Medium

[maudmac]

I've seen some commercials for this and it looks interesting. I'll sure be watching.



Premieres 10/9 p.m. Monday, January 3rd, NBC



Synopsis and info from the official site:

Quote:

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From Emmy Award-winning executive producer, creator and director Glenn Gordon Caron ("Moonlighting") comes "Medium," a chilling drama series inspired by the real-life story of research medium Allison Dubois. Patricia Arquette ("Stigmata," "Flirting with Disaster") stars as a young wife and mother who, since childhood, has been struggling to make sense of her dreams and visions of dead people.



Allison Dubois (Arquette) is a strong-willed young mother of three, a devoted wife and law student who begins to suspect that she can talk to dead people, see the future in her dreams and read people's thoughts. Fearing for her mental health, she turns for support to her husband Joe (Jake Weber, "U-571"), an aerospace engineer, who slowly comes to believe that what his wife is telling him just might be true. The real challenge is convincing her boss, D.A. Devalos (Miguel Sandoval) -- and the other doubters in the criminal justice system -- that her psychic abilities can give them the upper hand when it comes to solving violent and horrifying crimes whose mysteries often reside with those who live beyond the grave.



Sofia Vassilieva and Maria Lark also star as Ariel and Bridget, the Dubois children. David Cubitt ("10.5") also recurs as Detective Lee Scanlon.



Caron is creator and executive producer. Kelsey Grammer ("Girlfriends"), Steve Stark and Oscar winner Ronald L. Schwary ("Ordinary People") are executive producers. "Medium" is produced by Picturemaker Productions, Inc. in association with Grammnet Productions and Paramount Network Television.

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A review: NBC's 'Medium': Rare and Well Done

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make some room now dig what you see

[urnofosiris]

Looks interesting. I´ll be sure to watch it. I wish I could tag along on one of those cases for real, just to see with my own eyes what possible truth there is to this.

[BytrSuite]

I liked it okay. Seemed a bit jumpy in parts. Glad she's not keeping stuff from her husband. I'll definitely check it out again.

________
Bender: Y'know, I was God once.
God: Yes I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.

[maudmac]

Hmmm. I didn't really care for this first episode. I'm not sure why exactly.



I like the character and I like her family. I like the dynamics between her, her husband, and the kids. They all have good chemistry.



I like the premise of the show. I liked the elements of humor, mixed it with the serious stuff.



But something about it is bugging me.



Oh well. It'll probably grow on me. I'll sure give it a few more eps, especially since there's another new ep Thursday.

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make some room now dig what you see

[xita]

Oooh Patricia! Yumm!!



I was unsure how I would react because I wanted to like it. I can't help but like it and Patricia is just the best, I mean I watched stigmata for her, and liked it! But the show was good. I liked her family and her interactions with them. It's an honest relationship which I am not really sure is all too common on television.



I liked her interactions with some of the lawyers and the rangers, etc. A couple of parts were a bit corny but considering the subject, I would say that's really good. I liked the acknowledgement of the rain. Sometimes that kind of thing would be left unanswered but they tackled it head on. That was the best part of the show perhaps when she realized she could see so many things but not sense a rain storm.



Yay another show I like, yay! That makes 3! This year's new television shows did not look like they would be that great and now I have 3 shows I dig!

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"CSI: Miami" won the 10 p.m. hour with an 11.8/19, well below its season average thanks in part to the solid debut of "Medium," 10.4/16, on NBC.

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I hate the CSI juggernaut!

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"Trust is a risk masquerading as a promise."

Edited by: xita  at: 1/4/05 9:41 am

[Warduke]

I loved it. I wanted to like this one, so I was sure I'd hate it, glad to be wrong



And of course, Patricia Arquette, yummy!

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Ghostwriter]

I liked it. I was surprised because I thought I wouldn't. I thought it might be a little hokey. I read that it was based on a real woman so I wanted to check it out. And I'm glad I did. I liked how the family interacted. But I'm a sucker for a mystery. I'll definitely be checking it out again.

