TVSquad

HBO has found the lead for one of their roughly 658 new "Hey, remember how we used to have good TV shows before we started giving you crap like John From Cincinnati? Huh? Do ya?" pilots.Thomas Jane (The Punisher) has been tapped to star in Hung, a one-hour dark comedy about a middle-aged high school basketball coach who figures out a way to use his best asset. Now, I'm no expert, but I'm guessing that the title doesn't mean that his best asset is his ability to tie a wicked hangman's noose.

Hung is a top priority at HBO, as new entertainment president Sue Naegle has made the spec script her first major purchase and first pilot pickup. Written by the creator of The Riches and directed by Oscar winner Alexander Payne (Sideways), Hung marks Jane's first regular TV role. He has, of course, previously made TV appearances, including a stint on wife Patricia Arquette's series, Medium.

(S04E10) I suppose one of the drawbacks of a suspenseful show like Medium doing a two parter is that while waiting a week for the second part, most viewers will have come close to figuring out what's going on. In this case, I wasn't too concerned with figuring out why Suzie Keener's roommate wasn't dead until I was stuck in traffic today and started thinking about reviewing the show tonight. Moreover, the previews made it pretty clear that Joanna was the mastermind of the entire abduction.

Luckily, this was all made clear in the first fifteen minutes of the show. What followed was my favorite kind of episode. The kind where we, the audience, know exactly what happened, and we get to watch the hero snare the guilty party. It was like watching a pretty version of Columbo.

(S04E09) "What could possibly give that woman nightmares other than someone named Dorothy dropping a house on her?" - Joe Dubois

Finally a show that isn't afraid to face the real issues men face today. Can't we just be allowed to have our swimsuit issue without being made to feel guilty?

I guess our collective suspicions about Cynthia Keener were right, although it isn't much of a shock. Her abducted daughter not only explains why she is committed to finding missing children but also why she's such a bitch.

(S04E03) "That's so not fair." - Ariel Dubois

Paris, 10CC, white wine, the only thing that could make this scene more romantic is a corkscrew through the hand. Am I the only one who immediately thought of the scene in True Romance when Patricia Arquette drives a corkscrew through James Gandolfini's foot? Good times.

Michael Gross looks good, right? He looks a lot older than Steven Keaton but he wears it well. Personally, I would be thrilled to see him as a recurring character, but I'm not holding my breath.

(S03E22) This has been something of a roller coaster week for Medium fans. There was the high of finding out that the show will be coming back for a fourth season. Unfortunately, that was followed by news that NBC is going to move the show to Sundays, waiting until the end of football to bring it back. That makes for an 8 month wait between now and our next visit with Allison.

The big finale followed a similar path. We got all those answers we were looking for in the Recapitator case. The fates of Debra/PD and Walter Paxton were cleared up. The fallout from Allison being exposed started, and took a couple surprising turns. Unfortunately, the episode suffered from some iffy story telling and an abrupt ending.

(S03E21) It's been a big week for the fine folks over at Medium HQ. Not only are they smack dab in the middle of their big three part finale, but they also got an early renewal from the suits at NBC. It wasn't as early as some shows, but having the network make the announcement before upfronts is still a nice vote of confidence. Now, hopefully they'll move the show back to Monday and give it that post Heroes slot next season.

But enough about renewals and scheduling. We have the next to last episode from season three to talk about. In a nutshell, I thought it moved both the Joe story, and the Paxton/Debra/Allison story, along very well. Unfortunately, it also suffered from a couple of problems. First, one way too long, and unnecessary, scene. And second, one missing character.

(S03E20) "Head Games" marks the beginning of the star studded, three part, season three finale. It was a good way to kick things off. There is a murder case for Devalos to prosecute, a new friend(?) for Allison, a new head doctor for Joe, visions that may or may not be correct, a new baby... just a lot going on. It's a good thing there are three parts to this.

Seeing as how the episode opened with Walter Paxton (Jason Priestley), let's start there. The dream within a dream open was very good. The head in the pantry came as quite a surprise, and led to a great Joe moment. He was so calm and forgiving when he woke up in the dream, but so frustrated and fed up when he woke up for real.

(S01E18) David Arquette stepped in to direct his sister this week and I think we have to say he did a pretty nice job. It didn't hurt that he was given a very fun script to work with. Much like we saw with Dr. Walker and Captain Push earlier in the season, we were again treated to an appearance of a recurring character. Allison's brother Michael (Ryan Hurst) is back. He was also featured in "Lucky" from season one and "Lucky In Love" from season two.

