Medium – Two hours and a “To Be Continued?” Really?

I love Medium, but it is working my last nerve. It is an hour-long drama, not a miniseries, so what’s with all of the “To Be Continued” episodes and the 2-hour extravaganza? The first TBC was completely pointless, and while the second one was slightly better, there’s still no reason to have three of them back-to-back like this. Either learn how to tell your story in an hour or change formats.

I haven’t seen next week’s episode (which is actually not even an episode — it’s two back-to-back episodes instead), but I guarantee you that whatever happens could have easily been rewritten to have all taken place in this single 2-hour episode, because let me tell you: we went on a long journey to get essentially nowhere.

There were a lot of things going on this week: Allison was helping solve a serial murder case, she got offered a new job, she accepted the new job and started seeing visions about her boss and his son, Ariel started seeing dead people and took some pills. After two hours, we know that a decorated detective wasn’t a serial killer, but did clean up after him. We find out that it’s probably her boss’s son, but that still needs to play out. Ariel has been seeing a dead girl who recently died in a car accident, but we don’t know why. She’s also seeing the teacher who’s giving the PSATs covered in blood. Again, we don’t know why.

All of this is fine from a plot stand-point, but when this is the third TBC and a two-hour episode, that’s a lot of questions to have left over. Especially when we spent so much time delving into Ariel’s Jessie Spano-like descent into pill-popping and watching Allison buy a new wardrobe. Plus that scene where she was deciding what to wear for her first day on the job? Took forever. They were killing time, and there was no good reason for it.

Now, despite all my bitching, there was actually a lot I liked about this episode. We’re in our fifth season, after all, and it always bugged me how the Dubois family, which is helmed by a psychic and a rocket scientist, never has extra money and is always struggling to get by. It made sense when they both lost their jobs, but before that? They must just be really bad at monetizing their skills. So it was nice to see Allison actually get an opportunity to do that this week, even though it’s obviously not going to last.

The fact that Ariel is “sensitive” has been a part of the show for several seasons, and it’s really interesting how it’s growing and becoming stronger. I didn’t really expect her to have the same abilities as her mother, so I’m excited to see how the Dubois family deals with this. Allison seems inclined to let her push the voices down, but I have a feeling that won’t last. Will Ariel start helping the District Attorney as well? And what about the other daughters? Are they going to start seeing dead people too?

In all, I liked a lot of what happened in this episode, but it did not need to be two-hours long, and it certainly could have been wrapped up in a single episode. I’m still sad that Medium is on the bubble, but this is kind of annoying. What are your thoughts? Should NBC let Medium go or bring it back for another season?

Clacked by Kona Gallagher
on May 05, 2009 @ 16:00 EST5EDT