For those, like me, who are unfamiliar with the series, here is a quick rundown. Allison Dubois (Patricia Arquette) is a wife and mother of three. She works part-time as a Bereavement Counselor for the District Attorney's office under Manuel Devalos (Miguel Sandoval), and she helps the police and mayor's office track down murderers. So what does a part-time counselor have to do with murder investigations? Well, it turns out, all her life Allison has had psychic episodes. She can see the dead, she gets feelings, and most prominently, she has predictive dreams.
Each episode involves her seeing some attack or murder in her dreams, and joining forces with officials to try and gather the evidence to convict the person she knows committed the crime. This is an interesting twist to what can be a formulaic plot because while Allison knows who the guilty party is, she has to work within the system to gather evidence and get them convicted.
Where I liked this series more than Ghost Whisperer is that Medium is nowhere near as predictable. With the other series, I could tell you how pretty much every episode would end. Here, I found the creators had a bit more fun with the viewers.
Unlike similar shows, there isn't really an overarching storyline. Mostly, it is just Allison going about her daily psychic business. There are quite a few interesting episodes, though. There is one Groundhog Day-esque episode where Allison keeps reliving a day until she gets all the little details right. Another fun episode has Allison's current life as a dream of a younger version of herself. The two time periods are connected by a young man Allison knew in high school that seems to have a history as a sexual predator. In the present, Allison runs into this old friend again while in the past, he just moves into the neighborhood. Like I said, this episode is different because the Allison that is awake is her in early high school, while the dreams are of her adult life. In a similar episode, Allison is having flashes of an older version of her family where her youngest daughter, Marie, has come down with leukemia and the family fights to find the cause.
There are a couple of episodes that tie into previous seasons, like the return of the Dr. Walker ghost, the Texas Ranger, Captain Push, getting psychic visions and the return of a serial killer that can share in Allison's dreams. While I did not see the previous seasons, I found I was able to gather what information I needed for these episodes and not get too far behind. If anything, these episodes made me want to pick up the previous seasons to see how Allison dealt with these characters before.
The season concludes with a series of episodes starting with Joe (Allison's husband) being held hostage at work, and consequently having trouble focusing when he returns to the job. Meanwhile, a string of murders leaves the Phoenix government baffled and eventually leads to Allison be nationally outed as a supposed psychic. The consequences of this reveal means Allison and her family are considered less credible and when Joe tries to sue his company for a lack of security, his lawyer drops his case. When Joe tries to go back to work, the company's insurance doesn't want to back Joe. Meanwhile, as Allison's predictive capabilities are called into question, she finds herself being heard less and less by the various officials she used to put her visions to good. The season doesn't really end in a cliffhanger, which I sort of liked (primarily because the season also didn't start with the conclusion of a cliff hanger I had no idea about). While the state of Joe and Allison's jobs isn't really resolved, many of the major plots are.
The only real problem with Medium, and least in The Third Season, is that Patricia Arquette is a really stiff actress. She never felt comfortable in her role to me and I felt absolutely no chemistry between her and the rest of the cast (especially Jake Webber, who plays Joe). It was just really aggravating because I really enjoyed many of the stories and angles the show presented, but the acting really brought down the overall feel of the series.
Medium: The Third Season furthers several plot points and eventually reveals Allison's abilities to the world, so it isn't like this is a trivial season in the show. If you haven't been following the series and you really want to get into it, there don't seem to be any consequences to jumping in here. The few episodes that rely on past seasons give you all the information you need up front and I rarely felt lost. That being said, I have mixed feelings about the show in general. While the story is generally better and more clever than Ghost Whisperer, the generally stiff acting is a real turnoff. I'm not sure there are that many people who will want to jump in this late in the game; most likely, this season is for existing fans only.
