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Medium: Can’t You See?

Medium: Can’t You See?
For this blog, I will talk about a veteran show that will return on CBS on September 25th. A show that mixes crime and paranormal elements, that garnered the lead actress an Emmy win in 2005, and was produced by arguably one of the greatest showrunners of the past 20 years.

That little show, you’ll have guessed, is called “Medium”, and was saved from cancellation by CBS, whose sister studio, CBS Paramount, also produces the show.

“Medium” is one of the rare shows that is barely recognized by critics, yet makes solid ratings and performs well in the key demographics. Even in France, where network M6 airs it, there’s barely any talk about the show. Granted, on the surface, it deals with familiar territory: a medium start having visions and helps the local district attorney to solve crimes and murders. Notice I didn’t elaborate on the visions. That’s because, at first, it was only dead people trying to communicate with her, either by showing them minutes before their murder, or actual clues about the identity of the murderer. But over the episodes, the creativity of Glenn Gordon Caron-who created one of the great comicbook-inspired shows of the last decade in “Now And Again”, and of course “Moonlighting”-is to play with the visions, and have them in a bunch of different ways: in a noir-from-the-50s way, in 3-D, in cartoon….The real treat is to see where those visions lead Allison, and how she interprets them. And even if the viewer can quickly expect some kind of routine, as Allison finds out soon she’s wrong about the visions, and someone is caught at the end of the episode, the show finds a way to defy expectations.

In a recent interview, Glenn Gordon Caron said: “This may look like a crime show, but it’s really about an American marriage”. And the heart of the show is the DuBois family. Actually, as other writers would introduce cheating, betrayals and other soapish devices to give drama and scandal to the DuBois life, Caron makes a point about keeping the DuBois family very much together and maintain their cocoon of joy they call “home”. One of the reasons may be to balance the depressing and scary visions perturbing Allison. But the show is kept realistic thanks to a honest portrayal by the tag team of Patricia Arquette and Jake Weber, who does a consistently great job every episode. Weber, and Joe DuBois, don’t look like the tanned, well dressed husbands with a good haircut, but he’s believable as an understanding and levelled father without sounding corny or plain weak. Actually, “Medium” may be pleasing to Denny Crane given how effectively the Republican values are portrayed in the show. But it never hammers the point home, no matter how the crazy family crises get solved. When focusing on the couple, “Medium” has released one of their best episodes, “Twice Upon a Time”, a beautiful take on alternate realities and a great exploration of what glues Allison and Joe together.

It boggles the mind to see that, in the span of a few months, two great shows watched by people over 50 were taken off the air of their networks: one being the cancelled “Boston Legal”, and “Medium” was fortunately rescued by CBS. In a TV world obsessed by young and sexy characters, “Medium” offers a couple who are grown and mature, with no troubles in their relationships, raising three adorable children despite consuming jobs. How boring, right?

So, “Medium” succeeds on three plans: the crime mystery, who actually manages to keep one guessing without falling in procedural traps- yes, there are investigations, but they are paramount to solving the mystery of the visions themselves-; the paranormal aspects, who give creepy, eerie visions in a variety of visual styles-what other show can give the viewer the impression that he’s choking in a plastic bag this convincingly?-; and the family aspect, which gives fuel to heart-warming scenes and entertaining banter, as well as a few choice zingers from Joe DuBois. But those three aspects are misunderstood by the critics, who’d rather see a routine crime show full of independent episodes, and no discernible or lasting character arcs. Let’s hope that the sixth season with a decent promo budget, and a good lead-in (in terms of ratings, of course) in “Ghost Whisperer” will solve those problems.

PS: The title of this post was brought to you by R&B group Total feat. The Notorious B.I.G.

Why mythological shows are often idolized

Why mythological shows are often idolized

I’ve been recently thinking about why some people seem to love Battlestar Galactica’s latter two seasons even though they’re tragically awful. I dare say the same thing about Lost’s latest season.
I’ll be here mostly using those two series as primary examples because they’re so popular, and are still held to very high standards.

Fans have widely criticized Lost’s fifth season. However, if you’ve just very recently watched for the first time the first four seasons, you probably disagree, or, if you agree, you’re probably not seeing how big of a slap the season is towards everything that came before it.

I should point out now, since this will come into play later, that I’ve found the common link (save for some flukes) between the people who like BSG’s third (possibly fourth) season, and Lost’s fifth.They were peeps who, in the span of days, or weeks, saw the whole show for the first time from A to Z in a few sittings only (or at least are not the people who have been following the shows since the first or second season).Why is this important? Well marathon-like screenings do not really allow the spectator to “think things through” so to speak.

Mythological shows such as Lost and Battlestar Galactica have overarching storylines, supposedly thought-out, complex, and well-developed. In the case of BSG for instance, that would mainly be the twelve Cylon plotline. Now, I’ve already exposed in previous posts to what extent both Lost and Battlestar Galactica have had more than disappointing revelations exposing their poorly-planned mythologies, so I’m not going to talk about that again.This post is more about the way their mythology is being perceived and how in the long run, more often than not, such shows are idolized with all flaws removed.

In marathon-like screenings, the mind is somewhat submissive to the story told and the episode. The brain is passive, not active. You don’t have time to really think about the many twists and turns since you’re watching them unfold. You’re “eating” away the episodes, not “digesting” them. Everything will probably seem to blend into a unified storyline instead of finite stories broadcast every week or so with hiatus lasting months in-between seasons. Watching the first three seasons of Battlestar back-to-back won’t be the same thing as having been there since 2003.

