God Friended Me

God Friended Me is an American comedy-drama television series created by Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt. It stars Brandon Micheal Hall, Violett Beane, Suraj Sharma, Javicia Leslie, Joe Morton and Erica Gimpel. The series was ordered on May 11, 2018 and premiered on September 30, 2018, and concluded with a two-hour series finale on April 26, 2020, on CBS. CBS renewed the series for a second season which premiered on September 29, 2019. In March 2020, season 2 filming was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2020, the series was canceled after two seasons.

Plot
The series chronicles the life of Miles Finer (Hall), an outspoken atheist and podcaster, who is sent a friend request on Facebook by an account named "God". This account suggests new friends to Miles, people in his hometown of New York City, who will require assistance. Initially skeptical, Miles decides to follow these suggestions to help people. His first suggestion is a doctor who lost a patient and is on the verge of losing his girlfriend. While following up on his second suggestion, he meets and befriends Cara (Beane), a struggling magazine writer. Together with Cara and his hacker friend Rakesh (Sharma), Miles tries to find out who is behind the "God" account while still providing help to the account's continuing friend suggestions. Miles' atheist views sometimes cause friction with his father (Morton), who is the pastor of an Episcopal church in Harlem.

Use of Facebook
God Friended Me uses Facebook frequently as a narrative device. The "Friended" in the title God Friended Me refers to the act of friending someone on social media, granting that person special privileges (on the service in question) with respect to oneself. In God Friended Me, this allows for God to contact Miles.

While the majority of Facebook's revenue is advertisement-derived, show creator Steven Lilien says that their conversations with Facebook have been limited to discussing "how much we can portray it." The "God" of the show was active on Facebook outside the show, with liking pages and changing their profile picture as examples of their online activities.

Main

 * Brandon Micheal Hall as Miles Finer, a skeptical atheist who hosts a podcast about his atheism. Miles’ life is thrown into chaos when he is friended by an account named "God" on Facebook, which then sends him friend suggestions. This sends him on journeys to change people's lives.
 * Violett Beane as Cara Bloom, a journalist who is Miles' second friend suggestion. She becomes friends with Miles and Rakesh, helping them with God account cases. She and Miles start a romantic relationship, which is tested when a God account case comes between them.
 * Suraj Sharma as Rakesh Singh, a hacker and friend of Miles
 * Joe Morton as Arthur Finer, Miles' father who is the long-time pastor of Harlem Episcopal church and later the Bishop of New York
 * Javicia Leslie as Ali Finer, Miles' sister and Arthur's daughter
 * Erica Gimpel as Trish Allen, Arthur's girlfriend and then wife (season 2; recurring season 1)

Recurring
• Parminder Nagra as Pria Amar, a university associate of Henry Chase and Simon Hayes. Simon was her bone marrow donor when she had her first leukemia.

• Rachel Bay Jones as Susan, Cara's estranged mother with whom she reconnects.

• Shazi Raja as Jaya, Rakesh's girlfriend, later ex-girlfriend, then later wife.

• Francesca Ling as Parker

• Malik Yoba as Terrance, Arthur's brother-in-law and Miles and Ali's maternal uncle.

• Brent Sexton as Ray Nicolette, Miles' fourth friend suggestion. A widowed private investigator who takes in a foster child named Isaac after finding that his late wife shared a connection with him. He uses his investigative skills to help Miles with a few subsequent friend suggestions.

• Kyle Harris as Eli, Cara's boyfriend in the first season.

• Victoria Janicki as Nia, Miles' girlfriend in the first season.

• Gaius Charles as Rev. Andrew Carver, one of Arthur's associates at Harlem Episcopal.

• Adam Goldberg as Simon Hayes, a tech billionaire who was thought to be behind the God account due to his work in predictive analytics.

• Michel Gill as Wilson Hedges

• Derek Luke as Henry Chase, who built Juliette Code which was the base code for the flood-warning system Simon Hayes developed.

• Jessica Lu as Constance "Joy" Chen (guest season 1, recurring season 2), a lawyer who is friended by the God account at the end of season 1. She was suggested by God to befriend Miles in season 2.

