God Friended me (CBS) Wiki

## About God Friended Me

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. During his second such request, he meets and befriends Cara (Beane), a struggling magazine writer. His first request was actually a doctor who lost a patient and was also on the verge of losing his girlfriend. Together with Cara and his hacker friend Rakesh (Sharma), Miles also tries to find out who is behind the "God" account. Miles' atheist views sometimes causes 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. On Facebook, for example, one's friends have the privilege of viewing and posting to one's timeline. 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. According to executive producer Bryan Wynbrandt, the "God" of the show will be active on Facebook outside the show, with liking pages and changing their profile picture given as examples of their possible online activities.

## Cast

* Brandon Micheal Hall[1] as Miles Finer, a skeptical atheist who hosts a podcast about his atheism. Miles’ life is thrown into chaos when he is friended by God on Facebook, who then sends him friend suggestions. This sends him on a journey to change people's lives.
* Violett Beane[1] as Cara Bloom, a journalist who is one of the "friend suggestions" and becomes friends with Miles and Rakesh.
* Suraj Sharma[1] as Rakesh Sehgal , a hacker and friend of Miles
* Javicia Leslie[1] as Ali Finer, Miles' sister
* Joe Morton[1] as Rev. Arthur Finer, Miles' father
* Erica Gimpel as Trisha (season 2; recurring season 1)[13]

* Parminder Nagra as Pria
* Rachel Bay Jones as Susan
* Shazi Raja as Jaya
* Kyle Harris as Eli

* Victoria Janicki as Nia
* Gaius Charles as Rev. Andrew Carver
* Adam Goldberg as Simon Hayes
* Michel Gill as Wilson Hedges

## Critical Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series has an approval rating of 61% based on 27 reviews, with an average rating of 6.36 out of 10. The site's critical consensus 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."[37]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 57 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."[38]

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."[39] 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."[40] 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."[41]

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".[42] 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.[43] 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."[43]

With all this aside God Friended me still has a devoted and loving fanbase