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Anyone who knows me knows I love all things paranormal. So when my brother let me borrow the first and second seasons of Tru Calling, I figured I was in for a treat.
And I was right. If I had been able to get this on my television, I would have been terribly disappointed when it was cancelled in its second season, especially when Jack showed up and made things so much more interesting.
Tru Davies (Eliza Dushku) takes a job at the morgue after her internship to medical school falls through. On her first night, a dead woman opens her eyes and says, “Help me.” Tru’s day rewinds, and she now has the power to change the fate of those who ask for help from a cold autopsy table the night before. Eventually, this causes problems in her personal life, as you can see with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Luc (Matthew Bomer).
As the series advances, Tru gets a lot of help from her brother Harrison (Shawn
Reaves), who is basically the family screw-up, but he and Tru are close and you sense that nothing or no one can come between them. He’s also the comedy relief for the show. Even when he tries to do well, things just seem to go wrong, making for some hilarious moments. Having a gambling problem doesn’t help his life much either, and Tru spends a good bit of her rewind days fishing Harrison out of trouble, along with keeping drugs out of her lawyer sister, Megan’s, reach.
Other key roles are Davis (Zach Galifianakis) and Lindsay Walker (A.J. Cook). Davis
is Tru’s shy, personality-deficient boss and her mentor. He knows about her power and does the research to help her find the people who ask for help. It’s sometimes painful to watch Davis because he’s a total nitwit around pretty women, and you’ll find yourself laughing and saying, “Did he really say that?” He also thinks the living are creepier than the dead, but he’s a very smart man with insights that help Tru with her calling.
Lindsay, Tru’s best friend, lives a normal life like the rest of us. She’s funny, cute, perky, and you can relate to her. She brings a ray of sunshine to a creepy corner of the world and is a joy to watch.
And then there is Jack Harper (Jason Priestley of 90210 fame), who Davis hires as a morgue attendant in episode 14. At first you can’t quite figure him out. Is he good or bad? He’s not totally heartless, but he can still make you mad, and you have to grudgingly admit he does have a point. He believes that once a person dies, they should stay dead or the balance of the world will become unstable. Therefore, Jack’s job is to keep Tru from saving lives. He doesn’t go out and kill them, he’s not a murderer (remember they’ve already died once without his help), but he tries to make sure the victims are where they’re supposed to be so fate can do its job. He truly believes that what he’s doing is for the good of mankind, because each person touches so many lives of so many other people, and if someone is here who isn’t supposed to be, Jack believes major repercussions are inevitable, and he sometimes stretches the rules to make sure that doesn’t happen.
So, then, why do the victims ask for Tru’s help? Is she playing God by saving these people’s lives? Did some of them really die before their time and are still needed among the living? If so, why did God/Fate allow it to happen in the first place? Perhaps Tru and Jack are keeping the balance by working against each other, because neither one of them wins every time.
Tru Calling isn’t as creepy as I thought it would be, but that’s probably because I already knew the dead would speak to Tru, but the series is filled with plot twists and a few shocking surprises you won’t see coming. It’s more of a mystery show than a paranormal one. And though the series ended prematurely, you aren’t really left with a cliffhanger, just a vague idea that God or Fate isn’t done with these characters yet.
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