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deird_ljBut before we get to all the reasons, I’d better explain what the show is.
After all, the only people who really know about it are obsessive fans who looked up what all the actors moved on to after Buffy finished.
Personally, I bought the series on a whim, because
a) it starred Eliza Dushku
and
b) it was cancelled by Fox (and therefore must be worth watching)
Anyway…
The show’s premise is fairly simple. Basically, the main character (Tru Davies) has a superpower that allows her to relive days. In typical Groundhog Day fashion, she can go back and do things differently so that the world turns out better.
She can’t actually control this superpower, though. It kicks in, without warning, when she’s at work.
You see, Tru works in a morgue. And occasionally, when a body is brought in, the dead person will turn to Tru and ask for help. THEN the day will restart. Immediately.
So, as Tru sees it, her job is to find out how the person died, and make sure that, this time, they stay alive.
It’s pretty much your typical sci-fi-in-normal-life, chick-with-superpowers-trying-to-save-people-and-deal-with-everyday-stuff, set-inside-a-morgue, fox-cancelled drama.
On to my fabulous list of reasons why Tru Calling is awesome…
1) It’s CSI – without the evidence.
A fairly essential element of trying to stop people dying is figuring out how they died. Which is easy in your standard cop show. After all, the evidence is sitting right there.
In Tru Calling, though, it’s much trickier.
Once the day restarts, there isn’t a body. There isn’t a crime scene, or a murder weapon, or any witnesses. There’s just Tru, her memory, and some stuff that might be about to happen.
And it’s not like she gets much time to gather evidence the first time. After all, she has no idea who’s going to die until they do, and no opportunity for further investigation after they ask for help. Occasionally, she actually has to go and save someone without knowing their name, address, or anything.
2) She can’t save everyone.
Most weeks she does, but from time to time, Tru’s best efforts just won’t be enough. The person she sets out to save will die anyway.
Which is extremely helpful, because from a tv-watching perspective, it creates a fair bit of suspense. After all – they probably won’t die, but they might.
3) She’s not supposed to save everyone.
The typical dead body requesting Tru’s help will turn to her and say “Save me!” before the whole day-rewinding kicks in.
There are, however, atypical dead bodies.
Sometimes, the request will be “Help me!”
And while that can mean “Help me not to die!”, it can also mean “Help me to save someone else!”, or “Help me to see my mother one last time!”, or “Help me to fulfil my dying wish!”.
The show isn’t afraid to mess with the formula.
Actually, that holds true for the cause of death, too. After all, she’s stopping people from dying, which doesn’t necessarily mean murder. It can also mean accidental drowning, suicide, or being hit by a bus.
4) Eliza Dushku’s hair.
Seriously. The woman has awesome hair. It’s at its finest in this show, and I just sit there watching its fabulousness and wishing my hair would do that too…
5) Tru really has no idea how to talk to people.
Well, not quite. She’s fine with your everyday, standard conversations.
What she’s not good at is, for instance, walking up to people and saying “You’re going to die today – unless you do exactly what I say.” Or saying “I know you’re planning to kill your girlfriend – now stop it, or I’ll tell the police.”
Most people think she’s kinda crazy.
6) There are interesting moral dilemmas.
If the man who asked for help is a murderer, should you help him, or let him die?
What if your attempt to help someone means that someone else gets killed?
Is it appropriate to use your superpowers to win the lottery?
Should your quest to make the day better include stopping your friend from getting food poisoning?
And is it okay to date the guy who works upstairs?
7) There are superpowers that can’t be proved.
After all, if Peter Parker wants to prove that he’s Spiderman, he can just hop onto the ceiling and walk around for a while. And if Clark Kent wants to, a bit of flying followed by melting things with heat vision will probably do the trick.
Tru, however, can’t prove it – not easily. If she explains the reliving days thing, and someone says “Okay – what’s going to happen on tv tonight?”, she’s probably going to end up saying “Well, I have no idea. Because I haven’t lived today over…”
Proving her superpowers is pretty tricky.
8) The good guys aren’t all committed to Truth, Justice, And Other Nice Stuff.
Out of the few people who know about her “rewind days”, one of her main support guys is her brother Harrison – who is much more interested in getting Tru to tell him the upcoming sports scores so that he can win big.
As much as they’re all in favour of people not dying, they’re also very in favour of bad dates going well this time, and getting a better deal on the new car than the one they got when they bought it yesterday, and moving this really nice ornament before it’s broken again…
9) The villains think they’re the good guys.
While I enjoy villains who walk around plotting evilly and Mwahaha-ing at the world, I also like the villains on this show – because they don’t.
The bad guys are actually pretty convinced that they’re the good ones, and that Tru is the evil one.
It makes things interesting.
10) Tru has no legal authority.
The thing is, most cop shows involve, well, cops. With badges, and handcuffs, and an entire legal system willing to back them to the hilt. And if anyone questions the importance of the situation, they can just point at the extremely dead body lying on the floor, and say “I think it’s pretty important, don’t you?”
Tru, on the other hand, has none of this.
