Horror Queen

THE PLOT

Tru Davies (Eliza Dushku) loses her internship at the local hospital and accepts a job at the morgue working under the slightly odd Davis (Zach Galifianakis). On her first day she learns that she has a special gift: the dead talk to her and ask for her help in stopping their untimely murder. When a dead person asks for her help, she’s forced to rewind the last day and start all over again. In the first few episodes her old sister Meredith (Jessica Collins) deals with a drug addiction, her brother Harrison (Shawn Reaves) acts like a con man and her best friend Lindsay (AJ Cook) wonders why she acts so weird. As the series progressed, she lost her older sister to rehab and her best friend to a wedding. She gains a boyfriend Luc (Matthew Bomer) and an adversary in Jack (Jason Priestly) who relives days as well, but only to help people actually die. In the second season Tru went head to head with Jack on several occasions, while also attending medical school.

TRIVIA

After “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” went off the air, Eliza Dushku was offered a spin off starring her character Faith, but preferred the script to “Tru Calling” instead.

Producers hoped to bring Jensen Ackles on board, but he chose to take a role on “Smallville”. In honor of the actor the writers named Tru’s boyfriend in the second season Jensen.

Writers had plans for at least 13 episodes in the second season, including a finale for the series. All of that was scrapped when FOX cancelled the show and the show was forced to end after only 6 episodes, leaving an uneven finale.

THOUGHTS/OPINIONS

“Tru Calling” was easily one of the better shows on the FOX, but the network was never really sure how to market it. Though it dealt with adult themes and issues, they placed it on after “The OC” and tried to lure teenagers to the show. When they decided to bring Priestly on to capitalize on his history with the network, they had no clue how to advertise the show at all. Basically it was an adult show starring twenty-somethings that they tried to push on teens and it failed miserably.

The real highlight of the show was the amazing chemistry between Dushku and Priestly. These two actors sizzled when they crossed paths and I found myself hoping they’d start a love story between the two, but the show ended too soon. The chemistry between them was far better than it was when she acted alongside any of her love interests.

I don’t often talk about television shows on this blog, but this little underappreciated show deserves to be remembered. FOX attempted to change the show around a lot in the second season and it just wasn’t quite as good, once Tru went to medical school there seemed to be something lacking. Too much time was spent on introducing new characters/friends and less time was spent on the people we really cared about like Harrison and Davis.

Tru Calling is available on DVD and you can pick it up fairly cheaply or even rent it. If you’ve never given this little show a chance, I highly recommend you do. It was the little show that had a lot of heart, but was never given a chance. I guess FOX wanted to focus on finding their next teen hit, rather than something adults might actually watch.