The Listener - hellhörig

So far I have only seen 3-4 episodes but it is different from many main stream shows and seems to have good characterizations and decent writing. The acting is fine and the people seem real, not too pretty, slick or glib. I prefer seeing people who look real and not like models; it is much more believable when there are wrinkles, flaws and wear and tear on the faces. Canadian and British casting seems to be very good for that. The world and time worn Gordon Pinsent is on one episode, he is an underrated and not well enough known actor who adds so much to everything he does. Doubtless his choice to stay in Canada was to his careers' detriment. I hope I am wrong but it looks like this show was not renewed, typical for many very good shows here in Canada, unfortunately. We suffer from a national inferiority complex which means until things are recognized outside our borders we don't really feel like it is "good enough" to merit our support. If the show was renewed I would love to know.

There's Medium, Ghost Whisperer, The Mentalist, Psych ... and now this. It's pretty cool that the creators were able to find an untapped niche in this crowded space.

The lead character, a paramedic, either voluntarily "reads" thoughts of others or involuntarily "receives" strong thoughts/emotions. His limitation is that he can only do it when in their presence and only gets what's currently in their mind.

On the plus side, the tone is serious, the acting is good and the stories are mostly interesting. On the negative side, the female police detective is entirely uncredible and a bit of pain to watch. Her character is written to present resistance to the psychic (she doesn't want his help), but the situation is ridiculous (even given a later disclosure of why). She knows what he can do and he regularly presents her with relevant, critical information ... but she still doesn't want his help. It's a poorly conceived attempt at creating tension and challenge.

Even so, the show is worth watching. Like Medium, getting bits of information and then figuring out how to extract the bigger story is an interesting thing to watch. While the writing isn't quite as good as Medium, it's still pretty good.

I have only seen four episodes so far but I plan on watching the rest of the season. I think this has the potential to be even better if given the opportunity. There is no limit to where the storyline can go.

As the episodes progress I have seen more character development. It takes time to build on a new character's background. What's the fun in knowing everything about them in the first episode? There is also the possibility of a villain surfacing sometime in the future.

It is refreshing to watch something other than crime, courtroom, and hospital dramas. I would like to see some people being saved for a change.

I've seen some reviews on this series and kinda noticed most of the bad ones seem to come from North American reviewers and most of the good ones come from the rest of the world... So I thought "what the hell? why not drop half a rainy day on this?".

Like any drama, it takes time to build up enough background to work with (for example Dollhouse). All the actors do an excellent job (esp. Craig Olejnik) and the writing improves as the show goes on. The first and second episodes were OK but the third got me wanting more. I don't know about everyone else but I know I certainly enjoyed it and I hope there will be more in the future.

This is a brilliant series and it's a shame that it ended as it did. They could have done so much more with it.