She has no legal authority for anything she does, and even though the situation is incredibly important (being ‘life or death’ – literally), she’ll have a pretty tough time convincing people that it is, because nothing bad has happened yet.
11) Good days can go bad, and bad days can go good.
Being a Spiderman fan, a Buffy fan, and so on, I’m fairly used to the typical ‘my life would be so easy if I didn’t have to save people’ idea. And Tru Calling follows the formula – sometimes.
A day that was perfect the first time around will be horrible the next time – because she’s busy saving someone’s life, and doesn’t really have a chance to focus on her own.
On the other hand, they also do it the other way.
There is nothing more fun than seeing Tru have a disastrous day of badness, miss lunch, fight with her boyfriend, flood her kitchen, and flunk an exam… and then to rewind, wake up that morning, and go “YES! Another chance!” and proceed to have a ball doing it right.
In conclusion? This show is awesome. Go watch it.
After all, the only people who really know about it are obsessive fans who looked up what all the actors moved on to after Buffy finished.
Personally, I bought the series on a whim, because
a) it starred Eliza Dushku
and
b) it was cancelled by Fox (and therefore must be worth watching)
Anyway…
The show’s premise is fairly simple. Basically, the main character (Tru Davies) has a superpower that allows her to relive days. In typical Groundhog Day fashion, she can go back and do things differently so that the world turns out better.
She can’t actually control this superpower, though. It kicks in, without warning, when she’s at work.
You see, Tru works in a morgue. And occasionally, when a body is brought in, the dead person will turn to Tru and ask for help. THEN the day will restart. Immediately.
So, as Tru sees it, her job is to find out how the person died, and make sure that, this time, they stay alive.
It’s pretty much your typical sci-fi-in-normal-life, chick-with-superpowers-trying-to-save-people-and-deal-with-everyday-stuff, set-inside-a-morgue, fox-cancelled drama.
On to my fabulous list of reasons why Tru Calling is awesome…
1) It’s CSI – without the evidence.
A fairly essential element of trying to stop people dying is figuring out how they died. Which is easy in your standard cop show. After all, the evidence is sitting right there.
In Tru Calling, though, it’s much trickier.
Once the day restarts, there isn’t a body. There isn’t a crime scene, or a murder weapon, or any witnesses. There’s just Tru, her memory, and some stuff that might be about to happen.
And it’s not like she gets much time to gather evidence the first time. After all, she has no idea who’s going to die until they do, and no opportunity for further investigation after they ask for help. Occasionally, she actually has to go and save someone without knowing their name, address, or anything.
2) She can’t save everyone.
Most weeks she does, but from time to time, Tru’s best efforts just won’t be enough. The person she sets out to save will die anyway.
Which is extremely helpful, because from a tv-watching perspective, it creates a fair bit of suspense. After all – they probably won’t die, but they might.
3) She’s not supposed to save everyone.
The typical dead body requesting Tru’s help will turn to her and say “Save me!” before the whole day-rewinding kicks in.
There are, however, atypical dead bodies.
Sometimes, the request will be “Help me!”
And while that can mean “Help me not to die!”, it can also mean “Help me to save someone else!”, or “Help me to see my mother one last time!”, or “Help me to fulfil my dying wish!”.
The show isn’t afraid to mess with the formula.
Actually, that holds true for the cause of death, too. After all, she’s stopping people from dying, which doesn’t necessarily mean murder. It can also mean accidental drowning, suicide, or being hit by a bus.
4) Eliza Dushku’s hair.
Seriously. The woman has awesome hair. It’s at its finest in this show, and I just sit there watching its fabulousness and wishing my hair would do that too…
5) Tru really has no idea how to talk to people.
Well, not quite. She’s fine with your everyday, standard conversations.
What she’s not good at is, for instance, walking up to people and saying “You’re going to die today – unless you do exactly what I say.” Or saying “I know you’re planning to kill your girlfriend – now stop it, or I’ll tell the police.”
Most people think she’s kinda crazy.
6) There are interesting moral dilemmas.
If the man who asked for help is a murderer, should you help him, or let him die?
What if your attempt to help someone means that someone else gets killed?
Is it appropriate to use your superpowers to win the lottery?
Should your quest to make the day better include stopping your friend from getting food poisoning?
And is it okay to date the guy who works upstairs?
7) There are superpowers that can’t be proved.
After all, if Peter Parker wants to prove that he’s Spiderman, he can just hop onto the ceiling and walk around for a while. And if Clark Kent wants to, a bit of flying followed by melting things with heat vision will probably do the trick.
Tru, however, can’t prove it – not easily. If she explains the reliving days thing, and someone says “Okay – what’s going to happen on tv tonight?”, she’s probably going to end up saying “Well, I have no idea. Because I haven’t lived today over…”
Proving her superpowers is pretty tricky.
8) The good guys aren’t all committed to Truth, Justice, And Other Nice Stuff.
Out of the few people who know about her “rewind days”, one of her main support guys is her brother Harrison – who is much more interested in getting Tru to tell him the upcoming sports scores so that he can win big.
