I noted that many reviews were written much after this series closed. What possible reason would someone have for writing a review on a dead series? I believe that many people like me wish to express their ideas regardless of who listens, and even with the thought that there can be no value other than to express some ideas that seem to be missing from a very old conversation.
I recently did a non-stop marathon on Medium - I had never watched it when it was active. I much prefer watching things the AMAZON or HULU way - just turn it on and cycle through commercial-free automatically until I drop each day and pick it up the next day and the next.
I consider what I see especially on a series to be a core of ideas and beliefs that mainly belong to the creator, writers with broad direction from the creator/producer and perhaps the director. So the underlying beliefs whether well-acted or not, aren't really the beliefs of the actor - that would be more of a fortuitous event and not really required. In this case, the Creator credit goes to Glenn Gordon Caron, and it is more like given the long list of writers and directors, that the underlying beliefs and the "spin" on this series came from his mind and any conflicting ideas about the backstory were resolved by the creator and not the transient writers and directors.
So here are some discussions of those underlying conflicts.
"They're showing me this for a reason." The underlying idea is that Allison is shown events in the past, present, and future, in order for her to do something and even though that something often turns out to violate the rights of victims and criminals alike, it will all turn out in the end. You might also label this "faith in the truth" that always wins out in the end or another way to look at it, "when you're on the side of the right, the end will justify the means."
No in order to structure this, you have to believe there is some higher power - and I don't have a problem with that at all - most people on the planet may differ on how to acknowledge that power (religion) but we mostly all agree it is present. But the central and most important question - does that power direct us, sending us "clues" as to what we are to do, or is that power creative acting through us and creating the reality we request and believe in? Are we the "pawn" or are we the creator of a destiny that the ultimate power behind the universe, the one that animates and binds all things, simply powers?
Now to answer that, we have to go back to "they're showing me this for a reason" - Allisons understanding of this concept is very simple. They're asking her to act on things they're showing her. But why aren't they showing her other things besides crimes? Why does she only see murder, death, and bad deeds? Didn't she have to provide some direction in order to see only those things? Didn't she actually ask for this? Didn't she say, "Show me crimes I can solve." And then the ultimate power behind the universe obligated by sending her what she asked for.
And what a chaotic mess that was. Some of the things she was shown were interpreted correctly but most of them remind you of the story told many way but here's an example...
"The man next door is a SEX OFFENDER...he's bad, but he saved your daughter from a speeding car...he's good...but he stared inappropriately at a young girl...he's bad...but he was framed by a sociopath teenager and never really did the crime in the first place...he's good and a victim...etc." In this scenario, you never really know all the facts unless you take the time to look fully at everything and then you might not get all the facts anyway.
The manner that Allison receives information and acts on it, is clearly emotional and uninformed. Although she was studying to be an attorney, she clearly had a handicap because she never really understood or believed in the constitution or the basic elements of law - innocent until PROVEN guilty. Clearly in many cases, she would rather err on the side of her emotional reaction to what she was shown. Having jailed the innocent she might never look again to see if her decision was right. Imagine that kind of emotionalism unchecked in our society. It's the very thing our forefathers envisioned and why the district attorney and lead investigator fight her continuously - her wish to jail everyone based on her own bias and perception is a central theme of the series.
Is the creator trying to point this out to us? It's the "with great power comes great responsibility" message.
But more often than not, we see the scenario presented in the episode with the sex offender - a neighborhood activated by fear and motivated/led by someone who has her own agenda. We cannot underestimate the role of fear in our society - it is a justification for all kinds of evils and makes us easy prey for manipulators who know how to use it. It's generally accepted in our society that fear is a legitimate reason for doing the wrong things.
Is IQ a preventative measure for activation by fear? I'm afraid we may never know. The current population control methods including food contamination and drugs including forced vaccination are lowering our IQs continuously. There is no hope that we've ever test the hypothesis that more education and a higher IQ might cancel the affects of fear on our population. This would run contrary to the family agenda - perhaps there will be some relief when our world population stabilizes at 3B or less, but no guarantees that we might still have the unofficial title of "useless eaters" - it's hard to stop a vaccine schedule with 100 required strains before the age of 12, and even hard to counteract the prediction of 1 in 10 children with auto-immune spectrum.
