TV is the New Reading

Fourth season of ‘Medium’

adds some new x-factors

Monday’s fourth-season premiere of “Medium” started out very strangely – which I guess is fitting, given the show.

I may have missed something, but it opened with scenes from the third-season finale intercut with random street interviews talking about the characters as if they were real people and giving their reactions, like “Oh no! What is Allison gonna do now?”

It makes sense on some level, of course, because quite apart from the character portrayed magnificently by Patricia Arquette, Allison Dubois is a real person – a psychic person who among other things has assisted with law enforcement.

“Google me,” she challenges an intuitive investigator portrayed in a low-key way by a somewhat tired-looking Anjelica Huston.

Wreckage

The episode picks up from the tragic and completely unnecessary “outing” of Allison by a sleazy reporter portrayed by Neve Campbell. I say “unnecessary” because frankly, district attorney Manuel Devalos as he is portrayed by Miguel Sandoval is an honorable and capable officer of the court who gets some assistance from Allison but is still bound by all rules of law and evidence.

But after the story ran, everyone who ever had anything to do with Allison is disgraced – despite her much-needed assistance in solving the case that brought everything to a head, so to speak, in the serial decapitation case at the end of the third season. Her contact with the homicide division is put on public relations duty, and Devalos is sent away on an enforced vacation while his backstabbing friend swoops in and assumes his post.

At the same time, her husband, Joe, an aerospace engineer played by Jake Weber, is also out of work because he got caught between a settlement deal and a class-action suit in the wake of a gunman turning his office into a hostage situation about three-quarters of the way through the third season.

Visions

Meanwhile, Allison is still getting visions in which a young boy is kidnapped in a toy store and possibly abused sexually before being poisoned and left for dead. As has happened in the past, her visions are a little abstract and not directly helpful and this time no one is willing to take her calls.

Allison’s input does ultimately help the investigation and she gains a grudging level of tolerance, but post-media frenzy, her involvement is neither sought or welcomed.

Such is the landscape at the outset of the fourth season, with familiar characters exploring unfamiliar territory, and with the new district attorney and private investigator, there’s a few new x-factors in the mix.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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