For one thing, you didn’t theorize during Season One or Season Two. That might not seem all that important, but not being able to think for several months or years (or even only days in the case of a marathon) about who the twelve Cylons are won’t make you aware of how preposterous the introduction of the Final Five during the show’s third Season is. If you care a little bit about a show, you’ll surely think about it, start asking yourself questions. Let’s be honest, we all have way too much time on our hands and we love to theorize. Shows such as BSG or Lost work because you can theorize about them all day long… Until you can’t due to a faulty mythology.Turns out, when watching episodes back-to-back you don’t have months to think about “what’s in the Hatch” or anything else that deserves theorizing. You’re not expecting special answers either, so you rarely end up disappointed either.The poor planning of Lost’s mytho was shown with such glaring plot holes and atrocious revelations (or rather pseudo-revelations out of the blue) as featured in its fifth season finale. Despite this, to what extent it nullifies the preceding four seasons would be hard to tell without hindsight, an asset nonexistent with a marathon since there’s no time to look at the big picture.
You’re also head first in the story itself, not what goes on outside the series. By that I mean that at the end of, let’s say, watching Battlestar’s first season, you’re not going to look for news article dating back 5 years. The same goes for Lost with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse’s various contradictory interviews between when the show started (2004) and now (2009), especially regarding questions/mythological plot points that would get answered (or not). You’d be surprised at how antinomic some of their remarks are (same goes for Ronald D. Moore). They’re also very hard to track down.

The bottom line here is that, in the end, you need to be able to take a step back. You need to have time to think things through to really enjoy in a more objective fashion a show and its mythology.
It will be interesting to see how all of this will play out with FlashForward, given that not only has the “FF date” been stopped (April 20th), but flash-forwards are already being shown in the pilot.
The X-Files is considered to be a great mytho show. Ironically, it only has a fourth of such episodes. And, if you really take a look at them, you’ll see how many plot holes there are. Despite those, The X-Files is idolized and remembered as one of the greatest mythological show in TV history.Battlestar Galactica is already branded as the greatest sci-fi show ever.In five-year time, Lost will probably join the ranks of such cult show as Twin Peaks, regardless of its “objective” lack of mythological planning.

But, hey, it’s the thought that counts, not its execution. Right?

The "Late Late Show": Ode to the Scottish Conan Guy. I know.

The "Late Late Show": Ode to the Scottish Conan Guy. I know.

So, for my third blog (is it? Geez, work around these parts is getting way too slow…) I will pay a long overdue homage to the work accomplished by then-Scot-now-American Craig Ferguson.

If all the spin in the world was true, very late-night television would consist of Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel. But, yet, on CBS, the Late Late Show has been existing for 14 years (that’s right). Ferguson is only the third host of the Late Late Show, taking over from Craig Killborn (yeah, who?) since January 2005. Like Killborn, Ferguson is a relative unknown in the public eye, but he is familiar to some American viewers, having starred as Drew Carey’s boss in “The Drew Carey Show”. But nevermind that: his ratings have increased substantially in the pas few months against all odds, where his main competition is Jimmy Fallon over at NBC. Except that, save for The Roots, Fallon’s “Late Night” will never hold a candle to what Ferguson does, even with four times the budget.

Here’s a breakdown of the wonder of “Late Late Night”.

It may be the first post-modern late-show of History, as Ferguson is really aware of the pitfalls of late-night. He really had no resources, his show being the last broadcast in standard-def (yes! Even after Kimmel!) and he makes frequent references to that during his monologue. His monologue is stuffed with purposely lame late-night jokes. For a few weeks, he even inserted a “Late Night Octomom Joke” graphic, to cheer after a lame pun. But his 10 minutes of monologues are, for the most part, an exercise in free-wheeling and ranting about nothing. He can educate about an aspect of wildlife (he did a whole thing about Shark Week, and seems keen on all things animals), or foreign people, or just about anything. The most refreshing aspect of Craig Ferguson is his inability to stay on topic, while other hosts try hard to squeeze as much juice as they can out of the day’s news stories.

Another good example of the unpredictable aspect of the show is the intro. Visibly forced down by CBS as a way to keep viewers before the actual show starts, Ferguson didn’t seem at ease with it at first, and a lot of “I’ve got nothing” ensued. But….one day, he made the intro as a small musical, with puppets lip-synching. And ever since, he really made the segment into his own, be it a small riff on foreign members in the audience, or Brittany Murphy on a swing pushed by no-nonsense comic Steven Wright, or even dance routines to Britney Spears, the intros were a way to introduce a new audience to the show.

But the most interesting aspect is Craig Ferguson seems genuinely enthusiastic about hosting a late-night talk show, and usually gives a warm welcome to his guests, which he always seems interested in. Of course, his best guests are the ones that can adapt to his unique style of rants. So far, my personal Top would include Scots Ewan McGregor and Gerard Butler, Kristen Bell (their segments are a must-see), Stephen Wright, Eddie Izzard, Alfred Molina, and on a more serious note, Lawrence Fishburne and the wonderful interview he did with Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

I would talk some more about the “Late Late Show”, but I’ll say this. At his worst, Ferguson will still be entertaining and lively with the dullest of guests, and at his best…well, it’s moments of brilliance that become fine American television. To me, unpredictability IS addictive, and he’s the best of the three really-late-night talk-show hosts. Bar none.

Craig Ferguson is The Man. And you can quote me on that.