s a child, Tru Davies watched as her mother was murdered before her eyes. There wasn't anything she could do to help. Looking down at her mother's body during the funeral, Tru hears her mother's voice tell her it's OK.
Years later, Tru (Dushku) has just graduated from college and is headed toward an internship that will help her get into medical school. During one tough Monday, her internship is eliminated and she's left to take a job in the city morgue, her brother Harrison (Reaves) gets involved in a poker game that proves bad for his heath, and Tru discovers her sister Meredith (Collins) has fallen off the wagon and is taking drugs again.
As she begins her job during the graveyard shift at the morgue, she has to handle her first dead body. It's a pretty young woman who has been shot in the neck. Left alone for the night, Tru is doing fine until she hears something. When she goes to investigate, she realizes the sounds are coming from the crypt room, where the dead bodies are kept in individual drawers. Searching for the sound, Tru pulls open the door of one of the drawers to find the young woman who was brought in that night. Suddenly the woman opens her eyes, looks at Tru and says, "Help me!"
Tru wakes up in her bed. She quickly realizes that exactly the same sequence of events is happening that happened the day before. Only it's not the day before. She's reliving her tough Monday all over again, losing the internship and getting the job at the morgue. Tru decides she may be able to change things this time around and help the girl who was killed, as well as
her brother and sister. But as Tru soon discovers, trying to solve a mystery backward is dangerous, and it will take every ounce of will she has to stop the terrible things that are about to happen.
Strong characters—and lots of running
Eliza Dushku is one of those actors who stand out in everything they do. That's why she was such a strong presence as Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She provides an equally strong presence as Tru, a character who always seems to be running in this mostly humorless series premiere. While the episode lays out the foundation of the series fairly well—Tru hears a dead person cry for help and travels back a day to help her—there are some awkward moments.
The script, by Jon Harmon Feldman, does a nice job of winding issues from Tru's dysfunctional family around the soon-to-be murder mystery. Tru's leaps in judgment as to who will be the murderer and why ring true enough. However, she seems to track the murder victim-to-be down too easily, along with the people who might be responsible.
From Dushku's opening moments on screen, Tru is rushing ahead, pulling viewers along with her. The fast-paced storytelling hides some storytelling problems that hopefully will vanish as the series progresses. At points in the premiere, Tru seems like a ping-pong ball bouncing back and forth between all the characters. The second episode, "Putting Out Fires," is better, largely because the script can take the time to focus on the story and it doesn't have to lay out the premise and introduce all the characters. The focus stays on Tru and the person she's trying to save, while the family and friends pop up in a much more natural way.
As for the cast, Shawn Reaves and Jessica Collins, who play the brother and sister, are strong opposites to Dushku. While there's nothing remotely similar about these "siblings" from their looks to their personalities, they do come off as well-drawn characters. The other actor of note is Zach Galifianakis, who plays Davis, the kind of morgue attendant you might expect to find—well, in a morgue. His social misfit of a character provides the only real humor in the show, and it's welcome.
Opposite some tough, tough competition (Friends, Survivor) on Thursday nights,
Tru Calling has a challenge ahead. However, Dushku fans should jump on board, and it's possible Tru Calling could capture the kind of audience Charmed did when it was on Thursdays.
