The new television season: Casualties two and three
After thinking the first two-hour episode of Threshold was pretty good, I watched the next one on TiVo Saturday afternoon, after the parade. It was comparable, at best, to one of the bad syndicated sci-fi shows of the 1990s. When they had a military school student in Danville, Virginia (a town I happen to know and was pleased to see mentioned on network TV) talk like an extra from Gone with the Wind, I got worried. Then they said a soldier had received a “Brown Star” during Vietnam. Delete.
In contrast, I had gone into watching Ghost Whisperer knowing it wouldn’t be very good, but I was unprepared for the scale of the awfulness. It was, as expected, mostly a showcase for Jennifer Love Hewitt’s cleavage, for which I can’t fault producers and directors, but I was probably being naive when I was surprised that the script was, essentially, Medium: The Early Years.
The show starts off with Melinda being married to a husband who knows about her powers and is alternately concerned for her and frustrated by her powers. Sound familiar? Except Medium, which just started its second season last week, has some of the best writing of any TV show in recent memory, especially in how the husband and wife relate to one another. (Jake Webber, who plays opposite Patricia Arquette probably deserved an Emmy even more than she did.)
One of the things that makes Medium work is that, while Allison has ghosts appearing to her and all sorts of psychic dreams, her ordinary reality is incredibly mundane. She has three small daughters, who range from adorable to needs-to-be-drowned-in-the-river, a husband who demands real attention from his spouse, dirty dishes, dirty clothes, a frumpy wardrobe, a practical-but-that’s-all haircut and a decidedly non-glamorous lifestyle in suburban Phoenix, Arizona.
Melinda, over on Ghost Whisperer, owns her own fabulous store (which no one shops at, except when the plot dictates), a husband who carries her down the block to the big Victorian home he’s restoring somewhere in the anonymous town of “The Village” (I kid you not) and who, despite no apparent financial means of doing so, drives a big bitchin’ SUV and dresses fabulously.
Now, if this had the sort of loopy sense of humor that Charmed does, it might succeed despite being so freaking dopey. But it doesn’t. It takes itself as seriously as Highway to Heaven and Touched by an Angel ever did, except few conservative Christians are likely to watch an occult show about Hewitt’s breasts. And even they can’t carry this show. It’ll be dead in a matter of weeks, and good riddance. Maybe then the networks will shift things around so that Everybody Hates Chris isn’t up against Survivor, Veronica Mars isn’t up against Lost and Supernatural isn’t up against My Name is Earl.
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I refuse to watch “Ghost Whisperer” on the grounds that it has the stupidest name for a TV show ever.
Comment by The Blog Whisperer — September 26, 2005 @ 6:52
“Ghost Whisperer” is what they give me in place of “Joan of Arcadia”. CBS sucks ass.
Comment by JR — September 26, 2005 @ 8:01
I am boycotting CBS since they took Threshold off the air. That was one of the best new shows (for the Sci-fi/horror genra)that has been on in years. I really think the TV execs are the biggest dumbshits. The crap they put on the air now a days is so mindless and stupid. I hope they sell
it to another network. BOYCOT CBS!!!!
Comment by Scott — December 15, 2005 @ 18:27