Tru Calling
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| Tru Calling | |
|---|---|
| Format | Drama |
| Created by | Jon Harmon Feldman |
| Starring | Eliza Dushku Zach Galifianakis Shawn Reaves A.J. Cook Jessica Collins Benjamín Benítez Matthew Bomer Jason Priestley |
| Opening theme | "Somebody Help Me?" by Full Blown Rose |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 26 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | approx. 43 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | FOX |
| Original run | October 30, 2003 – April 21, 2005 |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Tru Calling is an American television program, filmed in Vancouver, Canada, which premiered on the Fox Network in October 2003. It ran for two seasons of 26 episodes in total, before being cancelled.
The show's cancellation was officially announced at a press conference in January 2005, but Gail Berman, then president of Fox, insisted the network intended to broadcast the remaining six episodes filmed for the show's second season. Season two of Tru Calling first aired in New Zealand on TV3 beginning February 4, 2005, with the final episode shown on March 11, 2005, in Croatia, the following March/April; and, after nearly a year-long hiatus, in the U.S. beginning March 31 2005. In the United Kingdom, the second season began October 12, 2006 on Sky.
The complete series also aired in Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Pakistan, India, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore, and Slovakia. DVDs of both seasons have been released in the United States and the United Kingdom. The final episode filmed was never originally broadcast in the U.S. until it was shown on the SCI FI Channel January 21st 2008 as a part of their Tru Calling Marathon.
Contents |
[edit] Premise
The lead character, Tru Davies, (Eliza Dushku), is a young woman working the night shift at the City Morgue. Occasionally, the corpse of a newly dead person appears to awaken and utter the words "Help me" to her. As they do, Tru wakens with a start, at the beginning of the same day, finding herself compelled to stop the death, which may be the result of anything from suicide to murder. In the course of the re-run day, Tru often takes the opportunity to rectify various personal situations involving family and friends.
Supporting characters in the series include: Harrison Davies (Shawn Reaves), Tru's irresponsible younger brother (who becomes a loyal asset to Tru by the end of the first season), and Davis (Zach Galifianakis), her friend, confidante, and supervisor at the Morgue. As the series progresses, it is revealed that, several years earlier, Davis had a fateful encounter with Tru's mother (who was, apparently, the last person to receive the "calling" before her daughter).
Supporting characters surviving only a portion of the series included: Meredith Davies (Jessica Collins), Tru's older sister; Lindsay Walker (A. J. Cook), her best friend in the first season; Luc Johnston (Matthew Bomer), her love interest in the first season, and Gardez (Benjamin Benitez), her former co-worker at the morgue.
Jack Harper (Jason Priestley), a counterpart to Tru's character, is introduced midseason as a foil. He is there to make sure fate gets its way, and introduces a philosophical aspect to Tru's endeavors: should she be saving the lives of people who may have been intended to die? In the second season, Tru and Jack compete to get to a person first — she to save them, and he to restore the order of fate, and maintain the balance of the universe as he understands it.
[edit] Episode list
[edit] Cancellation
On April 20, 2005, Fox announced that the sixth and final episode would not be aired, and that the series would end its run one week early with the episode they originally intended to show the following evening.
[edit] Comparisons
The series' use of time travel as a weekly device led some viewers to compare it to three other television series which fans feel were unfairly cancelled – Quantum Leap, Early Edition, and Sliders. Critics of the comparison note that while Tru Calling's "rewind" format is similar to the notions of time travel or parallel worlds, the series distanced itself from using the format to address philosophical or social issues, until near the end when it briefly touched broadly on the notion of fate.
On November 10, 2006 during a hiatus of Lost, ABC began airing another same day time repeating show Day Break where the protagonist, Detective Brett Hopper (Taye Diggs), is caught in a single day time loop in which he is framed for murdering Assistant District Attorney Alberto Garza. In each cycle he obtains clues as to who is responsible and why. Unlike Tru Callings mostly self-contained single story episodes, Day Break's first season, a 13 episode story arc, was scheduled to conclude at the end of January 2007. However, on December 15, 2006 due to falling ratings, ABC cancelled Day Break after airing only six episodes, but went on to air the final seven episodes online, with the last showing on March 2, 2007.
[edit] What might have been
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After the show's cancellation, writer/producer Doris Egan posted information on LiveJournal detailing how the mythology of the series would likely have been developed, had it continued.
Salient points include:
- There are two great Powers in the universe concerned with humanity's fate; one that laid out the original plan that history has been following since the beginning of time, and one that wants to change that plan (what ultimate goal either side is working toward remains unknown, possibly even to the show's creators). The first power is more strict and authoritarian in its view of humanity, whereas the second is "more accepting of individual freedom and choice."