"Can't you just arrest them and put them in jail?" If Allison had her way, we would probably waive all 5th amendment rights if a psychic "saw" you committing a crime. This smacks of "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise stopping crimes before they happen based on the word of an imperfect and corrupt system.
Did the creator Caron really believe this was needed? I doubt it. It's just a way to increase plot complexity and galvanize watchers on one side or the other of a thorny issue. Having the main character wanting to violate rights and even having a typical family exhibit bad parenting is a way to engage watchers.
But was this a clever device for engaging housewives who have dreams and feel that they don't get the air time and credibility they deserve? Perhaps so, but it's doubtful that Caron was using this as an actual message.
Caron seems to like to develop flawed main characters - both Joe and Allison have their problems and it was a rare episode when you'd find yourself siding with either one in every situation. More like you would hear, "Girl, you're really putting your foot in your mouth this time" or "Well, Joe, you could have seen that coming."
I would say that the flaws make the characters more believable although the idea of a flawed super hero is annoying and hard to watch. Eventually it wears you down as a watcher.
A Higher Power At the end, last episode, we see Joe and Allison joined together again in heaven (we presume) together forever - an ending clearly designed to put all questions to rest and close all open matters in favor of an ending that ever fan will accept as the best possible situation. We also get inklings that all other family members are happy and prosperous. All is well in heaven.
The series itself isn't a testimony to a higher power. It could have been completely random - the appearance of dead people, the ability to see and hear dead people, etc. Just "physics" of the universe and how it treats spirits or souls.
The only possible suggestion is the one mentioned earlier - that the universe with all its godlike qualities and energy, responds to our inner wishes, our inner beliefs, and provides in loving kindness, what we believe we need and deserve. Allison wanted to lead a meaningful life and help people. She believed that her family was blessed with a genetic "gift" - the latest science on genetics tells us more and more that "genetics" aren't actually responsible for these kinds of gifts although it has been the subject of folklore for perhaps thousands of years and so lingers on.
But the one thing we can be very certain about based on the latest science, the ability to get what we believe we deserve in life is built into genes and the power to give it to us is built into the universe "god's will" so not by special birth, but by birth into the human race, we are given the ability to do what Allison did only hopefully as a wiser person after watching this series.
I recently did a non-stop marathon on Medium - I had never watched it when it was active. I much prefer watching things the AMAZON or HULU way - just turn it on and cycle through commercial-free automatically until I drop each day and pick it up the next day and the next.
I consider what I see especially on a series to be a core of ideas and beliefs that mainly belong to the creator, writers with broad direction from the creator/producer and perhaps the director. So the underlying beliefs whether well-acted or not, aren't really the beliefs of the actor - that would be more of a fortuitous event and not really required. In this case, the Creator credit goes to Glenn Gordon Caron, and it is more like given the long list of writers and directors, that the underlying beliefs and the "spin" on this series came from his mind and any conflicting ideas about the backstory were resolved by the creator and not the transient writers and directors.
So here are some discussions of those underlying conflicts.
"They're showing me this for a reason." The underlying idea is that Allison is shown events in the past, present, and future, in order for her to do something and even though that something often turns out to violate the rights of victims and criminals alike, it will all turn out in the end. You might also label this "faith in the truth" that always wins out in the end or another way to look at it, "when you're on the side of the right, the end will justify the means."
No in order to structure this, you have to believe there is some higher power - and I don't have a problem with that at all - most people on the planet may differ on how to acknowledge that power (religion) but we mostly all agree it is present. But the central and most important question - does that power direct us, sending us "clues" as to what we are to do, or is that power creative acting through us and creating the reality we request and believe in? Are we the "pawn" or are we the creator of a destiny that the ultimate power behind the universe, the one that animates and binds all things, simply powers?
Now to answer that, we have to go back to "they're showing me this for a reason" - Allisons understanding of this concept is very simple. They're asking her to act on things they're showing her. But why aren't they showing her other things besides crimes? Why does she only see murder, death, and bad deeds? Didn't she have to provide some direction in order to see only those things? Didn't she actually ask for this? Didn't she say, "Show me crimes I can solve." And then the ultimate power behind the universe obligated by sending her what she asked for.
