Allison DuBois wasn’t a superhero. Honestly, that’s the first thing you have to understand if you’re looking back at the NBC (and later CBS) hit Medium. While the mid-2000s were absolutely saturated with "gifted" investigators—think The Mentalist, Psych, or Ghost Whisperer—Allison felt like someone you’d actually meet at a suburban grocery store. She was tired. Her roots often needed doing. She wore flannel pajamas that looked like they actually came from a clearance rack, not a wardrobe department.
It’s been years since the finale aired in 2011, but the show maintains this weirdly persistent grip on streaming platforms. Why? Because it wasn’t really a show about ghosts. It was a show about a marriage.
The Real Allison DuBois vs. The Character
People forget this started with a real person. The show is "based on" the life of medium Allison DuBois, who acted as a consultant on the series. Now, if you go down the rabbit hole of the real DuBois, things get complicated. Critics like James Randi and various skeptical organizations have spent decades debunking her claims. They point to "cold reading" or "shotgunning" techniques.
But the show didn’t care about proving psychics exist in the real world. It took the premise as gospel and ran in the opposite direction. Patricia Arquette—who won an Emmy for the role—didn’t play Allison as a mystic. She played her as a woman with a very inconvenient, very draining chronic illness. That's the vibe. The "gift" was a burden that made her late for work and kept her from sleeping.
Why Joe DuBois is the GOAT TV Husband
Let’s talk about Joe. Jake Weber’s portrayal of Joe DuBois is basically the gold standard for how to write a supportive spouse without making them a doormat. Joe was a rocket scientist. He was a man of logic, data, and thermal dynamics.
Every single night, his wife would wake him up at 3:00 AM because a ghost was standing in the corner or she’d had a dream about a kidnapped child. And every night, Joe would sigh, put on his glasses, and try to apply logic to the illogical.
The chemistry worked because they fought. They had real, gritty arguments about money, laundry, and the fact that Allison’s job frequently put their three daughters in danger. It wasn't "TV arguing" where everything is resolved with a pithy one-liner. It was the kind of friction that comes from two people who love each other but are fundamentally exhausted by their circumstances.
👉 See also: Kate Moss Family Guy: What Most People Get Wrong About That Cutaway
Breaking the Procedural Formula
Most procedurals follow a strict "Closed Circle" mystery format. You meet the victim, you see three suspects, the hero finds a clue, and the killer is caught at minute 42. Medium broke that. Often.
Sometimes we’d see the murder in the first thirty seconds. We knew who did it. The tension wasn't "who," but "how." How do you arrest a guy when the only evidence is a dream about a blue tricycle and a song by The Rolling Stones?
The show played with time, too. There were episodes like "The Song Remains the Same," where Allison hears a specific song on a loop that leads her to a kidnapping. Or "Death Takes a Holiday," which explores the internal bureaucracy of the afterlife in a way that felt more like a corporate office than a spiritual realm.
The Three Daughters: A Casting Miracle
Usually, kids on procedural shows are props. They appear at breakfast, say something cute, and disappear. Medium centered Ariel, Bridgette, and Marie. We watched them grow up in real-time over seven seasons.
- Ariel (Sofia Vassilieva): We saw her go from a middle-schooler to a college student dealing with the realization that she inherited her mother’s "curse."
- Bridgette (Maria Lark): She provided the comedy. Her interactions with Joe were often the highlight of the B-plots.
- Marie: Played by twins, she represented the looming future of the DuBois legacy.
The horror of the show was doubled because these kids weren't safe. The "ghosts" didn't respect boundaries. They showed up in the girls' rooms. This raised a constant ethical question: Is Allison a bad mom for staying in this line of work? The show never gave a simple answer.
The Visual Language of Dreams
The dream sequences in Medium were genuinely unsettling. They didn't use cheap CGI or sparkly filters. Instead, the directors used jump cuts, high-contrast lighting, and weirdly domestic imagery turned sour.
✨ Don't miss: Blink-182 Mark Hoppus: What Most People Get Wrong About His 2026 Comeback
One night it might be a 1950s sitcom parody. The next, it’s a gritty 8mm film loop. This variety kept the show from feeling like a "monster of the week" slog. You never knew what the first five minutes of an episode would look like. Creator Glenn Gordon Caron—who also gave us Moonlighting—brought that same sense of experimental flair to the suburbs of Phoenix.
Dealing With the Skeptics (In-Universe)
District Attorney Manuel Devalos (Miguel Sandoval) and Detective Lee Scanlon (David Cubitt) were the anchors. Devalos was the moral compass. He risked his career constantly by using "psychic tips" as the basis for investigations.
Scanlon started as the ultimate skeptic. He was a cynical, somewhat broken cop who eventually became the DuBois' closest friend. Their evolution felt earned. It took seasons, not episodes, for them to truly trust Allison. And even then, they’d call her out when her dreams were too vague to be actionable. "I saw a tree" doesn't get a search warrant signed.
Why the Ending Still Divides Fans
We have to talk about that finale. "Goodbye."
It was polarizing. Fast-forwarding decades into the future to see an elderly Allison finally reuniting with Joe in the afterlife after he died in a plane crash years earlier? That was a bold choice. It stripped away the procedural elements and leaned entirely into the "epic love story" angle.
Some fans hated it. They felt it was too bleak to have Joe die while the kids were still relatively young. Others felt it was the only honest way to end a show that was always about the toll this life took on their family. It asserted that their bond was the only thing in the universe more powerful than the spirits Allison communicated with.
🔗 Read more: Why Grand Funk’s Bad Time is Secretly the Best Pop Song of the 1970s
The Legacy of the Phoenix DA's Office
If you watch modern shows like Evil or even the later seasons of Supernatural, you can see the DNA of Medium. It pioneered the idea that the supernatural is messy, bureaucratic, and deeply tied to domestic life. It wasn't about saving the world. It was about solving one murder so one family could have closure, even if it meant Allison DuBois didn't get to sleep that night.
The show also handled trauma with surprising nuance. Allison wasn't just "sad" about seeing murders; she showed symptoms of secondary PTSD. The show acknowledged that seeing the worst of humanity every night changes a person. It makes them sharp, impatient, and fearful. Arquette played those jagged edges perfectly.
How to Revisit the Series Today
If you're planning a rewatch or diving in for the first time, don't binge it like a standard thriller. Medium is best consumed in small chunks.
- Watch for the Joe/Allison dynamics: Notice how they handle conflict. It’s a masterclass in realistic screenwriting.
- Look for the guest stars: A pre-fame Octavia Spencer, Morena Baccarin, and even Emma Stone popped up.
- Pay attention to the color palette: The show uses "warm" tones for the DuBois home and "cold" blues/greys for the crime scenes and dreams. It’s a subtle way of showing where Allison feels safe.
The show is currently streaming on several platforms (availability varies by region, but it’s often on Paramount+ or Pluto TV). It holds up better than many of its contemporaries because it didn't rely on 2005-era tech. It relied on human emotion.
Your Next Steps for a Medium Deep-Dive:
First, track down the Season 3 premiere, "Very Merry Maggie." It’s one of the best examples of how the show blends domestic life with genuine psychological horror. After that, look up the real Allison DuBois' books—Don't Kiss Them Goodbye is the primary source material—to see just how much the showrunners departed from the "true" story to create the DuBois family we see on screen. Finally, if you're interested in the technical side, watch the "making of" featurettes regarding the 3D episode "Still Life"—it was a massive gimmick at the time that actually required special glasses, but the behind-the-scenes work on the practical effects is fascinating.