| | |  | Children's Books | Home » » » Joan of Arcadia - The First Season | | | | | | | Product Promotions: | | | | | Description: | | After patriarch Will gets a job as the chief of police, the Girardi family moves to the small town of Arcadia from the big city. Middle child Joan isn't happy, and her family, consisting of science nerd Luke, paralyzed former jock Kevin, and their perpetually flustered mother Helen, isn't helping. Joan finds herself talking to God, in the form of random people who give her assignments to help the people around her. Joan keeps following God's assignments, never sure if she's really speaking to him, or just going crazy! | | | Product Details: | | | Actors:
| Amber Tamblyn, Joe Mantegna, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Ritter, Michael Welch | | Director:
| Alan Myerson | | Format:
| Box set, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC | | Language:
| English | | Number of Discs:
| 6 | | Studio:
| Paramount | | Run Time:
| 1028 minutes | | DVD Release Date:
| May 10, 2005 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 150 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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 A must watch!Apr 22, 2010
This show is amazing! It's really too bad it was canceled, because this show is really a treasure to watch. Besides this being entertaining, it's family friendly, and it has a lot of thought provoking content. If you follow the "religious" undertones, you understand that the show is more "humanity universal" based and perhaps a little less religious. Or perhaps just the way I see it...
Heartfelt and ntertainingJan 30, 2010
This series, Joan of Arcadia, is a pleasure to watch. It has a wonderful touch of normalcy amid the idea that God speaks aloud (and in person/s) to Joan. The family relationships are realistic and help make the interactions very believable. The idea that God can be any one of us is a constant reminder that we must treat our fellow man as fellow men.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
God is Witty!Jan 14, 2010
Intelligant, witty, interesting, simply a great show. Joan of Arcadia follows the life of Joan, a simple, average, American teenager. Her brother is handicapped, her father is a despised Police Chief, and her mother is just trying to hold the family together. But, when Joan begins to receives visits from God, it turns out she is the one begining to hold the family together. People begin to think Joan is simply insane and menatlly unstable. But she knows better. She knows that God is really talking to her. And knowing that is pretty hard when your family never prayed to God, and never went to Church. The mix of emotion, wit, mystery, and wisdom make Joan of Arcaida one of the best shows I've ever seen and one of the best purchases I've ever made.
An All-time Top Ten TV ShowDec 17, 2009
I watched this show when it originally aired in the mid 2000's. It was very good then and I was disappointed it was cancelled after just two seasons. The second season was better than the first. The show was getting better over time. After I recently watched the two seasons on DVD, I like the show even better. I consider Joan of Arcadia to be one of my all-time top ten television shows -- and that dates back to the 1960's.
I am very impressed with the acting skills of the main character, Amber Tamblyn. I am surprised she is not one of the big stars today.
What I really enjoyed about the season 2 DVD was the special feature of a script reading. First time I had ever seen that done. All people involved with a single episode sat around a huge table as the actors read their parts from the script. Occasionally, clips from the actual aired show were shown. Very interesting.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Better Than Most TVAug 14, 2009
The theme of this TV series, which first aired 2003-4, is that a teenage girl, Joan, is approached by God. God appears in various human guises, male and female, and usually has instructions about what he wants Joan to do: take up piano lessons, build a boat, get a job, and so forth. God never explains why, although it's all part of "a perfect plan," which sometimes works out, and sometimes is later reviewed with a sort of folksy wisdom, like "you don't always get to see the outcome of your actions." The "assignments" get a bit tiresome after awhile, and occasionally there is overacting, but all in all, the cast does a good job of portraying stresses and strains of family life, personal foibles, and largely believable situations encompassing challenge and tragedy. Because the program is focused on their family (and Joan) there is way too much drama for one family to be going through, but it helps that the series also shows Joan at school and outside the home, and her father at his work as a Chief of Police, and later, as a detective. Her nerd brother and former-jock-now-paraplegic older brother, have significant roles. In addition to the matter of God, there is substantial portrayal of teen angst. I think there is too much use of tinkling piano and soft guitar every time there are tears (which is often), but this is a critique that does not touch the core of the presentation--it's just something that could have been less thickly laid on.
This program only lasted another year; there were many awards for its first year, but the drive for advertising revenue drove Joan of Arcadia to the drearily predictable "sexing up" and "violencing up" in the second year, in order to supposedly reach the target demographic--a typical TV wasteland outcome. In the year that it ran, I looked forward to it each week. Its portrayal of normal (mostly white, middle-class) people gave range to some human and humane expressions about the plight of gay kids raised by bigots, homeless children afraid of losing their parents, and other issues that are timely and painful. The serious core of the show did not preclude moments of humor, and there was enough tenderness to keep it from being too heavy.
I recommend this as an example of a better-than-average TV presentation...which was too good to last.
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