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That David Arquette is a very busy man. He's an executive producer on the show Dirt with wife Courtney Cox, he stars in the ABC Comedy In Case Of Emergency, he makes small talk with Brangelina at the Golden Globes and now he's about to direct an episode of the NBC drama Medium, which stars his big sister, Patricia Arquette.
Patricia says she's exicted about David directing, but admits to being a little nervous: "I was always a bossy little girl and being David's older sister I've bossed him around quite a bit. Now that he'll be directing me it will be payback time," she said.
David's directorial debut, a feature film called Tripper, will be released this Spring.
Note from Beth: We have a special "guest star" for today's TV Cocktail! The creator of Medium, Glenn Godon Caron, is joining in on our fun by giving us a little run-down of what it took to put last night's third season premiere of Medium together -- that's him second from the right at the premiere party. Enjoy....
I’m often asked where the ideas for episodes of Medium come from.
While many episodes are derived from or suggested by experiences that the real Allison Dubois has had, a large number also spring purely from the imaginations of writers. This year’s season premiere, “Four Dreams” is an example of that. I had long harbored the idea of doing an episode that used classic animation as the visual grammar for Allison’s dreams. I mentioned this in one of our earliest writer’s meetings this season and Javier Grillo-Marxuach, an excellent writer who joined us this year from Lost, rather fearlessly went off after having only been with us several days and crafted a framework for a story.
At the exact same moment, Rene Echevarria who executive produces Medium with me, mentioned how surprised he was at the audience reaction to a museum screening of “Too Close To Call”, an episode he had written for Season 2. In it, an old girlfriend of Joe’s contacts him in hopes of winning a job and perhaps rekindling their old love affair. Rene was convinced that there was a great story if an old love of Allison’s -- perhaps a dead old love of Allison’s -- were to suddenly to appear on her doorstep.
One of the ideas I had been developing by myself was an episode built around multiple dreams, which we would use to explore some of our supporting characters like District Attorney Devalos and Detective Scanlon.
It was at around this time that Kevin Reilly from NBC contacted me to tell me that we would not be returning in September to our old familiar time slot and to ask if there was something special we could do, so that when we did return to the schedule it would be with a bang. It was in this meeting that the idea for a two hour premiere was born, marrying Javier’s cartoon script with my idea for multiple dreams and Rene’s conviction that there was a great story in the appearance of one of Allison’s past loves on her doorstep at the moment of his death.
I hope you enjoyed “Four Dreams”. I believe it is one of our most ambitious and emotional episodes to date.
Glenn Gordon Caron
Last night, I had the total Hollywood hook-up and went to the premiere party for the NBC show Medium starring Tinseltown’s most popular actress Patricia Arquette. Medium’s third season doesn’t premiere until November 15th, but Patricia personally asked for the party to be thrown and invited all her celeb friends including Jason Bateman, Jason Patric, Rebecca Romijn (sans fiancée Jerry O’Connell) and SNL alum Chris Kattan.
Sister-in-law Courteney Cox Arquette was also there and brought along her daughter Coco. Getting all these people to come out to support you is a rarity in Hollywood, usually you’re invited to a party, you agree to go but never have any intention of attending. Patricia must be very well liked because celebrities were roaming the party all night, even staying later than I did. I only had a few moments with Patricia, but I was so impressed by her. She loves the show, loves the cast and was just bursting with excitement about her big night at the ultra exclusive restaurant Grace in Hollywood.
The first guests to arrive on the red carpet were Jason Bateman and his very pregnant, very overdue wife Amanda Anka, who is a friend of Patricia’s. Speaking of Mrs. Bateman, she was due last week and Jason told me to be on high alert and start boiling the water because his daughter could arrive at any moment. He and his wife are adorable, I can only imagine what this child will look like. 
Patricia arrived and was accompanied by her new husband, actor Thomas Jane, who is very handsome if I may be so bold to say. They’re glowing newlyweds who got married this summer in Europe. Tres chic. Patricia’s new hubby is going to star in this season’s premiere episode. He’ll play an old lover of Patricia’s character, Allison, who dies but doesn’t realize he’s dead when he appears on Allison’s doorstep. Patricia told me that working with Thomas on this episode was really exciting because he’s a great actor, and “I sorta just had a big crush on him. I’d look at him and think: Oh, he’s cute.” (I’m looking at him right now and thinking the same thing. And he’s very well dressed, I must add)
Courteney Cox Arquette was also working the red carpet in support of her sister-in-law, Patricia. But half way down the press line she bounced, i.e. left the red carpet and headed into the party. Well, the reporter next to me was none too pleased, so she asked someone what the deal was and this PR person said that David Arquette, Courteney’s husband, had just arrived and Courteney had gone out to meet him. Turns out it was a big ole lie, David was a no show.
