Tru Calling 1x01

[Elsa Hoelscher]

TruCalling is an American supernatural drama television series which aired on Fox. Original episodes aired between October 30, 2003, and April 21, 2005; however, the final episode was shown in other territories before it was aired in the United States due to lower-than-anticipated ratings.[2][3]

The show starred Eliza Dushku as Tru Davies, a twenty-two-year-old medical school student who takes a job at the city morgue when her internship falls through. When the corpse of a deceased woman seems to awaken and asks for her help, Tru discovers that she has the incredible power to relive that day in order to try to prevent that death. Over the course of the series, Tru struggles to keep her secret, juggle her responsibilities with her complicated personal life, and learn to control her power.

Tru is aided by her boss, Davis (Zach Galifianakis), who acts as a sort of guide and mentor, who is later revealed to have known about Tru's mother (who was, apparently, the last person to receive the "calling" before her daughter), her best friend Lindsey (A.J. Cook), who doesn't know Tru's secret, and her impulsive, good-natured and bumbling younger brother Harrison (Shawn Reaves). Tru keeps her secret from her boyfriends, as well as her sister Meredith (Jessica Collins), who has a drug problem.

Halfway through the first season, Tru's life gets much more complicated when she meets Jack Harper (Jason Priestley), a man who shares Tru's abilities but who works to preserve what he sees as the hand of Fate by ensuring that the people Tru tries to help stay dead, though the series was canceled before the conclusion of their struggle was written. In the first-season finale, it is revealed that Tru's father knows Jack Harper and that he had played a similarly antagonistic role versus Tru's mother, terminating her by hiring a hitman to kill her, though neither Harrison nor Tru found out.

The second season does not feature Tru's best friend Lindsey nor her sister Meredith, whose characters are not mentioned. This season has Tru juggling medical school and her live-saving ability, while Jack aims to foil her attempts at every turn.

The series was canceled in 2005 due to low ratings. The final episode aired in many other territories before it screened in the US. The cancellation ended the series with multiple unresolved cliffhangers:

The series completed airing in its entirety in New Zealand first. The second season began airing in the country on TV3 on February 4, 2005, with the final episode shown on March 11, 2005. After nearly a year-long hiatus in the U.S., new episodes began on Fox on March 31, 2005. However, the series was pulled again in favour of Fox's new show Point Pleasant and the final episode was screened in many other territories before it finally aired in the U.S. on January 21, 2008 on Syfy.

The Calling is an American crime procedural drama television series created by David E. Kelley for Peacock. It is adapted from Dror Mishani's 2011 novel The Missing File.[1] All 8 episodes of the first season premiered on November 10, 2022.[2]

In October 2021, it was announced that Peacock had given a straight to series order to The Missing from David E. Kelley based on Dror Mishani's novel The Missing File.[4] The next month it was announced Jeff Wilbusch would play the lead character, Avraham Avraham.[5]

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 25% approval rating with an average rating of 5.7/10, based on 12 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Hollowing out an intriguing idea with simpleminded execution, this rote spiritual procedural goes to prove that some callings aren't worth answering."[6] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 42 out of 100 based on 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[7]

For me, the lack of specificity was the big problem. Satire works when it's specific. If you're satirizing an authoritarian, you need to actually engage with their authoritarianism. This show keeps it all so vague, as if it's enough to say, "gee, isn't it absurd how people will follow a charismatic leader into death and destruction even when they're obviously unhinged?" When no, it's not absurd if you understand the psychological need that charismatic leader taps into.

I suppose I don't understand what story we should be following. My sense from the pilot is that the dramatic question is: will Elena's psychoses lead her regime to ruin? But to tell that story, we need to understand the specific dynamic that brought her into power because only then can we judge if her quirks outweigh whatever psychological need she's fulfilling for her people. But then, maybe I'm wrong about the story. Is it the story of two zany people connecting in the unlikeliest of places?

Even if it is a smaller story about Elena and Herbert, without knowing their context it holds little weight. When Herbert says that the US is making Elena a fool, is that true and a genuine concern of the people? A minority opinion? Him cynically playing to her ego? I have no way to know, so I can't judge whether he's some kind of true believer zealot, opportunist, or something else. Which means I can't hook into what he's doing, why he's doing it, and thus why I should care.

