Occasionally I get hooked on tv shows (don't judge me). At the beginning of the month it was Lie to Me, a show about deception expert Cal Lightman who has developed a way to interpret microexpressions (tiny involuntary expressions made in the height of raw emotion). This week, it's been Medium, a show about psychic, Allison Dubois, who aids the district attorney in solving crime, mostly murders, with her special ability of dreaming and various phenominal abilities.
This week I watched the series finally of Medium (don't worry, no spoilers here), and decided to do some digging into the story behind the show. I knew that Allison Dubois was a real person the show was based off of, however, beyond that I had no idea who she was and how she inspired the show. Apparently she is a psychic who is a serial killer profiler in Pheonix, while somehow finding time to do private readings and tour all over the world due to her recent publicity. I love the character Allison Dubois, played by Patricia Arquette, but for some reason when I was researching the real Allison, I "sensed" a bit of fakeness. I don't know... something does not seem right to me and that's all I can say. Maybe it's because the Patricia plays Allison as a pretty serious woman, who wouldn't know what to do with publicity. She acts like any sane person would who really does have these dreams and visions, more concerned with the people she is helping than good publicity. But I found the real Allison Dubois to be astonishingly camera friendly, really claims her role as a media personality, which makes me think that she's more concerned with publicity than helping people. Maybe it's just the stark difference that turns me off.
Getting more curious, today I discovered that Lie to Me is also based off of a real person. Cal Lightman and the Lightman group is based off of Dr. Paul Ekman and the Ekman group. Ekman shares in his blog that the show is much more dramatized and succinct than real life, but the science is pretty true to life. As opposed to Allison Dubois, Paul Ekman seemed MORE believable than Tim Roth's portrayal of Dr. Cal Lightman who is based off of Ekman. As I watched the videos displaying Dr. Ekman's research, I was more and more convinced that this a reliable practice and that the real life stories are even better than those on the tv series, and that Dr. Ekman is an even more genuine and sincere man than what is portrayed on Lie to Me.
What if we put Paul Ekman in a room with Allison Dubois and see if she's lying about the whole thing. If the show wasn't canceled (sad day), they could bring the real Allison on Lie to Me and try to interrogate her and discover whether or not her gift is real.
This week I watched the series finally of Medium (don't worry, no spoilers here), and decided to do some digging into the story behind the show. I knew that Allison Dubois was a real person the show was based off of, however, beyond that I had no idea who she was and how she inspired the show. Apparently she is a psychic who is a serial killer profiler in Pheonix, while somehow finding time to do private readings and tour all over the world due to her recent publicity. I love the character Allison Dubois, played by Patricia Arquette, but for some reason when I was researching the real Allison, I "sensed" a bit of fakeness. I don't know... something does not seem right to me and that's all I can say. Maybe it's because the Patricia plays Allison as a pretty serious woman, who wouldn't know what to do with publicity. She acts like any sane person would who really does have these dreams and visions, more concerned with the people she is helping than good publicity. But I found the real Allison Dubois to be astonishingly camera friendly, really claims her role as a media personality, which makes me think that she's more concerned with publicity than helping people. Maybe it's just the stark difference that turns me off.
Getting more curious, today I discovered that Lie to Me is also based off of a real person. Cal Lightman and the Lightman group is based off of Dr. Paul Ekman and the Ekman group. Ekman shares in his blog that the show is much more dramatized and succinct than real life, but the science is pretty true to life. As opposed to Allison Dubois, Paul Ekman seemed MORE believable than Tim Roth's portrayal of Dr. Cal Lightman who is based off of Ekman. As I watched the videos displaying Dr. Ekman's research, I was more and more convinced that this a reliable practice and that the real life stories are even better than those on the tv series, and that Dr. Ekman is an even more genuine and sincere man than what is portrayed on Lie to Me.
What if we put Paul Ekman in a room with Allison Dubois and see if she's lying about the whole thing. If the show wasn't canceled (sad day), they could bring the real Allison on Lie to Me and try to interrogate her and discover whether or not her gift is real.
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