Product Description

From Emmy Award-winning executive producer creator and director Glenn Gordon Caron ( Moonlighting ) comes Medium a chilling drama series inspired by the real-life story of research medium Allison DuBois. Emmy winner Patricia Arquette ( Stigmata Flirting with Disaster ) stars as a young wife and mother who since childhood has been struggling to make sense of her dreams and visions of dead people. Arquette received the Emmy in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series category after the telecast of the initial 16 episodes of the critically acclaimed series. Allison DuBois (Arquette) is a strong-willed young mother of three a devoted wife and law student who begins to suspect that she can talk to dead people see the future in her dreams and read people's thoughts. Fearing for her mental health she turns for support to her husband Joe (Jake Weber "U-571") an aerospace engineer who slowly comes to believe that what his wife is telling him just might be true. The real challenge is convincing her boss D.A. Devalos (Miguel Sandoval) -- and the other doubters in the criminal justice system -- that her psychic abilities can give them the upper hand when it comes to solving violent and horrifying crimes whose mysteries often reside with those who live beyond the grave. Sofia Vassilieva and Maria Lark also star as Ariel and Bridgette the two eldest DuBois children.System Requirements:Running Time: 938 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 097361226347 Manufacturer No: 122634

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7033 in DVD
• Brand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2007-10-16
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 938 minutes

Amazon.com
Having weathered a slight sophomore slump, creator-executive producer Glen Gordon Caron's Medium returns to DVD with this six-disc collection of all 21 episodes from its third and arguably best season. As ever, Patricia Arquette's lead performance as Allison DuBois, the medium/psychic whose visions of murderers, serial killers, and such make her an indispensable (and, in this season, controversial) part of the Phoenix district attorney's office, leads the way. But Medium also continues to evolve. Season Two's increased emphasis on Allison's home life with husband Joe (Jake Weber) and their three daughters (Sofia Vassilieva as Ariel, Maria Lark as Bridgette, and toddler Miranda Carabello as Marie) sometimes lessened a story's dramatic impact, but not this time. More and more, we see that the mixed blessing that is Allison's "gift" (it's one thing to have dreams that help solve vicious crimes, but quite another to be what she calls "a walking carnival trick," haunted by frightful, violent nightmares that aren't always what they seem to be) has been passed on to her children, and in some unusual ways. In "Four Dreams," the two-parter that opens the season, Bridgette dreams what her mother dreams--except the child's visions take the form of cartoons; meanwhile, "Mother's Little Helper" finds Ariel and Allison seeing the same visions from very different points of view. Joe, too, is increasingly fleshed out. The role of the spouse who struggles to understand but can't really get what his partner is going through is a tough one, but Joe's harrowing experience as a hostage is an important sub-plot throughout the final seven episodes, the last three of which (a triple-header, if you will, as all three involve a serial killer whose grisly m.o. earns him the nickname "the Recapitator") feature Neve Campbell and Jason Priestley in recurring roles. Of course, this is hardly a typical police procedural; the Law & Orders and CSIs of the world cover that ground. Any TV show helmed by Moonlighting creator Caron will have its share of eccentric touches. Thus we get episodes like "The One Behind the Wheel" (Allison is possessed by a mouthy, repugnant crime victim, but Joe insists she pretend to be herself so as not to freak out the kids) or "Better Off Dead," an amusing and touching tale of a ghost struggling to accept his fate. Overall, though it has its weaknesses, Medium remains one of TV's most eminently watchable series. Bonus material includes deleted scenes, a few featurettes, and occasional commentary tracks. --Sam Graham

Customer Reviews

Ghostly Investigator Back in Season 3
After a successful first year staring in January 2005, MEDIUM is now in its fourth year of interviewing ghosts and tracking down their killers. It will return in January 2008. When I first saw the trailers for the show, I didn't know if I would be all that interested. After all, the concept of a psychic solving crimes isn't new and has been often times been nearly run into the ground by movies, books, and television episodes of characters that get haunted by apparitions.

