Not surprisingly, I love t.v. shows where a character sees beings other people don't. (But only if they really do. Shows, movies, or books about fake psychics who con people absolutely infuriate me.)
I was a Medium fan from the first episode. As portrayed by Patricia Arquette, Allison DuBois is very normal. She's married, works for the D.A. in Phoenix, and has three daughters to get fed, to school, back from school, fed again, and to bed. Plus, she has dead people who show up with messages. Most are victims of crimes who want help, though Allison's dead father-in-law feels free to pop in from time to time, even if Allison is in the shower. Her daughters have their own intuitive gifts, which allow them to pick up the crayon they want without looking (actually a deleted scene from the pilot, but included on the DVD set) to knowing exactly how many marbles are in a jar in a class project to occasionally predicting the stock market. Through it all, husband/father Joe Dubois, an aerospace engineer, tries to find reason among the unreasonable and maybe get a full night's sleep. Totally normal stuff, at least from my perspective.
Joan of Arcadia is a little more out there. In fact, I didn't watch it when it first aired because I thought it would be really Christian. Turns out, it so isn't. Joan is a perfectly normal teenager in a non-religious household. Her mother is somewhat ambivalent about her Catholic roots. Her agnostic father borders on bitterness toward it. Yet, one day God starts talking to Joan. The show's theme song is that '90s classic "What If God Was One Of Us" and God appears in many forms throughout the series. My favorite is goth teenager God, though I also love when God shows up as a little girl on a playground. Naturally, Joan tries to ignore God, thinks she's going crazy, and finally believes the way all belief happens...when there's simply no other explanation.
Not that Joan leaps into unyielding obedience. She does plenty of questioning, which God permits, but never answers. And, you know how asking a teenager to set the table is a chore? Uh, yeah. But when she relents and acts on faith, she gets a glimpse of those famous mysterious ways. (You know, like the U2 song.) Add to all this, one of the most realistic family and high school experiences on t.v. Sadly, Joan of Arcadia only ran two seasons and ended on a cliffhanger (though my money is totally on Joan in that one.)
And then there's Saving Grace. Holly Hunter is Detective Grace Hanadarko, Oklahoma City Police. When she isn't solving crimes and catching bad guys--which she does, as everything else, wholeheartedly--she's getting drunk, having sex with various men, breaking regulations, flashing her neighbor, lying to everyone, and defying authority. She adores her nephew, Clay, spoils her bulldog, Gus, and would walk through fire for her best friend, Rhetta.
One night, in a moment of crisis, she cries "God, help me," and winds up with a "last chance" angel named Earl. Tobacco-chewing and t-shirt-wearing Earl is as stubborn as Grace and they wrestle (literally) for a few episodes before Grace comes close to accepting that she's stuck with him. What she's even less thrilled about is Earl trying to lead her back to God and the work she is meant to do.
I love so many things about this show: the way Grace empathizes with victims of crime and goes to any length to get them justice; the way Grace and her partners squabble, pull pranks on each other, but always back each other up; the way Rhetta and Grace speak in the shorthand of life-long friendship; the way Grace loves Clay and Gus; the way she uses a call for a "double homicide" as a standard excuse to get out of dreaded family occasions; and the way each episode swings wildly from hilarious to tragic to miraculous, in ways that are connected and random. Kind of like life.
Most of all, I love the relationship Grace has with Earl. He shows up with orders from "the boss" but also stays for pizza, beer, and a movie. He tells her the truth, even when she doesn't want to hear it, and even loses his temper a time or two, but he always comes back. And when life is too much, and she crumbles, he's there not just to catch her, but hold her tightly. Earl's love for Grace is sometimes described as paternal, but it's more than that. It's agape--a Gandhian term for loving someone simply because of not just who they are, but that they are...that they exist as you exist, as both creations and reflections of God. And the fact that a television show can show all this dazzles me.
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