[oneyedchicklet]

I liked it. I was looking foward to seeing it from the first advertisement. I thought it started kind of slow but I stayed with it. As of now, I'll continue to watch the upcoming episodes. And yes, Patricia Arquette isn't bad for the eyes.



Love to All,

Barb

Now serving Bitter, party of one. Your table is ready.

[urnofosiris]

Just watched the first episode and I liked it much better than I thought I would. The only thing that bugged me somewhat was the fact that the evil pedophile was sexually abused as a kid by someone who was also abused as a kid etc etc. Hmm yeah, I know some victims turn into perpretators and in no way was it suggested in this episode that this excused that guy because he was traumatized and neglected as a kid, but it still bugged me. Him apparently having kissed the other prisoner was a bit buggy too.

Anyway, I liked everything else, Allison kicked ass. I like her family. It´s a very promising show, I will definitely watch the next episode.

[maudmac]

Aha! Yes, I think that's what bugged me. That whole thing with the kiss. It seemed...manipulative in a malicious sort of way. As if to reinforce the idea that two boys kissing is really bad. I am perhaps looking at it from the wrong perspective, or being overly sensitive, or just sleep-deprived...but it did definitely bug me.

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make some room now dig what you see

[Garner]

There is a series of books by Kay Hooper that is sort of similar to this, with supernatural and the police stuff mixing so I was prepared to like this. And I did, more or less. I think I will reserve judgement till the next couple eps. I didn't find Allison particularly cool, but then I didn't dislike her either. I think it usually takes me a few more eps to see how the characters develop. I didn't focus much on the kiss, but the chain of abuse thing I actually really did like. That happens so often and it reinforces the importance of stopping those sort of things from occuring as they tend to be self-perpetuating, similar to domestic abuse. And yeah, it was nice to see them not excusing the prisoner's actions because of it. We'll see where this goes, but so far it looks decent and being after CSI tonight shouldn't hurt (even if it is on a different channel) But I wouldn't put it up against CSI Miami, but maybe before it. That would seem to make more sense to me.



Garner

[xita]

I liked the second episode. I am just. Am I wrong in thinking it's a bit unethical to use a medium to pick jurors who will vote the way you want them to. I am going to keep on watching.

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"Trust is a risk masquerading as a promise."

[urnofosiris]

I´d say it is unethical, but that is what they do apparently, try and get the jury that will vote your way, not one that will look at the evidence/case objectively. She was just another tool in the selection process. This episode confused me. She was dreaming about the killer before the DA asked her to get involved. The guy she saw getting arrested in her dream was that guy from the menu. Why would she confuse him and the killer? It was not a case of bad memory, it was a mistake. Who is to say that next time she won´t help to put the wrong guy to death. She seemed more eager to get a job than worry about whether there might be something wrong with this. She never even bothered to check beforehand whether the guy did it or not. I could have understood her being eager to help make sure he was found guilty, that would have gotten him of the streets, but getting involved in the sentencing itself? I found it ironic that the DA told her that admitting you are wrong is part of being human or something, when he himself did not even for a millisecond stop to wonder whether he might be wrong. Seems like he is happy to believe her as long as it suits him.





Edited to add: Just watched episode three and I liked it well enough. I think after three episodes I can come to the tentative conclusion that I really like this show and will keep watching.

Edited by: DrG at: 1/19/05 3:48 am

[Warduke]

Quote:

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I think after three episodes I can come to the tentative conclusion that I really like this show and will keep watching.

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I agree Garfield. It's only been three episodes but I'm already looking forward to Monday nights, so that's a good sign

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[xita]

I was distracted by a stupid after golden globes fashion special. sigh, i know. I still caught a lot of it and it's very good and enjoyable. A nice twist on the typical investigation type show.

- - - - - - - - - - -
"Trust is a risk masquerading as a promise."

[urnofosiris]

I was wondering how she knew what her husband had planned for her. Did dead people tell her that too or did she just guess it? If she really does know everything then she should get me that lottery ticket already. I am going with the guessing on that one, I mean I had guessed it his surprise would be something like that. His I am pretending that I planning a surprise party that you already know about was a bit obvious. And yes, I get stuck on totally irrelevant details sometimes.