But "Do you believe in ghosts?" seems to be a popular perennial topic. People love arguing over the afterlife and what shape it will take. Interestingly enough, at the same time MEDIUM was airing, GHOST WHISPERER was already in development at another network. GHOST WHISPERER focuses more on relationship-driven plots, but does occasionally deal with crime victims.

From the very beginning, though, MEDIUM was all about the crimes. Think of it as CSI with ghosts. Court TV also offers PSYCHIC DETECTIVES, a reality-based recreation of criminal cases that were solved, or at least investigated, by real psychics. There is plenty of interest in the subject, and the market doesn't appear to be nearing saturation yet.

In fact, the show is based - somewhat - on the real life of Allison DuBois, a practicing psychic who once interned at the district attorney's office in Glendale, Arizona. The character Allison DuBois, portrayed so charmingly by Patricia Arquette, is also a wife and mother of three daughters. Haunted by her dreams and contacts with the afterlife, Allison is drawn to solving crimes. In the opening season, she was met with staunch resistance but eventually won a position in the district attorney's office.

Now in this third season DVD collection, Allison is an old hand at shepherding ghosts and solving crimes. As she's gone along, though, the crimes have gotten more personal and hit closer to home. Jake Weber plays Allison's husband, Joe. He's, literally, a rocket scientist. Together, they couldn't come from more different backgrounds, but they make everything work. Their relationship is the backbone of this show, and Jake's reaction and struggles with dealing with Allison's "gift" is what brings me back again and again.

I love how the whole family gets along. Joe is adrift in a sea of estrogen and female stress, yet he's got his own problems as he battles job pressures and Allison's dreams that haunt them both at night. Not only that, but the stress that Allison and his kids bring into his life isn't something he can talk about with any of his work buddies. Allison is the hero of the show, but Joe is my personal hero. The way he deals with everything, the way he's just one inch away from constantly being overwhelmed, makes me root for him all the time.

Season 3 brings a lot of the action into the family arena. The past couple episodes have touched on the family, but as the girls have gotten older and come into their own powers, more emphasis has been placed on that. The girls - Bridgette, Ariel, and Marie - are amazing in their own right. They're not perfect. I like the fact that they come across as real kids with real issues and real rebellion at times. Marie is played by Madison and Miranda Carabello. Bridgette is played by Maria Lark. Ariel is played by fan-favorite Sofia Vassilieva.

The season opener is a two-part story, "Four Dreams Part 1" and "Four Dreams Part 2", has Allison and Bridgette working together to solve one of Allison's cases. Marie's problems surface in "Profiles in Terror" and tie into Allison's battle with an abrasive FBI profiler whose findings don't agree with hers. "Mother's Little Helper" focuses on Allison and Ariel as they share dreams. One of the strongest episodes of the season is "Second Opinion" because it involves the possible future Marie, and Allison's fears. Those fears are the same ones faced by many parents in the world today. This one hit especially close to home for me because I've had to deal with a cancer scare with my own daughter. This is the kind of writing that makes an episode of MEDIUM double-down with excitement and emotional weight.

The episodes involving the volatile relationship Joe and Allison share are the best. That relationship gets touched on in "Ghost in the Machine" as the result of a camera Allison gets for Joe as a present. The idea of a camera (although it's a camcorder in this case) that can show images from the future or past isn't new, but the episode still manages to throw an edge on the story. "Apocalypse, Push" reunites Allison with the Texas Ranger she first helped in the series' premiere episode, but it also features Joe as he has to deal with issues that again make him a real character to me and the show's fans. "Very Merry Maggie" has Joe worrying about his health, and Allison is so busy that she can't give his situation or mental drain the attention she otherwise would.

