Eli Stone: "George Michael's collection of smashhits is stealing the spotlight on the new ABC legal dramedy, Eli Stone!"

"We wanted Eli's first 'vision' to be a song from his formative years by someone who's been out of the spotlight for a while yet instantly recognizable. George not only fit this criteria, but was perfect because the themes of his music perfectly fit all the themes of the series, they really capture the message of the show"

Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, who bring us the dramedy 'Eli Stone', named each episode of the first season of this series after a song of George Michael and also George is making a couple appearances in the show - he is brought in episode 1, 7 and 13 where he appears as a vision and in episode 9 George will apppear as his flesh and blood self, wanting Eli to represent him in a legal case - all in the first season.

Read a short Q&A with George here on Entertainment Weekly.

"George was just perfect from day one"

"Because we wrote the show with George Michael in mind. And we wrote it basically like, we picked George because of a lot of different reasons I'll get to - but we picked him sort of knowing that he probably wouldn't do it...wouldn't do it in a million years. So we wrote George Michael, we got word back from his agents saying that he wasn't interested. So then we went about the part of trying to find a replacement. And through the process of finding a replacement, we learned - or rather, realy saw - it was impossible to replace him. Because no one had the right mix of '80s icon, but not overexposed today...fun, the right song, the right name, there were like all these elicit elements that worked perfectly with George. Like five elements, another artist would satisfy maybe three out of the five. George was just perfect from day one. And I don't think we realized how perfect he was until we tried to replace him. Luckily, a different agent of his learned about the script and said, "You know, I think this is something that George would like to do." And he went to George - and George is a big television fan, a total TV-ofile. Even when he's in England he downloads everything off of iTunes and watches a lot of American television. And he really responded to it - as a show, as something he wanted to do - so we really got lucky because I think I did four or five drafts for different artists and they were never as good as the original one we had for George."

(Marc Guggenheim - On The Futon With...)

Watch George Michael talk about 'Eli Stone' on Access Hollywood and on Extra.

Greg Berlanti and George Michael on ABC News

In this interview Victor Garber was asked: "If you had your druthers, what musical guest would they land?" His answer: "You know, I was so in awe of George Michael. I could not believe that they got him. When we read the pilot, I thought, "Oh, nice try, but you'll never get him." You know, it's like, this will never happen. And then, cut to, I'm acting with George Michael. It was fantastic. He was so willing and nervous and sweet. He didn't realize, you know, you have to sort of like stand in one spot? Like on my close-up, he'd be covering the camera. But he was so sweet. It was a great thrill to work with him."

This is a review of George Michael in 'Eli Stone'.

Article that mentions George in the season finale:
Loretta Devine counts her many blessings

So George Michael is making a couple of appearances in the series, the first season episodes are named after his songs, but also his music is being used very frequently in the first season, like; 'Faith' in Episode 01, 'This Is Not Real Love' in Episode 03, 'Heal The Pain' in Episode 04, 'Kissing A Fool' in Episode 06, 'Older' in Episode 07, 'Waiting For That Day' in Episode 08, 'Amazing' in Episode 09, 'Star People' in Episode 10, 'Father Figure' in Episode 10 and 'You Have Been Loved' in Episode 12.

In Season 1 - Episode 02 - 'Freedom', Victor Garber (playing Jordan Wethersby) gets to sing George's 'Freedom'. You can watch it here.

Episodes

In 'Pilot', George is appearing in Eli's vision performing his hit song 'Faith':