Medium Builds to a Cliffhanger
An old friend and colleague emerges to help psychic Allison Dubois pursue a serial killer as NBC's Medium unveils its first season finale Monday, May 23.
As the story opens, Allison (Patricia Arquette) and her Arizona law-enforcement colleagues are trying to get a handle on murders committed by the Phoenix Phantom, as the local press has dubbed this killer with a lethal preference for redheads.
Before long, she is joined on the case by Capt. Kenneth Push (Arliss Howard, reprising his guest role), the Texas Ranger Allison assisted in the opening episode of the series. As fans will remember, the skeptical Push treated Allison and her gifts with thinly veiled contempt on their first meeting, although she swiftly earned his respect.
Capt. Push and Allison note similarities between the Phoenix killings and a rash of murders a couple of years earlier in South Texas. As they continue their investigation, their warm, but platonic, regard for each other is rekindled, which makes the cliffhanger surprise ending even more startling.
"I think it's that they both have a little pushy streak in them," Arquette says on the strong connection between Allison and Push. "There's a similarity between them in that respect, and in terms of crime, I don't think they're willing to give up looking for something and figuring things out. They're both kind of tenacious. And she really respects him."
Series creator Glenn Gordon Caron says Howard's return as Capt. Push wasn't something that had been planned all along as part of some grand dramatic scheme for the show.
"When I wrote the pilot, I didn't even know there would be a finale," Caron says with a chuckle. "When I wrote the pilot, I was hoping we would get the go-ahead to film the pilot. That's as much optimism as I indulge in when I am writing something. I certainly didn't foresee bringing back Capt. Push."
But then, Caron admits, a surprising amount of serendipity went into the breakout success of Medium, the lone new NBC drama series to earn a renewal for next season.
In hindsight, Caron had been skeptical about the show's prospects, and he credits his girlfriend with encouraging him to pursue it.
He began to see potential after meeting and talking with the real Allison Dubois, who gave Caron insight into the startling contradictions her daily life entails.
"This woman has a kind of radio in her head that is permanently tuned to death, and she's a mom with three kids," Caron says. "She has a husband who would seem to be her antithesis, a scientist whose religion is the physical facts of the world.
"That's what appealed to me. How do you reconcile all that? You get up in the morning, pour a bowl of Cheerios, you make sure the kids have done their homework and oh, by the way, there are three dead people in the kitchen."
On reading the half-finished pilot script, Caron's girlfriend had yet another lucky epiphany: "Wow, this is Patricia Arquette."
"Patricia was the only person we gave it to, and a couple of days later, we got a call saying she was interested," Caron recalls. "A lot of serendipity, like I said."
"I loved the writing, that it's 'more real than not,'" Arquette says of her decision to sign on for her first TV series. "I love that Allison is a working mom and has to deal with the real-life demands of her life and her kids. I liked the spin that Glenn had taken, both on the character and the idea of how would life be if you had this psychic ability, how complicated your life would be.
"The first thing I thought was, well, it could be fun in just a spooky way, but Glenn had written so many more levels in there, and that was exciting to play."
Exciting, but exhausting, too, as Arquette quickly learned.
"Actually, everyone said, `You know that's the hardest job in show business,' because even though we have a big cast, it's not actually an ensemble show where they focus on a different group of people for a little while," the actress says. "What helps is that I have done a lot of low-budget independent movies, so I'm used to the grind where we have to do everything fast.
"But I do love all the people that I work with and I love my job and I'm excited when I read a new script, to see where it goes. So I'm definitely not complaining!"
Nor is Caron, who has started breaking story ideas for season two and says he couldn't be happier with the reception NBC has given to Medium.
"I think we were the first show picked up for 2005-06, and that was only after four airings, which I believe was something of a historic first," he says. "I would really be a needy guy if I told you I didn't feel valued. That's an extraordinary vote of confidence. I've always wanted to be at NBC, since that was the one network I had never really spent any time at, and they've been great to us."
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