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American television series

Miracles is an American mystery drama television series starring Skeet Ulrich and Angus Macfadyen that aired on ABC from January 27 to December 26, 2003. The series created by Richard Hatem and Michael Petroni, the series was 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 the Church behind and is approached by Alva Keel to join his organization Sodalitas Quaerito, investigating and cataloging "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 "Super Monday" line up on January 27, 2003. Six episodes were broadcast on ABC before the series was canceled because of low ratings, with its final broadcast episode drawing five 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 repeats or news magazine 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 time slot, 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.

The series begins as Paul Callan (Skeet Ulrich), 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 a supposed "miracle". Upon the advice of his mentor, Father "Poppi" Calero (Héctor Elizondo), Paul takes a sabbatical. Months later while doing humanitarian work 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 on a lack of proof. Paul resigns out of frustration and discovers that Poppi never called him about Tommy Ferguson's case. Later, Paul is approached at a diner by a man named Alva Keel (Angus Macfadyen), who offers him a job with his organization, 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; the same miracle has appeared to six other people in the past 25 years, only every other time the message 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. 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 Macfadyen as Alva Keel, a former Harvard professor. While minoring in linguistics at Cambridge University, he began his senior project studying bird calls and recorded several of them on tapes. While playing them back, he began hearing his deceased mother's voice repeating a childhood nickname of his amongst the bird calls.

Héctor Elizondo 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 Smith as Thomas "Tommy" Ferguson, a ten year old boy from Cottonwood, Arizona 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".

Series creator Richard Hatem 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]".

Richard Hatem addressed the theme of the episodes "The Ghost" and "The Letter", which were both "conceived" around the same time.

Debuting the night after ABC's broadcast of Super Bowl XXXVII, Miracles premiered on January 27, 2003 at 10:00pm as part of the network's new "Super Monday" line up. Despite heavy promotion of the new lineup, which also featured the new series Veritas: The Quest and a new night for hit drama The Practice, ABC finished in fourth place in the ratings that night, with the premiere of Miracles being seen by 8.74 million viewers in the United States and scoring a 3.6 rating/9 share in the advertiser coveted adults 18–49 demographic, ABC's highest rating in the timeslot since March 2001. 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. After three episodes aired, the series was pre empted for several weeks, "for several different reasons", according to series creator Richard Hatem. Two more episodes aired in early March 2003 when ABC preempted their Monday lineup for another two weeks, despite promoting that The Practice and Miracles would air six straight weeks of original episodes beginning March 3; ABC's March 17 primetime lineup was devoted entirely to news coverage about the impending War in Iraq, while a second new episode of The Practice aired in the 10:00pm hour on March 24. The final broadcast episode, "Hand of God", aired on March 31, 2003, drawing five million viewers and a 1.8 rating/5 share in adults 18–49. 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 and a 2.5 rating/6 share in adults 18–49. 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.

Episode # Title Air date 18–49 rating/share Viewers (millions) 1 "The Ferguson Syndrome" January 27, 2003 3.6/9 8.74 2 "The Friendly Skies" February 3, 2003 2.9/7 7.13 3 "The Patient" February 10, 2003 2.5/6 6.32 4 "Little Miss Lost" March 3, 2003 2.3/6 6.38 5 "The Bone Scatterer" March 10, 2003 2.0/5 5.74 6 "Hand of God" March 31, 2003 1.8/5 4.96

Shout! Factory 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.

Year Category Nominee(s) Episode Result 2003 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music W. G. Snuffy Walden, Joseph Williams N/A