User Reviews

After watching the first five episodes of "Tru Calling", I think I've gotten a pretty good impression of the main strengths of the show so far: it combines the pleasures of sci-fi with those of murder mysteries, it is visually engaging, and it has an attractive & likable cast. There are barely any slow moments - even the "first version" of the day is interesting, because you can look for all the little details that can/may be changed in the "second version". The writers so far are making good use of the premise: Tru can change things, but first she must figure out WHAT changes need to made, because it's not guaranteed that everything will turn out for the better; sometimes an event will only get delayed instead of prevented. "Haunted" has a fun guest cast (particularly Alaina Kalanj and Mark Matkevich), some beautiful facial expressions from Eliza Dushku ("I didn't hear what from you?"), but is most notable for being the first episode of the series to end with a genuine cliffhanger that leaves you begging for more. *** out of 4.

This episode is just silly.

A medical student turns up at the morgue after an experiment that goes horribly wrong. Tru goes undercover to try and prevent the students from performing a procedure that stops the heart so that the victim can regain suppressed memories and get greater clarity in life.

The twist comes when Paige Sanders survives the experiment and runs off to accuse a neighbor of childhood sexual abuse and nearly gets herself killed. Her father, with whom she has been estranged, arrives to save the day ... with Tru.

On the romantic front Tru's relationship with Luc Johnston develops. Unfortunately all this running off to save people can put a strain on any man's patience.

Not a great episode.

Indeed, this episode has "Flatliners" written all over it.

Our dutiful heroine masquerades as a Harvard medical student so that she can get close to another student at Hudson Medical School and keep her from dying. When they roll Paige Saunders (Alaina Kalanj) into the morgue, she has a huge scar on her forearm. Naturally, she awakens long enough to plead with Tru to save her and Tru is sucked into the past again. Tru has been studying to prepare for his MCATS and she passes them, but when she is plunged into the past and has to run off to Hudson to get near Paige to find out what's going on, she discovers that Paige and two male students are conducting experiments where they clinically die on the table so as to release their repressed memories. Poor Paige has nagging memories of sexual abuse that she cannot straighten out. Initially, Tru talks her into walking away from this deadly experiment until Paige med school buddy introduces her to the student that Tru is impersonating. Yes, Paige almost dies on the table, but Tru is able to revive her with the friction paddles in the nick of time.

Tru goes back to retake her MCATS. When she is pondering a question, she realizes that Paige has put herself back into jeopardy, but it is not Paige's father who poses a threat to his daughter. Tru forfeits taking the MCAT for another year so that she can rescue Paige from the real abuser. Interestingly, one of Paige's medical school pals is played by Kal Penn who has gone on to bigger and better roles. Meanwhile, Tru's gal pal Lindsay (A.J. Cook)sets our heroine up with a smooth but shallow guy who loves to coin obvious puns using Tru's name. When Tru stands him up, he takes up with her matchmaking friend and utters the line: "Too good to be Tru." At the same time, Harrison is doing his best to exploit Tru time travel abilities so that he can put a winning bet on a horse. A new guy in the building, Luc, who Tru takes a shine to runs into her and drops his camera. This sets up bad vibes between them until they meet again. The real revelation is when Tru's Morgue Lab supervisor Davis (Zach Galifianakis) tells her at the conclusion of the episode that he knows more about her exploits than she realizes.

"Tru Calling" foreshadows another show that spun off the Bruce Willis movie "The Sixth Sense" called "The Ghost Whisperer." "Tru Calling" suffers somewhat by its lack of credibility. Tru always drops everything and turns into a female Lone Ranger on a crusade for life. Some episodes are better than this one, but Eliza Dushku of "Wrong Turn" is one foxy looking babe chick. The ongoing struggle between her older sister with a cocaine habit doesn't intrude onto this episode.

Above-average but not as memorable as some of the other episodes. My favorite was when Tru warned her older sister about a drug test and the sister paid off her office assistant to substitute clean bodily fluids for her.