Medium 001: What Did We Learn?
The Medium Pilot originally aired January 3, 2005, with this teaser:
PATRICIA ARQUETTE STARS IN CHILLING NEW SERIES INSPIRED BY A REAL STORY — In this haunting drama series from executive producer Glenn Gordon Caron inspired by real life research medium Allison DuBois, Patricia Arquette stars as a strong-willed mother of three who has struggled since childhood to make sense of her visions of dead people. Hoping to prove to Allison that her dreams are stress induced, her scientist husband, Joe, sends descriptions of Allison’s visions to a number of law enforcement agencies, expecting nothing to come of it. To his surprise, one of Allison’s dreams bears an eerie similarity to a Texas homicide case involving a 17-year-old murder suspect. The case pits Allison against Capt. Kenneth Push, a cynical Texas Ranger who is suspicious of her psychic abilities. By the end of the investigation, Capt. Push has a new respect for Allison - and she makes a life-altering decision of her own.
So now that we’ve seen the actual episode, what do we know about these exciting new people in our lives? Well, to begin with, Allison DuBois isn’t “just” a medium, is she? A medium receives messages from the dead while a psychic is believed to possess extra-sensory abilities, such as clairvoyance, precognition and telepathy. Allison does both: she chats with the dead (medium), receives present time information from objects (psychic: clairvoyance), sees things before they happen (psychic: precognition), and receives information from people, presumably mind-to-mind (psychic: telepathy).
She is one talented psychic medium! It sounds redundant, psychic medium, but we informed Medium fans now know it isn’t.
We also learned Allison is feisty, conflicted, straightforward, not afraid to take chances, and married to a really great guy.
Which brings us to Joe DuBois, world’s most understanding husband. For crying out loud, where does the man get his patience? Sure he yelled a bit in this episode, but it was an understanding sort of yelling. He wasn’t bitching at Allison, but rather trying to make her feel better about what happened and figure out what to do next. Will he just snap one night in the wee hours as he is awakened yet again by one of her nightmares? Will he boot her out of his bed, telling her to go sleep with her nocturnal dead friends?
Frankly, I don’t see it happening but time will tell.
We had a few glimpses of the three DuBois girls but no real connection aside from a tantalizing visual of Bridgette reaching behind her without looking to grab the exact color crayon she wanted. The DVD extras say this is to show us that perhaps the children take after their mother, but the scene was excluded from the Pilot’s original broadcast so we did not find this out until much later. How dastardly of the show’s producers to withhold such vital information.
And finally, we come to District Attorney Manuel Duvalos. Our first impression is of a strong, competent, fair-minded upholder of the law who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. (”What the hell are you doing, Allison?”) You would think someone like that would be less than open to the possibility psychic mediums are real much less hire one as a consultant. Interesting man. Can’t wait to find out if he stays good or turns into a typical…oh, it’s too horrible to think about…a typical lawyer. (Ooh, my lawyer friends are gonna get me for that one.)
Well that’s my baseline, folks. My first impression of Medium’s main characters after the very first episode ever. My impression is likely informed by the fact that I have watched all 38 episodes since the Pilot, but I tried to forget about all that and just go with what I saw.
It’s going to be fun to watch the characters grow and stumble and meet new people and show us more of their talents. And more of their pajamas, if the first episode is any indication of the show’s standard wardrobe.
Tags: Episode 1, medium, medium nbc, pilot, recap, Season 1
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