Joan of Arcadia and Saving Grace

[Linda Z]

The "Have you seen an angel?" thread (it was in "About the Way" but has recently moved to "Open") brought to mind a couple of TV shows I really like that have to do with angels appearing to everyday people to lend them a hand or encourage them to get themselves to the right place at the right time, etc. I didn't want to clutter up the excellent "angels" thread with a discussion of mere television shows.

I know there were a couple GSers besides me who liked Joan of Arcadia which, much to my dismay, was cancelled after a couple seasons. However, dum da da daaaaaah, the SciFi channel on cable is showing it in reruns on Friday nights. I liked it enough that I'm going to try to remember to watch the reruns.

In it, Amber Tamblyn plays Joan, a high school girl who is visited by an angel who appears to her in a wide (and sometimes rather comical) variety of human forms: a phone company lineman, a "cafeteria lady," etc. The list goes on and on. Her parents are played by Mary Steenbergen and Joe Montagna, and her brother is played by the late John Ritter's son. Excellent cast.

This angel is always trying to get Joan to do something she doesn't want to do, like join the chess club or go to a school dance with a wierd guy, for example. Even though she doesn't understand why she's asked to do these things and generally does them relucantly, in the end it's obvious that her following the angel's suggestions makes a positive difference in her life or someone else's. She gets plenty of "Are you crazy?" looks from her family and friends along the way.

It's a sweet, funny and, IMO, realistic look at how a normal teenage girl might react to being helped along life's path by an angel.

The other show, Saving Grace, stars Holly Hunter and is on, I think TNT. Grace is a rather rough-around-the-edges detective. She drinks too much, sleeps around too much, and says .... a lot. But she's a good cop who loves her job and her fellow cops and her dog. Her angel is a rather scruffy looking guy named Earl, probably about 60 years old. His role seems to be to make Grace think. He often nudges her toward doing the right thing, but he never judges her.

Grace is dealing with lots of issues. Her own frailties, the loss of her sister, a relationship with a fellow officer who's now going through separation/divorce. She's as human and flawed as they come, and yet this angel Earl just hangs in there with her and helps her where he can.

End of plugs. If anyone else watches Saving Grace or used to watch Joan of Arcadia or will watch the reruns, I'd love to hear what you think. That's what these two shows make me do. Think. About God and how he works with us where we are, and about the possibility of our receiving a helping hand from angels at certain points in our lives.