AS FAR as crime dramas go, Medium is addictive and successful largely because of its storytelling techniques. Coming to you on CBS Drama, the story follows Allison Dubois (Patricia Arquette), a pre-law student interning at the district attorney’s office. She is also a wife and mother of three.
The story gets interesting when Allison starts to experience paranormal events, which she eventually discovers have to do with the cases she is working on. With time it becomes evident that her powers give her a vague idea of how each case can be solved.
Arquette admitted that it was intriguing to have the advantage that Allison has, although it does come with its own complications.
“Before I started this show I always thought it would be great to be able to read men’s minds and know everything and be able to solve crimes. But on inspecting how it complicates her life, how intimate she has to be with the darkest aspects of human nature, I realise I would never want that ability really,” the actress said.
This revelation, for Arquette, is the reason why her character is always shown as sad, fitting in well with the gloomy tone of the series.
“Oh yeah, the sad aspect. Well, I think, when I started working on it it was funny because when I first met with Allison we were talking about when she interviews people things come stronger to her when the person who has lost someone is very emotionally upset. So I realised that I wanted to play her as someone with empathy. She’s a creature of feelings.
“Her instinct toward feelings is so much more aware than ours in a weird way as far as sympathy for other people, to a point where she almost gets into their body, you know. And it’s funny because what I like is dichotomies and it’s some-times in her relationship with her hubby, Joe. He’ll be needing something or she’ll be driving and she’ll be like: ‘Can you pick up the kids? Can you do this and that?’ and she doesn’t really notice his feelings sometimes or anyone else’s feelings in her life. She’s just sucked into this vortex with this other person’s fear of their death or whatever and she has to get to the end of that line.”
On CBS we will see the second and the third seasons of Medium and Arquette spoke about how the role has weighed on her emotionally for the three years she has played it.
“I have to say, last year was horrible. By the end of last year it was like I got really sick, I got exhausted and I was scared of everything. It was like by the end of the year I’d say to my husband: ‘Did you lock the windows? Did you lock the door? Where’s the baby? Are you sure the baby’s there?’ I’d absorbed so much of the fear of the crime. Even though we have this lighter side of the family in the show, it was really wearing on me at the end of the year. And I know I had to go away, plus I’m already empathetic myself. So I was, ‘oh my God, this lady on the news killed her whole family. Oh my God, that everyone’s dying all over the world in wars’. So I went to Europe all summer and I don’t speak any of their languages so I couldn’t listen to the news and I couldn’t read the newspaper, I couldn’t watch TV. And just the break from the information, it was so important for me to have that,” she said.
Given that Arquette said Medium is about a gruesome crime-infested world, could the lines of the show and her life become blurred?
“As much as we think we see it on television, those are under-reported areas because they are poor people and no one is talking about that little kid who got shot because he’s in a crack area.
“Unfortunately, I wish it was uncommon, but crime just seems to be a weird part of certain people’s experience in this lifetime,” she said.
• Catch Medium at 8.10pm every weekday on CBS Drama (DStv channel 132).