The best of the Joe-centric episodes come at the end of the season, though. In "Joe Day Afternoon," Joe gets held hostage at his job. The problems he has to deal with as a result crop up again in "No One To Watch Over Me" as he has to go back to work and still has a lot of residual fear. "Head Games" and "Heads Will Roll" features Joe's decision whether to join a lawsuit against his employer. I love Joe. My heart goes out to him. I know he's a fictional character, but Weber just plays him so well that I believe if he really existed, this is just how he would be.

In addition to her husband and daughters, Allison also has a brother. Michael has some of the same powers Allison has. He's featured in "1-900-Lucky" where his job as a hot-line psychic leads him into the same crime investigation Allison's already working on.

When the family isn't featured in the spotlight so much, the season relied on the fabulous and intriguing natures of the crimes Allison becomes involved with. "Be Kind, Rewind" slams Allison with haunting dreams about losing her legs, and plays the emotional card that brings in the viewers. Dr. Charles Walker, Allison's recurring foe that first appeared in first season's "Penny for Your Thoughts," puts in an appearance in this season's "Blood Relation." These episodes are always chilling.

"The Whole Truth" is a heartbreaker because it involves Allison's search for a little boy. These episodes where a ticking clock is involved always fuels the interest and I can't help but love them. "Better Off Dead" has a twist involving ghosts that is fantastic and fun. "Very Merry Maggie" is creepy, and shows how much the series can bounce back and forth between fun, interesting, and downright scary.

"The One Behind the Wheel" puts Allison at risk, and those episodes are always crowd pleasers. I can't help but be more interested when Allison is menaced. No matter what the other people in her life think, she's always alone ultimately. "We Had a Dream" has a psychic killer who tracks her down to her home. Allison's younger self puts in an appearance in "The Boy Next Door" and gives viewers a glimpse of what her life was like as she was growing up. "Whatever Possessed You" has two investigations that ultimately pull together in a surprising way.
The final three episodes of the season pull a lot of things together and build a larger, more emotional story. "Head Games," "Heads Will Roll," and "Everything Comes to a Head" builds tension and the threat level to Allison, Joe, and their marriage as outside pressures threaten to cave in on them. And Allison has to go outside her normal activities to bring a killer to justice.

MEDIUM is an amazing show. I love the episodes because most of them are self-contained and don't require constant attention to the series to understand what's going on. You can dip in and out of the season and keep up - except for the continued shows. But that's what I pick the DVD sets up for: to see the episodes I might have inadvertently missed and to revisit favorite episodes.

If you're a fan of the series, the third season set is out and keep the same great standards as the first two sets. If you haven't seen the series before, this season rounds out the series and makes the characters even stronger than before. You can start here with this one and know what's going on.

Unfortunately, special features are almost non-existent. I would love to see some behind-the-scenes stuff, some interviews with the real Allison DuBois and maybe the district attorney she worked for, as well as background on real-life cases that the medium solved. I love the show, but I would love finding out more about the real person it's based on as well.

Medium; more developed story is better than ever!
This season (3) the plot-lines become more intense, and the characters are more developed. Finally, I can feel a connection for Mr. Dubois, who is now a fleshed out and sympathetic character, as he deals with a difficult trauma in the story, and Allison, deals with her (and her D.A. boss') worst fear.

This is very good TV, well acted and well written, but as always, not a kid friendly show, but good for a late night scare!

Getaway real life and falling love with Joe
I am a recent widow and this show filled empty hands with comfort.
Since season 1, my favorite Joe's appearance became increased and Alison getting chubby.
This is the great marketing by production because most house wives are far from "Desperate house wives" beauty but they (include me) need husband like Joe.
He listens to wife, took care of their kids, has lot of hair, even he makes coffee for them and gives good night kisses for kids!! What a perfect husband he is!
My favorite program was "Valentine's day" (am I correct?). Alison was someone's personality but Joe escorted (follow) wherever she goes. That theme music and Joe's sorry face was in my head for a whole and constantly made me cry at work. Gush!
I'll guarantee you you'll stock this show if you are 30 something or up. No offence, but don't waste your time at "Ghost wispier" like as I used to.