- Whenever someone dies who may be important to the overall scheme of things (and, presumably, in a way that would serve the second power's purposes), an agent of that power approaches the person and offers them a choice- they can either move on, or return and have a shot at resuming their old life. If they want a second chance, all they have to do is ask for it. If they do, Tru goes back and relives the day, with a view to saving that person's life.
- Every time Tru saves someone who has asked for her help, she steers the destiny of our world a little further away from what the first power intended, and a little closer to what the agents of the second power want.
- Jack, Tru's nemesis, has a very big advantage over her — his mentor, her father (who was Jack's predecessor, just as Tru's mother was hers). Tru is working in the dark, learning as she goes along, but Jack has an older, more experienced counterpart who can share knowledge and wisdom from a long line of predecessors with his young protege. Tru, of course, was robbed of this potentially crucial advantage because of her mother's untimely death.
- Jack became Tru's counterpart after being approached by agents of the first power during his near-death experience. They offered him a choice: he could either die, or return to Earth to do their bidding. Once he got back, his memories of the encounter were hazy, and he didn't initially understand what was happening when his days started rewinding (at around the time that Tru's did). Jack eventually wound up in an asylum, which is where Tru's father found him.
- The central conflict of the show's mythology was never meant to be perceived as a simple, straightforward "good versus evil" scenario. Rather, the creators intended to portray the battle in such a way that either side could conceivably be right — and, at the very least, to show that the soldiers on both sides certainly believe that what they're doing is right. Jack and Tru's father truly believe that she is disrupting the balance of the universe by her actions. Tru, conversely, believes otherwise. Who would have turned out to be right? These are the questions the producers of the show meant us to ponder upon.
- A future storyline on the show would have dealt with the possible repercussions if Jack ever decided that he no longer wanted to fulfill his end of the bargain (i.e., to continue doing the first power's bidding).
- Another storyline (which was actually in progress when the show ended) would have dealt with the consequences of Tru's saving someone who hadn't asked for her help. Because that person was either never given the choice to come back, or was and chose not to take it, he would have essentially lost his soul after being saved by Tru, and would then have begun spiralling into increasingly menacing behavior as his humanity faded away and his personality began to disintegrate.
[edit] Cast
Main Characters
- Eliza Dushku (Tru Davies) (2003-2005)
- Zach Galifianakis (Davis) (2003-2005)
- Shawn Reaves (Harrison Davies) (2003-2005)
- Jason Priestley (Jack Harper) (2004-2005)
- A. J. Cook (Lindsay Walker) (2003-2004)
- Jessica Collins (Meredith Davies) (2003-2004)
- Benjamin Benitez (Gardez) (2003-2004)
- Matthew Bomer (Luc Johnston) (2003-2004, recurring previously)
Special Guest Stars
Season two featured some recurring "Special Guest Stars", notably:
- Cotter Smith (Richard Davies) (2004-2005)
- Liz Vassey (Dr. Carrie Allen) (2005)
- Eric Christian Olsen (Jensen Ritchie) (2005)
Guest Stars
Tru's two Medical School friends were also recurring characters in season two.
- Lizzy Caplan (Avery Bishop) (2005)
- Parry Shen (Tyler Li) (2005)
[edit] U.S. television ratings
Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Tru Calling on FOX. The Last episode was shown on SciFi.
Note: Each U.S. network television season begins in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.
| Season | Timeslot | U.S. Season Première | U.S. Season Finale | TV Season | Season Rank |
Viewers (in millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thursdays 8:00pm/7:00pm | October 30, 2003 | April 29, 2004 | 2003-2004 | #151[1] | 4.5[1] |
| 2* | Thursdays 9:00pm/8:00pm | March 31, 2005 | January 21, 2008 | 2004-2005, 2008 | 121[2] | 4.89[2] |
*Please note that the final episode of Tru Calling did not air in the United States until the SciFi Network aired it, and that the second season originally aired in New Zealand from February 4-March 11, 2005.
[edit] DVD releases
[edit] Region 1
| Tru Calling: The Complete First Season | ||||
| Set Details | Special Features | |||
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| Release Date | ||||
 United States |
November 30, 2004 | |||
| Tru Calling: The Complete Second Season | ||||
| Set Details | Special Features | |||
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| Release Date | ||||
| United States |
November 15, 2005 | |||
[edit] Region 2 & 4
| Tru Calling: The Complete Series | ||||
| Set Details | Special Features | |||
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| Release Date | ||||
 United Kingdom |
June 27, 2005 | |||
 Australia |
October 24, 2006 | |||
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- LiveJournal Tru Calling page Tru Calling staff writer Doris Egan reveals where the Season 2 story arc was to go.
- Relive A Day Foundation A virtual continuation of the series.
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