[seurat]

That was actually one of my fave bits about this ep, the fact that she knew what was being planned and played along anyway. We don't know enough about the limits of her abilities to know exactly how she got that info, but it was certainly no surprise that she did. I also really liked the opening line of the husband's regarding her having a strange dream. So I do kind of like this show, and am watching it regularly. I do some have some problems with it though, including things that others have mentioned earlier. I'm still really bugged that they just dropped the story where they had her pick the jury at the point that she realized that she had seen a different person commit the crimes. And in general I find the mysteries too easy to figure- I mean, no one thought to check out the wedding photograph angle before? The show could still go either way for me, depending on the writing.

"Life's complications and frustrations/they disappear when the music starts playing/I found a place where it feels alright/I hear a record and it opened my eyes/do you remember what the music meant?" - Speakers Push Air, Pretty Girls Make Graves

[urnofosiris]

It is a bit hard to understand that the police guy who was understandably so obsessed with these murders would have missed that wedding picture thing. The wedding pictures has a distinct style. Also, I may have missed it, but how did they explain the gunpowder on the hands of the dead husbands. She knew the men were killed first on each occasion, but the evidence suggested they had shot their wives first.



Edit: Just saw the new episode. I like it, but I had a hard time swallowing her indignation at the thought of lying on the stand. It would not have been a big lie, she did get the tip from an anonymous source in a way, so you could argue she would not have had to lie at all, which she did not in the end. That aside, she had zero hesitation about helping to select a winning jury only a few weeks ago, so I found this whole thing inconsistent to say the least. I really liked how she handled that sleazy lawyer though and I liked to see the other psychic lady again.

Edited by: DrG at: 2/2/05 7:49 am

[urnofosiris]

Well apparently she cannot foresee really important things about her own family, or at least not always. Her husband had to get a biopsy from an Australian shaped (really) mole on his back and she did not know anything about it. Once she found out, she freaked out and went to see the psychic lady from the first episode who assured her he and her kids are healthy, but when she asked whether everything was going to be ok, the psychic got this troubled look. After some prompting she said there would be some significant trouble in paradise (I´m paraphrasing obviously). When Alison found a business card with the name Kelly on it and later dreamed about her hubby ´hugging´ that restaurant lady from behind, she assumed he was having an affair.

Edited by: DrG at: 2/2/05 1:05 pm

[BytrSuite]

Yeah, I did like how she dealt with the lawyer. I only caught the last 15 minutes or so, but was able to figure out pretty quickly what the episode was about.



And she thought her husband might have been having an affair? At first that annoyed me because why would she not know what was really going on in her vision or dream or whatever? Then I figured that he wasn't actively thinking about it because it wasn't happening so she had nothing to read. Heh, I guess.

________
Bender: Y'know, I was God once.
God: Yes I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.

[BytrSuite]

Ahh, right, I remember a bit about him telling her that everything was fine with his health now.



I guess I just have to stop falling asleep when this is on.

________
Bender: Y'know, I was God once.
God: Yes I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.

[seurat]

I'll agree about this ep, it wasn't one of the stronger ones. We all liked the same moment though, when she confronts the opposing attorney with his guilty secrets. I played that part twice, it was very well done. I enjoyed the previous ep a lot more, with her daughter turning out to have a gift too. The way they dealt with the imaginary playmate/ghost was great. I actually think the material with her family is often better than the criminal investigation stuff. And those kids are good actors, I was really impressed.

"Life's complications and frustrations/they disappear when the music starts playing/I found a place where it feels alright/I hear a record and it opened my eyes/do you remember what the music meant?" - Speakers Push Air, Pretty Girls Make Graves

[urnofosiris]

I thought episode 6 was great. It gave me the creeps and the plot twist with her oldest daughter was great. I was not expecting that at all. The DA pissed me off. Here you have the psychic who has proven herself over and over telling you that Mr. ´who was obviously too saintly to be true in any universe´ is an evil murderer and he did not even want to be bothered to check. It probably got in the way of his perfect burglary case. It seems he only wants to listen when it suits his needs.



