Post by Forever Xena on Oct 18, 2005 0:35:51 GMT -6
'Medium' scares up ratings
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON -- Calgary Sun
As Glenn Gordon Caron puts it, networks hire him when they want "someone who's a little bent."
Like when there's a project percolating about a psychic soccer mom who solves crimes when not bantering with her rocket-scientist husband.
Enter Medium, one of television's most unlikely sleeper hits and a recently-minted Emmy winner thanks to the trophy Patricia Arquette took home last month.
Now in its second season on NBC and CTV, the Monday night drama is firmly entrenched in the Top 20 and has inspired at least one shameless ripoff -- Jennifer Love Hewitt's Ghost Whisperer a.k.a. Knockers On Heaven's Door.
Credit then must go to the admittedly bent Caron, Medium's creator and executive producer, who first broke into the big leagues with another blend of the quirky and the commercial -- the mid-1980s detective/romantic comedy Moonlighting.
As with that series, it is the relationship between Arquette's Allison DuBois and her husband Joe (Jake Weber) that makes Medium more than just warmed-over Sixth Sense.
So it's no surprise to learn this very quality was what attracted Caron to the story of DuBois, a real wife and mother who uses her psychic visions to help law enforcement in Arizona.
How closely do the events viewers see mirror real life? Says Caron, "There's a lot of me in the show. It's an extrapolation (of real life). It doesn't pretend to be a document."
Caron, who says he's not a believer, equates DuBois' abilities to having "a radio that's tuned to a station you can't hear. I used to joke it's Radio Death. It's a very dark way to live your life, but in the midst of this, you have kids running around."
He recalls when he first flew to Phoenix to meet her, "Here was a woman who, if you met her, would not leap to mind as a psychic. She's not some New Age-y type. This is not a woman you see with a 1-800-number on late night television. She looked like your neighbour. She's married to an aerospace engineer.
"When I met her, she was 31 or 32, and she was interning at the district attorney's office and her goal was to become a lawyer ... She had this gift that was reluctantly thrust upon her. And then what really intrigued me was she lived with this man who is a scientist. And if you're a scientist and that's your occupation, you're all about absolutes and physical reality. Yet here's a woman that lives in defiance of that.
"And that's what I wanted the show to be about ... She sees dead people and he says, 'OK.' "
As almost as easy as that? Getting Arquette signed on to shoot the pilot, despite the fact she'd never done a series before.
"My girlfriend said, 'How about Patricia Arquette?' and two days later she said yes."
Of Arquette's Emmy win, he says, "I was completely thrilled. I was just really happy. She's just a wonderful, wonderful collaborator. She's a really good actress and a genuinely nice person and that's a rare thing. She works incredibly hard -- she's in virtually every scene."
Is Caron worried Arquette, Emmy in hand, may leave to return to feature films? He may not be psychic, but he doesn't see an end in sight.
"It's like being married and talking about when you're going to get divorced? Why do you want to do that? She gets very tired at times, but, for the most part, I think (the show) is a pleasant experience for her."
Still Moonlighting?
With Medium hot, Caron is also currently mulling a Moonlighting feature film -- a la Dukes of Hazzard and next year's Miami Vice.
"I get asked about it every three weeks. For a long time, I couldn't imagine doing it without Bruce (Willis) and Cybill (Shepherd)."
But now, he adds, "I have the perfect people in mind, but I don't know if they'd be interested ... I have no idea what it'd be about, but I do think there are a couple of actors who would get the spirit of the show."
He declines to name names. "Why set myself up for ridicule and disappointment?"
He says he didn't speak to Shepherd for "a long time," until the first DVD set of the show was recently produced and they ended up doing the commentaries together.
"Bruce and I have always been really close. That's a very solid friendship. (When we were doing Moonlighting) Cybill had been a movie star before, but Bruce had never been there before and I certainly hadn't. We were two people completely making it up as we went along
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON -- Calgary Sun
As Glenn Gordon Caron puts it, networks hire him when they want "someone who's a little bent."
Like when there's a project percolating about a psychic soccer mom who solves crimes when not bantering with her rocket-scientist husband.
Enter Medium, one of television's most unlikely sleeper hits and a recently-minted Emmy winner thanks to the trophy Patricia Arquette took home last month.
Now in its second season on NBC and CTV, the Monday night drama is firmly entrenched in the Top 20 and has inspired at least one shameless ripoff -- Jennifer Love Hewitt's Ghost Whisperer a.k.a. Knockers On Heaven's Door.
Credit then must go to the admittedly bent Caron, Medium's creator and executive producer, who first broke into the big leagues with another blend of the quirky and the commercial -- the mid-1980s detective/romantic comedy Moonlighting.
As with that series, it is the relationship between Arquette's Allison DuBois and her husband Joe (Jake Weber) that makes Medium more than just warmed-over Sixth Sense.
So it's no surprise to learn this very quality was what attracted Caron to the story of DuBois, a real wife and mother who uses her psychic visions to help law enforcement in Arizona.
How closely do the events viewers see mirror real life? Says Caron, "There's a lot of me in the show. It's an extrapolation (of real life). It doesn't pretend to be a document."
Caron, who says he's not a believer, equates DuBois' abilities to having "a radio that's tuned to a station you can't hear. I used to joke it's Radio Death. It's a very dark way to live your life, but in the midst of this, you have kids running around."
He recalls when he first flew to Phoenix to meet her, "Here was a woman who, if you met her, would not leap to mind as a psychic. She's not some New Age-y type. This is not a woman you see with a 1-800-number on late night television. She looked like your neighbour. She's married to an aerospace engineer.
"When I met her, she was 31 or 32, and she was interning at the district attorney's office and her goal was to become a lawyer ... She had this gift that was reluctantly thrust upon her. And then what really intrigued me was she lived with this man who is a scientist. And if you're a scientist and that's your occupation, you're all about absolutes and physical reality. Yet here's a woman that lives in defiance of that.
"And that's what I wanted the show to be about ... She sees dead people and he says, 'OK.' "
As almost as easy as that? Getting Arquette signed on to shoot the pilot, despite the fact she'd never done a series before.
"My girlfriend said, 'How about Patricia Arquette?' and two days later she said yes."
Of Arquette's Emmy win, he says, "I was completely thrilled. I was just really happy. She's just a wonderful, wonderful collaborator. She's a really good actress and a genuinely nice person and that's a rare thing. She works incredibly hard -- she's in virtually every scene."
Is Caron worried Arquette, Emmy in hand, may leave to return to feature films? He may not be psychic, but he doesn't see an end in sight.
"It's like being married and talking about when you're going to get divorced? Why do you want to do that? She gets very tired at times, but, for the most part, I think (the show) is a pleasant experience for her."
Still Moonlighting?
With Medium hot, Caron is also currently mulling a Moonlighting feature film -- a la Dukes of Hazzard and next year's Miami Vice.
"I get asked about it every three weeks. For a long time, I couldn't imagine doing it without Bruce (Willis) and Cybill (Shepherd)."
But now, he adds, "I have the perfect people in mind, but I don't know if they'd be interested ... I have no idea what it'd be about, but I do think there are a couple of actors who would get the spirit of the show."
He declines to name names. "Why set myself up for ridicule and disappointment?"
He says he didn't speak to Shepherd for "a long time," until the first DVD set of the show was recently produced and they ended up doing the commentaries together.
"Bruce and I have always been really close. That's a very solid friendship. (When we were doing Moonlighting) Cybill had been a movie star before, but Bruce had never been there before and I certainly hadn't. We were two people completely making it up as we went along