Truth be told, I think the interaction of Allison and her brother would have been enough to sell me on this episode. They were very good together. Two of their scenes stood out to me. The first one was the meeting with Tanya King (Cindy Pickett). Allison's reaction to Michael's "psychic" work was very amusing. Every time she gave a drawn out sigh I laughed.

(S03E16) This was a strange episode. Strange in the good way though. I say that because the b-story seemed much bigger than what we usually find in a Medium episode. Often the main mystery just dominates the hour and various bits of family goings on come across as interesting asides. Not that one way is better than the other. Joe's work story getting so much attention just struck me as unusual, or strange, if you will.

From what I'm told though, more Joe is always a good thing. This past weekend one of my friends mentioned to me that she would marry Joe DuBois in a second, so it's probably a good idea to give the fans what they want once in a while. Especially if you can do it in such an interesting way.

(S03E14) I was really looking forward to this week's episode for the simple fact that Eric Stoltz would be the guest star. In the world of TV, I think he counts as a pretty good get. And he didn't disappoint, although, I think the writers did a little bit.

Obviously, this is the Allison show. I get that and we know going in that this world revolves around her. My one complaint with the episode was that while they went out of their way to get someone like Eric Stoltz, they didn't really use him a whole lot.

I was pretty happy with the episode overall, but I think it could have been that much better if something had been lost to make room for a little more of the creepy Sonny Troye. The roommate murder would have been a good place for it. We spent an awful lot of time with the wrong roommate. I would have even gone for getting to see Sonny's end of those phone conversations with Allison.

(S03E13) One thing you can say about Medium, they don't fall in to the trap of being a formulaic show. These last few weeks the shows have been all over the map with the structure and format. It's one of the things that makes the show so enjoyable.

I missed the very beginning of the episode because right as the show started my cable box decided that was the perfect time to shut itself off. So I scrambled to get all my junk flipped over to straight cable and came back in the middle of the scene with grown-up Ariel and Marie. It left me a little confused until old Joe and Allison turned up. I haven't decided yet whether Allison is just going to be a really hot 50+ woman or if the makeup to age Patricia Arquette just wasn't very well done. Old Joe looked good though.

(S03E12) Well, that came as quite a surprise, and I'm not talking about the double twists to the plot, which we'll get to in a moment. Rather, I'm referring to the fact that this was what I would call a Joe episode. The previews for the episode made it pretty clear that Allison would wake up thinking she was somebody else, but I had no idea that we would be following the whole story through how Joe was dealing with it.

It was a nice way to do it, and Jake Weber did a great job in the expanded role. From his character's perspective, it had to be terrifying. He's obviously bought in for the long haul where the dreams, visions, and other psychic bits and pieces of Allison are concerned. But a complete break, turning into another person. He had to be thinking on some level, "What if she doesn't come back?"

(S03E10) Based on the preview we saw last week, I was really looking forward to this episode. Unfortunately, the episode you see doesn't always measure up to expectations drawn from a preview. This episode didn't end up being as good as I thought it would. Not that it was horrible, I'd say it was just ok.

The first problem was with the Devalos story. The preview hinted at Allison somehow helping him deal with his daughter. As it turns out, Allison really wasn't involved. Giving them the name of a city in New York was not exactly the revelation I had in mind. It was still nice to get some development of the Devalos character, but it seemed like there might have been a better story there to tell where Allison actually does factor in.

(S03E09) After what I considered an off week, Medium is back with another good episode. This thing was just bizarre, but in the good way. It's one thing for Allison to talk to ghosts, we've seen that before, but it is an entirely different thing when that ghost actively works against her solving his murder. Morgan's repeated attempts to hide the truth had her just as confused as those of us watching. Probably more than us. I think most viewers probably had figured on Nick as the trigger-man long before Allison, but the why was much more important than the who.

The character of Morgan (Ben Weber) was a nice twist to the usual Medium idea. His interactions with Allison were very well done. I especially liked the scene where he realized that she was watching him and Vincent in her dream and he called her on it. Their best scene though, was in the interrogation room when she was taunting him with the idea that she would reveal all of his secrets to Cadence. He was so nervous and Allison seemed to revel in finally getting the upper hand.

(S03E08) After a one week delay, we finally get a look at "The Whole Truth" and I have to say, we really could have done without it. Team Medium dropped the ball and delivered an episode that is best described as boring. The episode just never seemed to pick up speed.

It was like the difference between seeing a comedian tell a joke and having your friend tell you the joke after they see it. It's still the same joke, but one way is much better. I think there was a good episode in this idea somewhere, but the way they told us just wasn't it.