I think it took Alison a bit too long to realize she was seeing the future and that she jumped to her own wrong conclusions too fast, but it was a fascinating story. She changed the future for that girl at least, but what if he will turn his attentions on someone else who would not have been hurt otherwise? Hopefully he will find enough ´satisfaction´ in knowing that at least one person knows he is not a boring goodie two shoes, but the devil instead. I doubt it though, but I am sure that like the girl, when the time comes Alison will remember him or be alerted by her dreams.

Edited by: DrG at: 2/9/05 2:38 am

[seurat]

Most of the ep worked for me too, but I don't think I could call it great. I'm not sure what to think of this "may commit a crime in the future" idea - remember Minority Report? I did like the scene where she warns Sharona about the incident in her future. And you're right that the dreams of the guy and his crimes were effective. My favorite things in this ep again were with the family, and that's what continues to elevate the series into the must-watch category. I didn't see the older daughters psychic ability coming at all, I thought they had set up a nice dynamic already of her being the "normal" one in the family. But they really handled this well and I'm looking forward to further developments. Wonder if the littlest one will start teleporting her toys soon.

"Life's complications and frustrations/they disappear when the music starts playing/I found a place where it feels alright/I hear a record and it opened my eyes/do you remember what the music meant?" - Speakers Push Air, Pretty Girls Make Graves

[urnofosiris]

Finally a new episode. So far I liked every one, but for some reason I like this one better than most. Not sure why, it was not as creepy as some of the other episodes. I guess I like that the A storyline had a happy ending. Not so for that boy. That DA guy bugged me again. I did not get the impression that he was listening and going to do anything with the fact that he could now prove the boy had an alibi at the time of the murder of that counsil guy. It would not bring either of them back, but the real killer is still out there.

[seurat]

I'm still enjoying the show too G, and what I found encouraging about this ep is that the police investigation portion of the show was strong. So far I've found the family storylines far more involving, so it was good to have an ep with very little of the family that srill worked so well. I liked that they showed how tired she was getting from the lack of sleep and how it effected her performance, I thought Patricia played that very well. I can't say that the DA bugs me so much, he's clearly not their strongest character but then he's not the focus of the show so it doesn't seem to matter. I hope they do follow up on the case and find the real killer, one of the faults of the show for me to date is that they aren't revisiting some of these unresolved cases. Maybe once the show has been on for awhile they'll start to do some longer story arcs, right now every ep seems to be a stand-alone story. As for not being creepy, you should have been with me when I watched the show and saw the woman on the porch suddenly appear behind her, I nearly jumped out of my chair. Yikes!

"Life's complications and frustrations/they disappear when the music starts playing/I found a place where it feels alright/I hear a record and it opened my eyes/do you remember what the music meant?" - Speakers Push Air, Pretty Girls Make Graves

Edited by: seurat at: 3/18/05 7:16 pm

[maudmac]

This show has really grown on me. I love the family dynamic there. I think I'd want to watch it even if it were just an hour of them all getting ready in the morning. I especially love that middle daughter!



And I've never been so impressed with Patricia Arquette. I didn't know she had it in her, but she does a great job.



I think this show does some of the best I've ever seen at balancing the character stuff with the plot stuff. Both aspects are equally interesting to me, and, I think, equally well done.



Seems to be doing well in the ratings, too. And yay for that.

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don't make me come up there - satan

[maudmac]

The bicycle helmet! Then the galoshes! More

I love that kid soooo much.

[urnofosiris]

Glad to see a new episode. That kid really is adorable.

[seurat]

I missed the galoshes, have to go back and look for that. The kids are amazing, also loved how the older sister spells out h-e-l-m-et to her mother, knowing exactly how this is gonna go over with her sis. And the calm way her sister considers what her Dad is saying and then says it'll be ok if he decides to cancel Christmas. Could that moment have been any better? The mystery was satisfying too, the pilot was very good, and I loved her husband's realization at the end that they'll be going to the airport on that date for years to come with the awful possibilty every time that that flight will go down. Great show.