REVIEW for the Series Finale of Medium

Of course, this blog is about reviewing books, however, I do occasionally review other things and I thought I would take the opportunity of reviewing the SERIES FINALE of one of my favorite TV shows - MEDIUM.

Now, I have to say that I don't have alot of "favorite" shows, in fact, for the most part, TV sucks these days.  Having said that, I love and never miss an episode of:

• Rescue Me;
• Criminal Minds;
• The Good Wife;
• The Mentalist;
• Medium;
• The Big Bang Theory;

That's it - other than that, I watch TVLAND and great oldies like All in the Family.

Anyway, unfortunately the stupid execs at CBS decided to cancel Medium, right in the middle of their 6th season - not sure why as they never really explained it. I have to say that Medium has always been on the bubble - even while it was on NBC.  Yep, I can't really figure it out - crappy and insulting to our intelligence shows like "South Park" and "Trailer Park Boys" are up and running, but quality shows such as Medium get bounced off - its an insult!!!!

All of this brings me back to the series finale which aired on Friday, January 21.  I was not home Friday night so I ended up watching it on Saturday afternoon.  I should have just skipped it - it was horrible. 
****SPOILER ALERT****

In short - Alison dreams (which is the basis of the show), Joe dies and we end up in the Back to the Future Delorean time machine.  This episode was all over the place - in the present, in the near future, back to the present and into the far away future.  It was confusing and annoying to go back and forth.  But what was really horrible was the writers thinking they could kill off "Joe" and still give us an episode that we would appreciate.

Medium is about Alison's abilities to talk to dead people, its about murder and mystery but it was always, above all else - about family and friendship - and this episode, in one fell swoop, toppled all of this.  By killing off Joe, leaving Alison and her very young children to deal with grief - the writers have removed the joy this family had for each other.  Instead, we find Alison crying and arguing with her youngest daughter throughout most of the episode.  Marie (the youngest Dubois) is mad and frustrated, Ariel is pregnant and detached and we don't even see Bridget. 

As for the friends - we do get a few good scenes with the DA (now the mayor) but the Lee Scanlon character comes in for about 20 seconds, touches Alison's shoulder and then walks off the stage.

I could go on and on - but I have to wonder why the writers felt the need to make the final episode  so depressing, confusing and basically the complete opposite of what they had been producing over the last 6 years - quality writing.

I could understand if they had no warning but, apparently, the writers and actors were quite aware that their show was ending and had plenty of time to write a quality script.  By the way, where was Patricia Arquette's voice in all of this?  I know that she had quite a lot of "say" in what goes on with the show.


The only other time I can remember feeling so frustrated about a series finale was with the TV show "Third Watch" - I still haven't quite gotten over that one either.


To the writers of MEDIUM and to CBS - thanks for nothing.