Lots of shows have played around with the premonition and psychic vision backbone that forms the procedural skeleton of countless television shows. Whether it’s a live Ouija-board-esque, host talks to dead relative half hour spook show or a 42-minute narrative about solving clues with a sixth sense, there’s a basic requirement for admission to each show: you have to want to believe. Belief as a fundamental tool has seen just as much play on the screen as shows about the skeptics and frauds (House, Psych, Mentalist – or any show that uses deductive reasoning in lieu of supernatural forces). Medium, however, lies firmly on the side of pure unwavering belief. Even when protagonist Allison Dubois temporarily loses her ability the show never ceases to pound home its message “there is validity to psychic abilities”. The series spent a good deal of time mapping out the eccentricities of Allison’s gift and now, in its fifth season gets to expand and deal more the effects of life on the ability, and not just vice versa.
First off, if you don’t already know, what is a “medium”? It’s an intermediary for communication, in this instance, between the dead and the living. Allison (Patricia Arquette) has been assisting District Attorney Manuel Devalos (Miguel Sandoval) and detective Scanlon (David Cubitt) with investigations ever since her gift manifested in the first season. The fourth season came to a close with Allison’s relationship with the investigators-for-hire company Ameri-Tips ending, Joe (Jake Weber) breaking off his business deal with his multimillionaire partner (Kelly Preston) and their daughters gradually coming to understand the gift they’ve inherited from their mother. Plus, Devalos has been re-elected to District Attorney, a move that reopens doors for Allison.
Only, Allison doesn’t open the door all the way. She takes on cases to keep the episode’s working on a show by show basis, but at home her personal life (and the drama which emanates there from) stutters to a crawl. A few interesting subplots arise including Allison’s vision of a coming apocalypse and a serial killer haunting her dreams. However, these plots are disappointingly shallow and the show seems to lose steam halfway through the season – at least on the part of the adults. Instead, a good deal of attention is relocated to her daughters Ariel (Sofia Vassilieva) and Bridgette (Maria Lark) who deal with their gifts in adolescent and teenaged settings. It’s an interesting shift, but you can’t help but feel like the show is starting to spin-off within itself into a teenage-aimed drama about being able to predict the winner of a science fair or which essay questions will appear on the big test.
Supporting the adult departure idea is the absence of Weber in the final quarter of the season as he “moves” to San Diego [read: takes a hiatus from the show?]. Furthermore, the end of the season, which we won’t spoil here, feels tacked on. Nevermind that it steals a very prominent causation device from the recently canceled Eli Stone. Medium’s fifth season shows signs of wear on the series and a lack of interesting storylines in comparison to past seasons. If the show wants to stay relevant it needs to reestablish itself as the type of show which made it popular 4 years ago.
DVD Bonus Features
The season 5 set has a smattering of extra features that actually break away from the all too typical offerings of TV seasons these days. The one item in the extras that feels somewhat ordinary is the “making of” featurette which has all the typical talking heads from the cast, crew and creators as they smile at the camera between takes and talk about the concept which broke the 100 episode mark in this season. The second featurette “Apocalypse…Now?” discusses the biggest subplot of the season, its realization and how they decided to execute it. The final two featurettes give us face to face time with Patricia Arquette and Jake Weber before giving us a nice little profile of one of the child actors from the show.
"Medium: The Fifth Season" is on sale October 6, 2009 and is rated NR. Crime, Drama, Fantasy. Directed by Peter Werner, Vincent Misiano, Aaron Lipstadt. Written by Glenn Gordon Caron, Robert Doherty, Moira Kirland. Starring Jake Weber, Patricia Arquette, Miguel Sandoval, Sofia Vassilieva, Maria Lark, David Cubitt.
