A Medium to Channel the Dead

A memorable episode of “The X-Files” featured a serial killer who preyed upon psychics and fortunetellers. “You really should have seen this coming,” he says, almost apologetically, as he descends on one of his victims.

While psychics and spiritual mediums may provide a good laugh to skeptics, they are also big business, as the proliferation of late-night TV gurus such as Kenny Kingston and Miss Cleo demonstrates. Combine that with the box-office success of “The Sixth Sense,” and all of a sudden seeing dead people seems to be about fun and profit.

Enter John Edward, whose Sci Fi Channel series, “Crossing Over With John Edward,” will begin running on 180 local TV stations blanketing 98% of the U.S. beginning Aug. 27, mostly during the daytime so as not to conflict with the Sci Fi telecasts. (KCAL-TV in Los Angeles will carry the program locally from 4 to 5 p.m.)

Visiting a taping of Edward’s show in New York several months ago left two distinct impressions. The first was that he is simply a gifted performer, a carnival act who gradually pulls information out of his audience--”Someone close to you has passed .... I’m seeing a father figure .... There’s an ‘R’ or a ‘B’--Robert or Bob or Roger ... ‘--in the same way such an approach has been wowing the nave (and bilking them out of money) since long before the picture tube existed. On and on the questioning goes, often until the awestruck audience member is reduced to tears.

The second reaction, in multiple parts, was more troubling and complex. First, for the people who desperately want to believe that Edward can contact the dead, it is virtually impossible to convince them otherwise; and secondly, splashing entertaining poppycock across television--and thus potentially into 98% of U.S. homes--changes the dynamic of those old-style carnival hucksters, putting an imprimatur of legitimacy on such fare. “It must be real,” you can almost hear some people saying. “It’s on TV.”

Another observation, by now patently obvious, is just how desperate programmers have become to gain the attention of viewers--particularly in the cutthroat world of television syndication, where distributors peddle daytime, late-night, late-afternoon and early-evening shows market by market--to the point where they don’t particularly care if the padding between the commercials is true or not.

To Steve Rosenberg, president of distribution for Studios USA, which sold the show to TV stations, whether Edward is the real deal, the genuine article, is less significant than the fact that the show is something different--an “antidote,” as he puts it, to the sameness in the syndication market.

“It isn’t another court show,” Rosenberg noted, alluding to the glut of robed “Judge Judy” wannabes.

“What makes John work ... is the fact that, on an emotional level, [the show] connects in a visceral way. Whether you believe it or not, it’s just great, emotional television.”

Clearly, plenty of people do believe, and they flock to the tapings and fill Edward’s audience. The notion of an after-life--and better yet, being able to hear from lost loved ones--is so enticing, so reassuring, they eagerly help the 31-year-old Edward, a one-time dance instructor from Long Island, waltz through their family histories.

Of course, just how much help Edward gets in doing his TV two-step has been the subject of some debate. The show is edited, though the host and producers maintain that is done strictly in the interest of time, not to improve Edward’s “hit” ratio as he peppers audience members with questions about someone who has “passed” and is frequently met with a shrug or blank stare.

The producers were especially irked by a Time magazine article published in March, written by Leon Jaroff, which they said was riddled with inaccuracies and biased because Jaroff belongs to a skeptics organization. Among other things, they staunchly deny the story’s assertion that the production staff gleans information from the audience and conveys it to Edward or that the editing manipulates what has transpired in any way.

Jaroff, for his part, acknowledged his skepticism but also noted that he tends to vote for a certain political party and is still able to write honestly about politics. Having spent time in the past debunking psychics such as Uri Geller, he understands the powerful attraction such individuals hold for a segment of the public.

“There is a great desire on a part of the population to believe in this stuff,” Jaroff said. “The people who go to his shows all want to reach [dead relatives] .... They’re so anxious to do this, they just sort of lend themselves to his chicanery.”

While the producers and Edward himself (in an interview distributed by the show) say they welcome and encourage skepticism, on its face that sounds inane. Anyone who truly feels that this is all hokum--that Edward has an act, not a gift--would have little reason to tune in other than to bask in what they would no doubt perceive as the gullibility of those in the audience.

Yet given the hunger for answers and meaning--and the ubiquitous nature of those late-night psychics and tarot-card readers, suggesting someone must be calling--one suspects that “Crossing Over” just might work from a ratings standpoint. Television stations certainly thought so, snapping the series up so ravenously that other program distributors started faxing around copies of the Time article in an effort to slow down the train.

Those same rival companies, of course, will be the first to offer clones of “Crossing Over” if the program becomes a hit, which raises an interesting question: Just as “Judge Judy” gave rise to a tide of courtroom shenanigans, could Edward spawn a sea of TV key-benders, clairvoyants and intermediaries between here and the “other side”? As it is, “Entertainment Tonight” and Fox News Channel have already provided air time to psychics who say they’ve talked to missing intern Chandra Levy from beyond the grave, demonstrating just how loosely the term “news” is thrown around these days.

“Because, unfortunately, we’re in a business of lemmings, the natural progression of the [business] is to copy what’s working,” Studios USA’s Rosenberg said. “This particular show will be difficult to duplicate ... but there will be those that will try.”

In the interim, the distributor and Sci Fi are, not surprisingly, protective of their franchise, even asking TV stations not to accept ads for psychics, spiritual mediums and such to run during the program. “We don’t want to in any way, shape or form cheapen what John does,” Rosenberg said.

Cheapen what Edward does? Unlikely. Cheapen what’s on television, particularly in the daytime hours? Well, it may be too late for that, too.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.