:: In the new show, Medium, Patricia Arquette, perfectly cast, plays Allison Dubois, a wife, and mother of three young children, who - wait for it - sees dead people. Usually freshly dead people, but not necessarily. Her husband's dead father, for example, keeps turning up in their bedroom talking to her. She interns to be a lawyer, at the DA's office. The DA is played by one of my favorite character actors, Miguel Sandoval. Working in the law offices, she can see said expired humans and others of that ilk, and contacts the Texas Rangers to help solve a case. Once in Texas, she is met by the head honcho, played to the nines by Arliss (Full Metal Jacket) Howard. As expected, no one believes she is psychic, but she eventually convinces the hardass Howard that this is what she does, and does it well.

I don't consider this show, and the character played by Arquette, to be and/or represent pure evil, as suggested earlier on this site. She is, er, a psychic. She sees things we can't see. This is what drives the show. In addition to her "powers", she also sees things in her dreams, causing her to wake violently at least once a night, sitting up in bed quickly, inevitably disturbing her husband, played by another great character actor, Jake Weber. In the second episode, a hint is dropped that one of her daughters may have similar abilities.

In the lead role of Allison Dubois, Arquette is charming, gentle, and at times almost fragile . She is not happy with her abilities, but she must live with them, and tries to live as close to a normal life with her family as she can. Arquette's reading of her character is what brought me back to the second episode tonight. In both episodes, I found myself captivated by her performance. Rather than present her as a whacko or freakazoid, the writers chose to go in the opposite direction, making her appear gentle, and genuine. The NYTimes review nailed it here: "Yet the most innovative aspect of the show is not its reliance on extrasensory sleuthing, but the selection of an atypical actress to star in a new drama. For network television, that is paranormal." The other piece of the puzzle, which adds to the creep quotient, is that there is a real Allison DuBois, a research medium and criminal profiler. The series is based on her book about her life.

I like the no-nonsense attitude of Sandoval's DA as well - he wants to nail the bad guys, and if she can help him do it, so be it.

What's required here is the usual dose of suspension of disbelief. I mean, it's a damn television show about a psychic - call it two suspensions of disbelief. I have no thoughts on whether or not psychics are real, or if they have any power. Howinhell would I know? Are we daring to be stoopid, or just looking for 48 minutes of mind candy? I don't know if I'm going to watch it many more times, but these two episodes worked for me for a number of reasons.

Oh, and the first four hours of 24? Don't get me started...