Aside from all that, I think this needed to be far funnier than it is. Which again circles back to specificity. If this weren't so carefully generic, maybe they could have given it the bite and wit it needed to really hit. Instead it feels like it landed in some mushy middle - unclear about its point and without the laughs to make it a fun watch. Winslet is amazing, as always, but I'm not sure why they went this route. After all, SUCCESSION went full Murdoch satire, and brilliantly so. If you get the chance to satirize authoritarians on HBO, why play coy? Just go for it.

Great review Myles. It's fair to say I enjoyed it far more than the episode. I don't know if I was in the wrong mood or I had the critical reviews ringing in my brain, but I really really struggled to get through it. I found everything about it irritating. I won't be watching any more because it irritated me too much. I was hoping it would be clever hybrid between Succession and The Great and no show can really live up to that sort of expectation. There's a reason those two shows are so loved because they do everything to such a high level. This just felt lazy and I just didn't care about any of it. It gives me no pleasure I was really looking forward to this one. I don't want to start wondering if the 9pm Sunday night slot is losing its touch but this didn't fill me with confidence.

Welcome to Episodic Medium\u2019s coverage of HBO limited series The Regime. As always, the first review is available to all subscribers, but further coverage will be exclusively for paid subscribers. Yearly subscriptions are 20% off until 3/4, and you can read more about our Winter Schedule here.

Mind you, this strategy has had its pitfalls: while I highly recommend Ben Rosenstock\u2019s coverage of The Idol, its meager audience was a reminder that not every HBO drama is going to gain the same kind of traction. However, there is no ritual stronger among the likely audience for a newsletter trafficking in episodic recaps than watching whatever HBO puts on the air on Sundays, and so I\u2019m usually inclined to put them on the schedule sight unseen.

The Regime is the latest of such series, and honestly all I really needed was the logline\u2014six-episode limited series satirizing an autocratic regime starring Kate Winslet\u2014to figure that it would be something that people would at the very least sample. But without access to screeners, I\u2019ve watched as my critical colleagues have been decidedly mixed on the series. While I know the broader internet had its foibles with the very good True Detective: Night Country, it was noticeable that my critical colleagues who had seen all six episodes clearly felt the destination was worth the journey. The same has been less true for The Regime, which has its fans but has been criticized for its tonal imbalance and the shallowness of its satire (or so the headlines suggest, I\u2019m not inclined to read pre-air reviews for shows I\u2019ll be covering). And so when I sat down with tonight\u2019s premiere, I started typing away my notes unsure of how the show and these reviews will sit with our audience.

My overall reaction to this premiere is that I don\u2019t think this is going to become HBO\u2019s next classic limited series. \u201CVictory Day\u201D has some striking scenes and a captivating central performance from Kate Winslet, but the worldbuilding lacks precision and focus to convince me to invest in this world or its characters. But at the same time, it still has that sheen of prestige that elevates it above a similarly scattered project elsewhere, and the magnetic pull of the HBO Sunday slot that keeps us coming back. And it\u2019s definitely an example of a show that\u2019s doing enough interesting things to be worth considering just why it might not be coalescing into the channel\u2019s next Emmy juggernaut as opposed to just a shoe-in nomination for its star.

\u201CVictory Day\u201D is set up as an introduction to Elena Vernham (Winslet) and Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts), an autocratic chancellor and a nobody corporal whose paths cross at a crucial point in their respective journeys. While the Chancellor fights imaginary spores and her father\u2019s ghost, Zubak fights the demons inside his head, and the fact that everyone but the Chancellor is constantly calling attention to his role in the murder of protestors at a Cobalt mine, Site Five. Elena is the only person who tells Zubak that he\u2019s a good man who deserves love, and he doesn\u2019t stop to consider that it\u2019s probably because she\u2019s an autocrat who has had to believe the same for herself after she\u2019s committed similar atrocities to gain and hold onto power. While there are a few bumps in the road, by episode\u2019s end Zubak is Elena\u2019s closest ally, the only person she trusts to tell her the truth about what the \u201Cnobodies\u201D truly want.

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