From Tom Shales, the Washington Post’s television critic, writing on a new series — ‘Eli Stone’: No Seer, But No Rerun Either — premiering tonight on ABC.

It’s not at all encouraging that a future episode deals, like the pilot, with a negligent corporation, this one manufacturing poisonous pesticide. What’s this going to be, Bad Company of the Week? That could get tired quickly, though yet another future episode begins with Miller’s voice saying, “This story’s different.” We shall see.

It got tired years and years ago, Mr. Shales. Nevertheless, “Eli Stone” apparently wants to give “Law and Order” a run for its anti-capitalist money. Although…L&O last night eschewed its usual bashing of business and executives to rip a story from the headlines about Senator Craig and Norman Hsu (separate story lines). Surpisingly not awful.

Our friends at the American Tort Reform Association also knocked “Eli Stone” around for irresponsibly reinforcing the claim that measles vaccines lead to autisim. ATRA’s Sherman Joyce:

Leaving Hollywood’s hallucinations aside, the premier episode of Eli Stone reportedly features a lawsuit that alleges a link between a child’s autism and a preservative in certain childhood vaccines. Never mind that a growing body of medical research and most public health organizations insist no such link exists. So long as it makes for good drama and good ratings, who cares if parents might be misled into believing that getting their kids vaccinated is a bad idea?

The problem with screenwriters, seems to us, is the same problem that afflicts so many elected officials. They come straight out of college, surrounded by like-minded people, and drop right into hermetic Hollywood — or the government, in the case of pols — never encountering the real world of the private sector, where companies supply needed goods and services, bosses try to do right by their employees, people work hard, and the last thing on anybody’s mind is trying to screw the little guy.

P.S. How soon does John Edwards land a cameo role in one of the legal dramas/comedies? Guessing “The Practice.”