As much as they’re all in favour of people not dying, they’re also very in favour of bad dates going well this time, and getting a better deal on the new car than the one they got when they bought it yesterday, and moving this really nice ornament before it’s broken again…
9) The villains think they’re the good guys.
While I enjoy villains who walk around plotting evilly and Mwahaha-ing at the world, I also like the villains on this show – because they don’t.
The bad guys are actually pretty convinced that they’re the good ones, and that Tru is the evil one.
It makes things interesting.
10) Tru has no legal authority.
The thing is, most cop shows involve, well, cops. With badges, and handcuffs, and an entire legal system willing to back them to the hilt. And if anyone questions the importance of the situation, they can just point at the extremely dead body lying on the floor, and say “I think it’s pretty important, don’t you?”
Tru, on the other hand, has none of this.
She has no legal authority for anything she does, and even though the situation is incredibly important (being ‘life or death’ – literally), she’ll have a pretty tough time convincing people that it is, because nothing bad has happened yet.
11) Good days can go bad, and bad days can go good.
Being a Spiderman fan, a Buffy fan, and so on, I’m fairly used to the typical ‘my life would be so easy if I didn’t have to save people’ idea. And Tru Calling follows the formula – sometimes.
A day that was perfect the first time around will be horrible the next time – because she’s busy saving someone’s life, and doesn’t really have a chance to focus on her own.
On the other hand, they also do it the other way.
There is nothing more fun than seeing Tru have a disastrous day of badness, miss lunch, fight with her boyfriend, flood her kitchen, and flunk an exam… and then to rewind, wake up that morning, and go “YES! Another chance!” and proceed to have a ball doing it right.
In conclusion? This show is awesome. Go watch it.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 02:12 am (UTC)That'd make you more Bruce Wayne than Clark Kent, but that's not in itself a bad thing. It'd also probably help with the "no authority" aspect... money can't buy everything, but it sure can help.
η
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 03:11 am (UTC)*proceeds to download tru calling*
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 04:27 am (UTC)Okay...well. XD Maybe not best friend. But, still. I finished watching this show two days ago (borrowed it from a friend), and thought it was awesome.
More people should know the world of Tru Calling. *sage nod*
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 04:31 am (UTC)Isn't it a fantastic show! I so wish it had gone for three more seasons (and had an extremely twisted Tru/Jack relationship in season 3)...
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 05:30 am (UTC)-clears throat-
Just messin' love. XD
Eliza Dushku’s hair.
That's plenty of reason for me!
I mean..and all the nifty plot stuff you mentioned..also... Ehem.
I just might have to watch this show. 'Ris, you should buy a copy, so I can borrow it. XP -nods sagely-
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 05:08 am (UTC)Tru/Gary Hobson OTP!
EE's first season just came out on DVD. I actually haven't rewatched it all, because I got my brain sucked out by Smallville before I got all the way through, but I should go back and do that.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 09:06 pm (UTC)Hmm... Will have to check it out...
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 09:26 pm (UTC)Now I want to rewatch it, darn you.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-22 06:35 pm (UTC)On the other hand, I still haven't seen "Bring It On", so there's that.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 09:06 pm (UTC)Not all shows are for all people, unfortunately.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 04:28 am (UTC)Eliza's character is very fun. And the actual cheerleading is amazing to watch.
(This comes from someone who would never consider it a 'sport', btw...but these girls and guys make it look very awesome and very watchable...)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 07:15 am (UTC)And Luke Perry, whatever his name was (wasn't he working for her dad or something?), was good to start off with, being her nemesis, but that just got annoying...
He did have some great eps with her though, I vaguely recall one with someone hanging off a building and him trying to get her to let them die, or something....
Maybe if it comes on telly again I'll give it another go...
Ooh, I loved Early Edition! The ending sucked a bit, but at least it wound all the loose ends up nicely.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 09:08 pm (UTC)No, no, that was someone else. Davis was always lovely and nice.
Must track down Early Edition...
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 04:25 am (UTC)Yeah, EE is well-worth tracking down. :-)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 06:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 06:42 am (UTC)I'm sure I remember Davis finding out about her, and it not being a good thing...
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 10:18 am (UTC)Her half-siblings were about ten years old...
Her brother found out and thought she'd gone insane, and then started trying to get her to bet on racehorses.
Luke Perry (who was the guy-trying-to-get-people-to-die) already knew, and was terribly nasty and evil (but still really fun). He's the one I was thinking of.
Davis knew about the whole thing almost as soon as Tru did, but didn't tell her that for a while.
He was, however, always very much on her side...
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 10:24 am (UTC)Yeah, I remember Harrison doing that...
Who on Earth am I thinking of then? Someone was all sneaky and out-to-get-her...I'm suuuure it was Davis. Seduced by some lady! No? Manu going crazy?
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 10:38 am (UTC)Stil confuddled by the Davis question though.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 06:59 pm (UTC)Her dad, maybe? Evil dad? Maybe that's what's confusing you...