Ah, out with the old, in with the new. The television season is dead, long live the next television season. And to prepare for it, I’m going to review new shows as the pilots become available I get the chance to catch up.

Ghost Whisperer; CBS, Friday Nights 9:00 pm

Did you ever wonder what Medium would be like in less capable hands?

According to the press release, “Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) is a young newlywed with the unique ability to communicate with the earthbound spirits of people who have died - and who seek her help.” The show opens with a young Melinda at a funeral talking to an older man…and then we see into the coffin and know the man is the guest of honor with a message for his widow. Cut to Melinda’s wedding reception, where she talks to her new husband’s brother…it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s been dead for years, and she’s speaking to his incorporeal ectoplasm, restless soul, or whatever.

Anyway, when the kids move into a new “fixer-upper” house with lots of gothic shadows, a soldier appears to her begging for her help; the rest of the episode is her trying to convince the soldier’s now-grown son that his father is really here, and looking for the peace that can only be found by having his body located and buried. Yes, she succeeds in the end, but the getting there tends to the predictable, with a constant stream of plot exposition in the form of her best friend and employee.

I’m a little sad about this series…it has some high-powered talent (Aisha Tyler, David Conrad, even Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller in a guest turn as the dead soldier - there is a tiny scene near the end where Miller shows us everything he alone sees solely by the emotions that play across his face, which gave me a newfound respect for this actor), but a mediocre script. Ms. Hewitt is pleasently attractive, but not at all convincing; there isn’t the world-wearyness required for someone who routinely “sees dead people,” and I can’t help but wonder whether she’ll ever become anything other than “adequate.” Her stock “cutsy” routine doesn’t have that many years of life left in it, even with modern surgical techniques. This show doesn’t have the style of Medium while stealing most of its ideas and plot devices (although she has yet to wake up in a coffin with a spirit, as Ms. Arquette did), and isn’t anywhere as original as ITV’s summer series with the same basic plot device, Afterlife. (There’s a show that deserves to be seen by American audiences, although I’m not sure this country could handle the not-necessarily-happy endings and moral ambiguity of Afterlife. I really learned to enjoy it, and was shocked at the ending, but I’ve watched a lot of Brit shows and am prepared for the lack of sugar-coating.)

This is not an unpleasant way to spend an hour (or at least 42-minutes and change), but it’s nothing at all like it could be, with a more capable lead, stronger writing, and the courage to go outside of Medium’s guidelines. If you enjoy Medium, I’m afraid you’ll find Ghost Whisperer to be little more than a…whisper…of its much stronger inspiration.