Halloween

[cactuswatcher]

I had 29 Trick-or-treaters last night, which is the most I've had any year here in Phoenix. As usual I had the TV on during the festivities. There was a 'Medium' marathon on. I heard one final group come up the walk just as there was a horrific scream on the TV. The kids turned around and left without ringing the bell, so I should have had a few more.

The marathon confirmed why I liked the show in the beginning and why I quit watching it late last season. As long as the show sticks to solving crime through supernatural means, it's OK, though her powers and accuracy seem to vary wildly from week to week. I really like the soft spoken DA. But, the truly pointless arguing between the husband and wife is just torture. The only thing that changes from week to week is who is being more petty. In one of the rerun episodes last night, their daughter passively mindreads the answer to a homework problem, she changes on her paper from the answer she had worked out to the correct answer and gets accused of cheating. Husband and wife spend quite a bit of time threatening and bedazzling the teacher, but no one addresses the real issue. What should they be teaching their own daughter about living in the world? Clearly they should have let the teacher assume she was cheating, because in this case she was (just not how he thought she was), and let the girl face the consequences. There is all too much of this avoiding of issues in the series to make artificial tension in episodes.

Comments

[darbyunlimited.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I agree, under the consequences. How does a kid differentiate between the inspiration everyone gets that, "Oops, that's the wrong answer, I've got the right one now," versus a stray pick-up from another mind? It's been a while since I've seen that episode, but I seem to remember that the girls don't really grasp what they're doing. And the parents are having trouble dealing with the implications - it's easier to treat it as unintentional and therefore innocent.

I actually like the family dynamic, it seems more realistic to me, but I can understand why it isn't entertaining. I think it's more revealing of the characterization, and is akin to Marvel's original "Heroes still have real-people problems" approach that revolutionized comics 50 years ago (Gah! It was almost 50 years ago!). It does allow for character development as well, as recently when Joe showed hardly any resistance to the little one's awareness of what his work project was going to be used for.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Actually what happens is that the kid is supposed to estimate the number of pennies in a jar, so an exactly correct answer really is not only not necessary, but highly suspicious. The kid needs to learn when using that inside info she has is OK and when not to. In another episode shown last night the same girl knows she is getting 'fed' math homework answers when her father is around and not when her mother is. She knows it's easier to just 'work' with her father, than to work the out problem for herself. It's little different than a child who happens to have access to a teacher's version of the school text with at least some of the answers in it.

The child is getting away with something and knows it. She can't help it if she passively mindreads an answer when she's taking a test, that's understandable. But her parents know what's going on and need to insist she does her own homework. She hopely can learn the difference between her own inspiration and what she's reading off others.

[atpo-onm.livejournal.com]

The 64,000 penny question is, does the child understand that she's reading minds? This is a debatable subject based on what we've seen on the show so far, but my impression is that she doesn't, and her parents are trying to keep that understanding from her as long as possible, just like parents typically avoid discussion of some sexual matters depending on the age of the child.

If the child can read minds, the next thing she's likely to want to know is, "why shouldn't I?". Exactly how would you explain it to her? Pretend for a moment that the situation is real, and not imaginary.

Or consider a somewhat analogous situation that could really occur, although granted it would be rare. A group of children begin taking music classes in school. One of the students is a savant, and can play any tune on the piano after hearing it played only once by anyone else. However, in every other regard, the child is a "normal" 5-year old. The teacher subsequently asks the child not to exhibit this ability, because it's unfair to all the other "normal" students. You are the savant's parents. What do you do now?

Anyway, as to the arguing, I agree with darby that it seems more "real" to have it, and I also agree that it could be annoying. Right now it doesn't bother me, and the show still does so many other things both well and cleverly that I tune in. If they're still on the same arguey page in another year? Might be another matter.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

By school age children are anything, but totally innocent. Let's be blunt. The older girl does know she's different. She's shown it repeatedly.

There are plenty of real-world dull-witted teachers around, who do ask parents not to teach their children so much or let the children show their talents so much. I had one or two minor problems with that particularly in elementary-school math when the teacher's math skills were a little shaky, and I know my niece and nephew had much worse. It is the parents duty to make it clear to the child there is nothing wrong with using their talents, but also to let the child know there is value in pleasing such bird-brains in the short run.

This passive mind reading in the show is a dilemma for certain. But, it doesn't eliminate the need for the girl to learn math. Both TV parents are more than a little remiss in stressing that to the girl, at least on screen. The avoidance of facing those kinds of real-world issues is much of what makes the parents arguments so pointless and aggravating.