• Zach Appelman as Lt. Fremont; later Captain Fremont (season 2)

• Susan Misner as Annie Keller (season 2)

• Karine Vanasse as Audrey Grenelle (season 2)

• Chris Conroy as Adam Grey (season 2)

• Chosen Jacobs as Zack Waller (season 2)

• Kara Royster as Emily (season 2)

• Tonya Pinkins as Marsha Smith (season 2)

• Cornelius Smith Jr. as Corey Smith (season 2)

Notable guest stars
• Annaleigh Ashford as Fliss

• Michael Vartan as Jeffrey Bloom

• Cara Buono as Karen

• Bryan Greenberg as Teddy Preston

• T. R. Knight as Gideon

• Samantha Marie Ware as Claire Thompson

• Tom Everett Scott as Paul Levine

• William Sadler as Rev. Elias

• K. Todd Freeman as Bishop Thompson

• Judd Hirsch as Abe Cohen

• Amber Stevens West as Julia, Trish's daughter

• Carl Lumbly as Alphonse Jeffries

• Peppermint as Pastor Olivia

• Lonnie Chavis as CJ Smith

• Amy Acker as Tammy Marshall

Development
On August 31, 2017, it was announced that Steven Lilien and Wynbrandt had decided to develop the pilot and had teamed with Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter to develop the concept. Warner Bros. Television was shopping the show to the American broadcast networks. Both Lilien and Wynbrandt would write the series, while Berlanti and Schechter would serve as executive producers through Berlanti Productions, and Marcos Siega would direct the pilot. CBS ordered a pilot on January 23, 2018. In addition to Berlanti and Schechter, Lilien and Wynbrandt would also serve as executive producers for the series. The pilot was picked up straight-to-series by CBS on May 11, 2018 and the series premiered on September 30, 2018. On October 19, 2018, CBS picked up the series for a full season of 20 episodes.

On January 29, 2019, the series was renewed for a second season which premiered on September 29, 2019. On March 13, 2020, Warner Bros. Television announced that production would be suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 14, 2020, CBS announced the series had been canceled after two seasons, and the last two episodes aired on April 26, 2020. The last-filmed episode was reworked into a series finale, mainly by using unused footage originally filmed for the pilot.

Casting
On February 5, 2018, it was announced that Brandon Micheal Hall had joined the production as Miles Finer. Several additional cast members were announced in February 2018. Suraj Sharma and Javicia Leslie would portray Rakesh Singh and Ali Finer, then four days later Joe Morton was announced as Rev. Arthur Finer. Finally, Violett Beane was cast as Cara Bloom.

On June 11, 2019, it was reported that Erica Gimpel was promoted as a series regular for second season.

Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series has an approval rating of 59% based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 6.36 out of 10. The site's critical consensus for season one reads, "A sincere and thoughtful handling of spiritual themes helps God Friended Me overcome—and even benefit from—its earnest approach to a potentially off-putting premise." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 57 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

In his review of the show's pilot episode, Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe wrote that "Based on the title alone, I was fully prepared to despise this show", but declared that "the premiere holds some promise as a thoughtful feel-good drama." Michael Starr of the New York Post wrote that "While 'God Friended Me' does sometimes stray into saccharine-sweet, 'Touched By An Angel'-type territory [...] it doesn't overstay its welcome and seems to know when to dial it back and inject some levity into the proceedings." Steve Greene of IndieWire gave the show a grade of "C", writing that "It's anchored by a likable cast, and works from an admirably high-concept premise, but for now the result is an overstuffed hodgepodge of exaggerated emotions and familiar swings at family drama."

Vinnie Mancuso of Collider gave the show a rating of three stars, calling Hall's performance as Miles "endlessly likable" but writing that the show is "heavy on the hamminess, rooted in religion and old-fashioned morality, and misunderstands the lifestyle of your average human under the age of 35 on every fundamental level". Hemant Mehta of Patheos wrote that God Friended Me is "not a bad show", but criticized the show for presenting Miles' atheism as being a result of his mother's death. Mehta wrote that "In short, he's an atheist because he went through something traumatic [...] it bears no resemblance to why so many atheists today don't believe in God."

Ratings
The website TV Series Finale acknowledged that during the show's second season, ratings averaged 25% less in the key 18-49 demo compared to the first season. Overall viewership fell 20% compared to the first season. TVLine reported that God Friended Me had the "smallest gain via Live+7 DVR playback — just 23 percent — of any scripted CBS program."

Broadcast
God Friended Me premiered in the United States and Canada on September 30, 2018. The series premiered in Australia on November 5, 2018.