And what a chaotic mess that was. Some of the things she was shown were interpreted correctly but most of them remind you of the story told many way but here's an example...
"The man next door is a SEX OFFENDER...he's bad, but he saved your daughter from a speeding car...he's good...but he stared inappropriately at a young girl...he's bad...but he was framed by a sociopath teenager and never really did the crime in the first place...he's good and a victim...etc." In this scenario, you never really know all the facts unless you take the time to look fully at everything and then you might not get all the facts anyway.
The manner that Allison receives information and acts on it, is clearly emotional and uninformed. Although she was studying to be an attorney, she clearly had a handicap because she never really understood or believed in the constitution or the basic elements of law - innocent until PROVEN guilty. Clearly in many cases, she would rather err on the side of her emotional reaction to what she was shown. Having jailed the innocent she might never look again to see if her decision was right. Imagine that kind of emotionalism unchecked in our society. It's the very thing our forefathers envisioned and why the district attorney and lead investigator fight her continuously - her wish to jail everyone based on her own bias and perception is a central theme of the series.
Is the creator trying to point this out to us? It's the "with great power comes great responsibility" message.
But more often than not, we see the scenario presented in the episode with the sex offender - a neighborhood activated by fear and motivated/led by someone who has her own agenda. We cannot underestimate the role of fear in our society - it is a justification for all kinds of evils and makes us easy prey for manipulators who know how to use it. It's generally accepted in our society that fear is a legitimate reason for doing the wrong things.
Is IQ a preventative measure for activation by fear? I'm afraid we may never know. The current population control methods including food contamination and drugs including forced vaccination are lowering our IQs continuously. There is no hope that we've ever test the hypothesis that more education and a higher IQ might cancel the affects of fear on our population. This would run contrary to the family agenda - perhaps there will be some relief when our world population stabilizes at 3B or less, but no guarantees that we might still have the unofficial title of "useless eaters" - it's hard to stop a vaccine schedule with 100 required strains before the age of 12, and even hard to counteract the prediction of 1 in 10 children with auto-immune spectrum.
"Can't you just arrest them and put them in jail?" If Allison had her way, we would probably waive all 5th amendment rights if a psychic "saw" you committing a crime. This smacks of "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise stopping crimes before they happen based on the word of an imperfect and corrupt system.
Did the creator Caron really believe this was needed? I doubt it. It's just a way to increase plot complexity and galvanize watchers on one side or the other of a thorny issue. Having the main character wanting to violate rights and even having a typical family exhibit bad parenting is a way to engage watchers.
But was this a clever device for engaging housewives who have dreams and feel that they don't get the air time and credibility they deserve? Perhaps so, but it's doubtful that Caron was using this as an actual message.
Caron seems to like to develop flawed main characters - both Joe and Allison have their problems and it was a rare episode when you'd find yourself siding with either one in every situation. More like you would hear, "Girl, you're really putting your foot in your mouth this time" or "Well, Joe, you could have seen that coming."
I would say that the flaws make the characters more believable although the idea of a flawed super hero is annoying and hard to watch. Eventually it wears you down as a watcher.
A Higher Power At the end, last episode, we see Joe and Allison joined together again in heaven (we presume) together forever - an ending clearly designed to put all questions to rest and close all open matters in favor of an ending that ever fan will accept as the best possible situation. We also get inklings that all other family members are happy and prosperous. All is well in heaven.
The series itself isn't a testimony to a higher power. It could have been completely random - the appearance of dead people, the ability to see and hear dead people, etc. Just "physics" of the universe and how it treats spirits or souls.
The only possible suggestion is the one mentioned earlier - that the universe with all its godlike qualities and energy, responds to our inner wishes, our inner beliefs, and provides in loving kindness, what we believe we need and deserve. Allison wanted to lead a meaningful life and help people. She believed that her family was blessed with a genetic "gift" - the latest science on genetics tells us more and more that "genetics" aren't actually responsible for these kinds of gifts although it has been the subject of folklore for perhaps thousands of years and so lingers on.
But the one thing we can be very certain about based on the latest science, the ability to get what we believe we deserve in life is built into genes and the power to give it to us is built into the universe "god's will" so not by special birth, but by birth into the human race, we are given the ability to do what Allison did only hopefully as a wiser person after watching this series.