I am glad to see this review. I was hoping this show was going to be good. But I wish they would come up with something new to demonstrate mental powers besides blowing hair. :>)
NBC's 'Medium': Rare and Well Done
By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 3, 2005; Page C01
Glen Gordon Caron's "Medium" is an especially impressive achievement when one considers how crowded movie and TV screens have been in recent years with living people who "see dead people," with psychics who see into the future, with clairvoyants and soothsayers and things that go bump in the simulated night of darkened theaters or living rooms with the drapes pulled tight.
You may groan at the premise -- a young woman helps the police solve crimes through use of her psychic intuition -- but it's brought off with so much storytelling skill and so few voguish gimmicks that it might as well be the first show of its kind. It's white-knuckle television, and you may want to reinforce the arms of easy chairs and couches so they can withstand rigorous gripping.
It's clear from the premiere of the NBC drama, at 10 tonight on Channel 4, that Caron is getting more than just able assistance from his fascinating star, Patricia Arquette, sensationally sensitive and believable in the title role (in police parlance, she's a "research medium," brought in when cases seem unsolvable). We don't usually engage in speculation about Emmy-worthiness around here, but Arquette's is so intelligently intense that it immediately stands out as -- what else? -- outstanding.
Maybe Arquette and Caron have discovered some psychic bond that exists between the two of them, or it's just pure skill and professionalism on their parts, but Arquette connects with viewers virtually right off the bat, taking your hand and leading you into a realm that has its advocates and its doubters. Both should find the show compelling. You can call it baloney but still want to be there to see it sliced.
"There really is an Allison," reads a brief on-screen prologue. "Really." In fact, Allison Dubois, the character Arquette plays, is a consultant to the show. That doesn't make it an exercise in heroine-worship. As played by Arquette, Dubois comes across as vital and dimensional, replete with flaws. Caron, who created the series and wrote and directed the premiere, deftly balances the obligatory story lines about murder investigations with a running account of Dubois' home life -- a mother with three kids and a refreshingly understanding husband (Jake Weber).
Her professional life does not have glamorous trappings. She shares a cramped storeroom in the lower depths of the police station with the staff sketch artist. Many of those working with her seem embarrassed if not mortified by her presence on a crime-solving team.
The premiere explains how she got the job over widespread misgivings. A colleague escorting her to the scene of a crime laments that "we have to speak to every Tom, Dick and harried housewife" as part of investigations, but eventually the colleague will be doubting her own doubts. Dubois' own anxieties about her strange gift -- one that can clearly be a pain in the neck sometimes -- are eased when she meets another woman with similar but much less powerful abilities: "Even among the 'specials,' " she tells Dubois, "you're special."
It's less with skepticism than with hoo-haw ridicule that Dubois is met by a veteran Texas Ranger, who's asked her to fly down to Texas as part of a last desperate attempt to find the body of a 6-year-old boy who was molested and murdered by a 17-year-old boy currently in custody. The state's case is weak, and Dubois is there to strengthen it, which she does by meeting the suspect, diagnosing his sickness (with help from some now-departed forbears over in the corner) and, almost in a snap, locating the buried body, which a sudden hurricane then unfortunately washes away.
There's crackling, electric byplay between Arquette and the head Texas Ranger, whose unyielding disbelief yields when she matter-of-factly remarks about open-heart surgery he had -- secretly -- a few weeks earlier. Situations are portrayed for their human drama and emotional oomph, not for spookiness or freakiness. This is a character-driven mystery as much as "Columbo" and "Murder, She Wrote" were, but with a character of great verisimilitude and stature. She's down to earth and up among the stars at the same time.
As is the show. If the artsy-smartsy, facile scares of M. Night Shyamalan or Steve King leave you cold, more power to you, and the more you're likely to appreciate the virtues of "Medium," which has Kelsey Grammer among its team of executive producers. The cast is first-rate -- and has to be to keep up with Arquette. Among those most prominent are Miguel Sandoval as the district attorney who looks past his own prejudices to hire her, and Maria Lark as Bridget, one of the three children.
In a future episode submitted to critics -- though not yet assigned an air date -- it appears that Bridget may carry the gene, or whatever it is, that makes Mommy psychic, and if the gift weighs heavily on an adult, it can be even more unnerving on a child. This is dramatized in an episode that unfortunately opens with one of those nightmares we know will later come true -- a very literal-minded dream, as in Hitchcock's "Spellbound," so that the appearance of a wolf turns out to symbolize a villain whose last name is Wolf, and so on. (Speaking of Hitchcock, Jeff Beal's exciting theme music for "Medium" owes something to Bernard Herrmann's score for "Psycho," but so does lots of music for scary movies written in the past 40 years.)
Most of the time, Caron is careful to avoid what's been done before. It doesn't take a mystic to envision many a similar work that preceded "Medium," but Caron dignifies the genre without sacrificing any of the compelling suspense that one expects. It's smart and classy, two qualities in short supply on NBC's prime-time schedule these days. If enough people watch, then, everybody wins -- though this is what might be called a drop-dead triumph for Arquette regardless.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company |
