Joan of Arcadia

Creator Barbara Hall developed the concept while working on Chicago Hope and Judging Amy, combining her fascination with Joan of Arc with her longtime interest in physics and metaphysics.

Hall said she decided God would have to appear visually to a teenage girl today, reasoning that kids wouldn't hear voices since 'you'd have to get the iPods off their heads.'

When pitching the series to CBS, Hall and executives deliberately aimed to differentiate it from Touched by an Angel by making Joan a non-religious character in a grittier show.

Hall wrote a set of guidelines called the 'Ten Commandments of Joan of Arcadia' for the writing staff, dictating rules such as God never identifying one religion as correct and the exact nature of God remaining an unsolvable mystery.

Joe Mantegna, who played Will Girardi, had a development deal with CBS, liked the script, and was also involved in casting the show's other characters.

Although the fictional town of Arcadia is set in Maryland, the series was mostly filmed at various Los Angeles locations, with establishing skyline shots filmed in Wilmington, Delaware, and Arcadia High School scenes shot at El Segundo High School.

The theme song is Joan Osborne's 'One of Us,' written by Eric Bazilian, which Osborne re-recorded specifically for the show; to match the lyrics about a stranger on the bus, Joan first meets God as a teenage boy riding the school bus with her.

The character Ryan Hunter, introduced partly at the network's request as a menacing tempter figure, was given The Rolling Stones' 'Sympathy for the Devil' as his musical motif.

Following its cancellation, props from the show, including pieces of Adam's artwork and Joan's signature messenger bag, along with cast costume pieces, were sold on eBay.

The show's cancellation left it ending on a cliffhanger involving a potential confrontation between Ryan and Joan, and CBS ran a promotional campaign with street teams performing good deeds like buying a cold person a cup of coffee amid fan campaigns to save the series.