Medium Moves To CBS

The Popular Show Changes Networks

Sep 25, 2009 Francine Brokaw

Last season it was unclear whether Medium would return for another season. Then there were rumors that CBS would pick up the series if it were to be dropped by NBC.

Actors Patricia Arquette, who plays Allison Dubois, and Jake Weber, who plays Joe Dubois, in the popular series Medium, discussed their show and the change of networks at the annual Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour.

During the summer there was a back and forth dance between the networks and the series. No one was a hundred per cent sure what would happen with the series.

Will They Get Picked Up or Won’t They?

“I always thought it would make sense for us to be at CBS,” stated Arquette. And I always thought there was great programming that would make sense for us to pair up with. So I was always hoping that would be a possibility, but at one point I thought -- I'd been told unofficially we were getting picked up. I was about to buy a house. Then I got told we got dropped, I was unemployed. And then I got a job. It was like, ‘You're hired, you're fired, you're hired.’"

Arquette said it was somewhat frustrating not knowing for sure what was going to happen. “You know, I don't remember exactly what the timetable was, but I got to sit with it long enough to think, like, ‘Wow, how is this going to be? Wow, all the people I work with, and I love working with those people.’ And so I don't remember exactly how long [the uncertainty was].”

“A couple times I heard rumors,” chimed in Jake Weber. With a chuckle he added, “One of my friends, who works on Brothers & Sisters, sent me an email saying, ‘The pickup of Medium is one of my favorite soap operas on television right now.’”

Arquette was just as concerned about the fans of the show as she was about the cast and crew during the time of uncertainty. “I just want to say that the same way that we were sort of led to believe we were going to get picked up, I think our audience was also led to believe that to some extent. And I know on all of the bloggings and all of the fan sites, [there were] early stories that they had picked up and then ran with that. So I don't think our audience ever felt we were in jeopardy of not getting picked up.”

Medium is a Good Fit with CBS

Now on the same network with Numbers and Ghost Whisperer, Patricia Arquette is happy about the series’ new home on CBS. “I'm so grateful for that. That whole night, I think it makes sense for viewers, and I feel very grateful to be paired with those shows.”

About the show and the characters, Weber explains, “[Allison] has a gift/affliction that cannot be denied. And Joe navigates the storms of their relationship and her work and their family life as best he can with love and forbearance and, sometimes impatience and frustration. But there in it, his evolution as a husband, perhaps his horizons have expanded somewhat. As a man of science, it was probably hard for him to get his head around this concept that his wife sees dead people. But, you know, he's a man and has a career in his own right and exists as an independent force in the family. But he is there for his wife as best he can be.”

The sixth season of Medium premiers Friday, September 25 at 9 PM ET/PT on CBS.

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Jake Weber and Patricia Arquette Star in Medium