Jennifer Love Hewitt, whom I liked in the Fox drama Party of Five, plays one of the most useless mediums on TV. In Ghost Whisperer, her character - complete with bad Cleopatra hair cut/ wig - can see and talk to ghosts. She also gets premonitions and is able to interpret some of them. But of the few episodes I’ve seen, as many people die (or more) than the number she saves. Her husband is also conveniently a EMS worker (ambulance), which helps her gain access to restricted areas at time. Still, there’s something about this show that compels me to watch, hoping it will get better. And it does. (But see the Mad TV parody clip at the end of this post. The video above is supposedly from the pilot episode.)

It’s a fairly dark show because of all her “failures”, but at the same time it’s realistic. The show is growing on me, but I really hate the hideous wig she’s wearing. My guess is that they are trying to appeal to the same mostly-female viewership that watches Charmed, but Hewitt’s character comes off as a bad Morticia (visually). I figure they need to fire the makeup person.

In the episode I’m watching is the second of two parts. A plane from South Africa has crashed in the US, after the crew died from hypothermia. Hewitt’s character’s friend (it’s amazing how little a character’s name is mentioned in many shows) has a brother, Mitch Marino, that is supposed to be on the plane. They don’t know yet if he was actually on.

The scriptwriters have “legitimized” her in this episode. An investigator from the FAA gets her to admit what she is: a medium but not a psychic.

Fast forward… This has actually been one of the best episodes yet, and the ending is a complete shocker. (I don’t like spoiling shows, and I don’t know the importance of all the characters, so I’m not going to mention anything just yet.) But if you like Medium or Supernatural, you may like this

By the way, the story line isn’t finished yet. The season premiere, which continues the story, is on next Friday.