PSYCHIC HOTLINE : ‘MEDIUM’ BAILS OUT TROUBLED NBC

By PAIGE ALBINIAK - New York Post

November 19, 2006 -- IT doesn’t take a psychic to know that NBC needs all the help it can get. With only one hit - “Heroes”-among its new crop of shows, the network pulled the Emmy-winning drama “Medium” out of cold storage.

“Originally we were on the schedule at Mondays at 10, but I sensed that they needed to protect ‘Studio 60’,” says Glenn Gordon Caron, the show’s creator and executive producer. [NBC Universal Entertainment President] Kevin [Reilly] said, ‘I have a surfeit of stuff I’m excited about. So we’re going to take ‘Medium’ off in September and have it as a secret weapon in case something else didn’t work out.”

Fast forward to November: NBC is grateful to have “Medium” on the bench. The struggling network has already pulled “Kidnapped” and “Twenty Good Years.” “30 Rock” is on shaky ground and “Studio 60” will probably be shuffled to a new night, having lost the battle against “CSI: Miami.”

“Medium,” in its new Wednesday time slot, attempts to break new ground this season. In this week’s episode, titled “Be Kind, Rewind,” Allison (Patricia Arquette) keeps reliving a difficult day in her dreams, gathering clues she needs to resolve an impending hostage situation.

“[Writer] Ken Scheffler became intrigued with the possibility of living a day over and over,” says Caron. “A lot of the things we do come from finding an intriguing premise.”

Ironically, “Medium’”s take on the Bill Murray classic “Groundhog Day” comes only one week after the premiere of ABC’s “Day Break,” which stars Taye Diggs as an L.A. cop who has to keep reliving the same nightmarish day until he can solve the mystery behind it.

That two TV shows are working with the same concept is not uncommon in primetime, and “Medium” shot its version of the idea this summer.”

Even in its short time away from the airwaves has brought pressure to the show’s top brass to keep the story lines as contemporary as possible. “Writing 22 scary stories each year is the hardest part about producing ‘Medium,’ says Caron. “I always say we are doing ghost stories for adults at 10 p.m. We feel an obligation to deliver an interesting, scary, spooky story that has a twist that you don’t see coming.”

MEDIUM, Wednesday, 10 p.m., NBC