her assignments or tasks that usually have a positive outcome, but she is frequently exasperated by the randomness of the directives and God's refusal to answer direct questions.
  • Jason Ritter as Kevin Girardi, the eldest child in the Girardi family. A year and a half before the events of the pilot, he became a paraplegic in a car accident after failing to stop a friend from drunk driving.
  • Michael Welch as Luke Girardi, the youngest Girardi child. Luke is a science nerd and straight-A student.
  • Chris Marquette as Adam Rove, Joan's best friend and later boyfriend.
  • Becky Wahlstrom as Grace Polk, Adam and Joan's best friend and Luke's eventual girlfriend.

Recurring cast

  • Andrew Ableson as Andy Reese, the style editor at the Arcadia Herald.
  • David Burke as Father Ken Mallory, Helen's friend and pastor of a nearby church.
  • Ivonne Coll as Marlene, Helen's co-worker in the office at Arcadia High.
  • Haylie Duff as Stevie Marx, a student at Arcadia High.
  • Patrick Fabian as Gavin Price, the unpopular vice principal of Arcadia High School.
  • John Getz as District Attorney Gabe Fellowes, a corrupt public servant.
  • April Grace as Detective Toni Williams, at the Arcadia Police Department and later at the Hogan County Sheriff's department. Often worked with Will.
  • Sprague Grayden as Judith Montgomery, Joan's friend from the Gentle Acres summer psychiatric camp.
  • Elaine Hendrix as Elaine Lischak, Arcadia High's Advanced Placement science teacher, teaches Joan's AP chemistry and AP physics classes. She has an on-again/off-again relationship with Dana Tuchman.
  • Jared Hillman as Brian Beaumont, tightly wound over-achiever student at Arcadia High.
  • Aaron Himelstein as Friedman, Arcadia High student and Luke's best friend.
  • Kimberly McCullough as Beth Reinhart, Kevin's girlfriend from before the accident.
  • Wentworth Miller as Ryan Hunter, a young, charming dot com millionaire who also talks to God, but with his own sinister agenda.
  • Derek Morgan as Roy Roebuck, initially Arcadia Fire Department Arson investigator, later Hogan County Undersheriff for Arcadia.
  • Morocco Omari as Stephen Chadwick, Arcadia High's principal.
  • Erik Palladino as Lieutenant Michael Daghlian, the senior detective of the Arcadia PD under Chief Girardi.
  • Sydney Tamiia Poitier as Rebecca Askew, editor and reporter at the Arcadia Herald where Kevin works, dated Kevin.
  • Annie Potts as Lieutenant Lucy Preston, the former head of the Hogan County Sheriff's Department's Internal Affairs Division.
  • Kevin Rahm as Dana Tuchman, guidance counselor at Arcadia High School. Has an on-again/off-again relationship with Elain Lischak.
  • Paul Sand as Rabbi Polanski, Grace's father.
  • Riley Smith as Andy Baker, Kevin's friend who's drunk driving put him in that wheelchair.
  • Mark Totty as Detective Carlisle, Will Girardi's junk food-addicted partner on the Hogan County Sheriff's Department.
  • Mageina Tovah as Glynis Figliola, Luke's friend and onetime girlfriend.
  • Misti Traya as Iris, Adam's first girlfriend.
  • Constance Zimmer as Sister Lilly Watters, a former nun who helps advise Helen Girardi and dates Kevin.

Guest cast

Incarnations of God

The many incarnations include:

Theme song

The opening credits roll with Eric Bazilian's song "One of Us" performed by Joan Osborne. It was a hit single for Osborne in the United States from her 1995 album Relish:
Osborne rerecorded the song specifically for the show. To fit its lyrics, Joan first meets God as a teenage boy riding to school on the bus with her.

Production

Development

Joan of Arcadia took shape during Barbara Hall's time as a producer on Chicago Hope in the mid-1990s and evolved while she was an executive producer on CBS drama Judging Amy. Hall said "the concept meshed her fascination with Joan of Arc...her longtime interest in physics and metaphysics, and her desire to use drama and comedy to explore the existence of God in a 'scary, not benign universe.'" Hall added, "I started thinking, what would it look like if God tried to contact a teenager today? I made the decision that God would have to come to a teenage girl visually. Joan of Arc heard voices, but kids today aren't going to hear voices because you'd have to get the iPods off their heads."
When Hall pitched the series to CBS, she and executives agreed they were not looking to make another Touched by an Angel. Among the differences between it and Joan is that Joan is not religious and "the show’s tone is grittier".
CBS greenlit the show in 2002 "when public discourse about spirituality seemed more gentle: post-9/11 prayer services rather than heated debates over 'The Passion of the Christ'". The acquisition was made as part of an effort by the network, which was known for its adult-skewing shows, to appeal to younger viewers. Hall developed the series with Hart Hanson and Jim Hayman, her Judging Amy production associates.
As a guideline for the series' writing staff, Hall wrote a list of "Ten Commandments of Joan of Arcadia", which enumerated what God can and cannot do in the show. These guidelines included points like "God can never identify one religion as being right", "The job of every human being is to fulfill his or her true nature", "God's purpose for talking to Joan, and to everyone, is to get her to recognize the interconnectedness of all things", and "the exact nature of God is a mystery, and the mystery can never be solved."

Filming

Though Arcadia is in Maryland, the series was mostly filmed at various Los Angeles locations. Establishing shots of Arcadia's skyline and other outdoor scenes were filmed in Wilmington, Delaware. Scenes at the fictional Arcadia High School were filmed at El Segundo High School.

Reception

Critical reception

Joan of Arcadia received widespread acclaim from critics. On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has a rating of 92% based on 25 critics’ reviews, while Season 2 has a rating of 100% based on 5 reviews.
Greg Braxton of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "the series is a veritable squeezebox of genres... a family drama, a coming-of-age saga of a teenager, a high school drama and a gritty police show, all tossed together with a mix of fantasy and religion.” Robert Lloyd, also of the LA Times, said "the real miracle here is how deftly the show avoids the soggy cliches of redemption so many of its forerunners have embraced." Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called it "the best new broadcast series of the season," and the Associated Press said the show has an "intelligent quirkiness."
James Poniewozik of Time wrote that the series' "marriage of the sacred and the mundane has made Arcadia the rare TV show about spirituality to win over both audiences and critics. Whereas its predecessors have been either panned but popular marshmallow halos or controversial, swiftly canceled critical darlings, Arcadia has avoided, Goldilocks-style, going too soft or too hard." He added, "by separating God from religion, Arcadia takes away what makes faith divisive—a reasonable goal for a major-network series that needs to draw a broad audience to thrive."
Melanie McFarland of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote, "Only a few episodes into its season, Joan has proved deserving of its growing reputation. It's alive with everything television so desperately lacks: genuine heart, wit devoid of crassness, dramatic situations mirroring so many of our realities that the Girardis sometimes feel more like neighbors than a television family." Nancy Franklin of The New Yorker wrote the show is "both thought through and open-ended, and it should prove especially rewarding for those who think that belief has more to do with asking questions than with getting answers."
Criticism of the series focused on the police procedural plots involving Will Girardi, which many said did not tonally fit with the show. Devin Gordon of Newsweek wrote that the series' cop drama and its fantasy elements felt like "two shows stitched awkwardly together." Tom Shales of The Washington Post wrote "the premiere suggests viewers are being asked to wade heart-deep into a drearily portentous muddle."
Though critics were divided about the show's tone and plot elements, there was across-the-board praise for Amber Tamblyn. Poniewozik wrote, "If God, however, is simply asking Joan to do what all teens have to do—develop an identity—Arcadia works because Tamblyn reminds us so well how tough that job is. Joan may talk to God, but she has to do the work her own, mortal self, from accepting life's unfairness to finding her niche at school...Unlike most prime-time teens, Joan is neither a babe nor a brain, neither a Goody Two-Shoes nor a sarcastic rebel. She's the most extraordinarily average teen to crop up on a TV show in years—yet after a few episodes, you realize you would watch her story even if God stopped showing up." Praise was also given for Mary Steenburgen and Jason Ritter, of the latter of whom Robert Bianco of USA Today wrote, "Indeed, the often painfully realistic treatment of the familial anguish that swirls around Kevin, who lost the use of his legs in an auto accident, is one of the show's greatest achievements."
Critics have written retrospectively about the series. In 2015, Margaret Lyons of Vulture wrote, "Somehow Joan of Arcadia is one of vanishingly few shows to bring up two extremely common questions that shape the human condition: 'Is there a God?' and 'Am I a good person?' The answer to both is, it depends whom you ask. And you can only ask so many people in two seasons."
For IndieWire, Alison Willmore wrote, "the show balanced missions with the mistakes a well-meaning but impulsive high school girl might make, allowing the show to also be a very fine portrait of life at a certain age."

Nielsen ratings

Joan of Arcadia debuted on the heels of Touched by an Angel, which ended its nine-year run in April 2003. An estimated 12 million viewers tuned into the series premiere in September 2003. Though Joan was broadcast in the 8 p.m. time slot on Friday nights, a traditionally quiet night for TV, it became a modest hit for CBS and averaged 10.1 million viewers during its first season. The show regularly drew in young adult viewers for its time slot, which led NBC to change the schedule for the competing comedy-drama series Miss Match.
The next year, "viewership sank to 8 million, according to Nielsen Media Research," despite continued critical acclaim, including three Emmy nominations. Partly at the network's request, Barbara Hall introduced the character of Ryan, a menacing figure and amoral "tempter" seemingly destined to cause significant conflict for the show's characters.

Cancellation

While Joan of Arcadia was one of the highest-rated new shows of the 2003–04 television season, its ratings declined in the second season and CBS canceled it on May 18, 2005. Fan campaigns ensued to have it reinstated. A promotional campaign by CBS sent street teams into cities to do good deeds, such as buying a cold person a cup of coffee. Only two episodes from the second season, "No Future" and "The Rise and Fall of Joan Girardi", were repeated by CBS, with remaining reruns pulled from the schedule. The cancellation meant the show ended on a cliffhanger, with Ryan potentially facing off against Joan. Ghost Whisperer took over the show's Friday time slot in September 2005.
After the show's cancellation, props such as pieces of Adam's artwork and Joan's signature messenger bag and costume pieces belonging to cast members were sold on eBay.

Home media

CBS Home Entertainment released both seasons on DVD in Region 1 in 2005 and 2006.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released all seasons in Region 2.
On June 6, 2017, CBS Home Entertainment released Joan of Arcadia: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.
SeasonDVD coverDiscsRelease dateEp#Additional information
16May 10, 200523Deleted Scenes, Audio commentaries by the Filmmakers and Cast
Behind-The-Scenes Featurettes: The Creation of Joan of Arcadia and Joan of Arcadia – A Look at Season One
God Gallery
26November 28, 200622Audio Commentaries on selected episodes
A Look at Season 2 featurette
The Making of Queen of the Zombies
A Tour of Joan's High School
Common Thread Table Read
Complete Series12June 6, 201745

Note: each disc in the season, except the last, contains 4 episodes.