While New Zealanders will be subjected the first episode of season 3 of Sensing Murder, our skeptical friends across the Tasman Sea will be waiting with baited breath for tomorrows premiere of The One: Search for Australia’s Most Gifted Psychic.
On the face of it the format appears loosely similar to Uri Gellers Israeli show The Successor, which spawned an American version called Phenomenon where an heir was sought for Geller’s throne of woo. An important difference in the American version was that only one of the ten contestants actually claimed psychic abilities (namely Jim Callahan) , the remainder were mentalists.
What will make the show interesting will be the presence the well known Australian skeptic Richard Saunders as one of the two members of the expert panel. The other person is a witch by the name of Stacey Demarco. Skeptics all too often in the media are only provided with a short sound bite at the end of a feature or documentary, or if they feature prominently, it is not uncommon to cast them in a negative light. Hopefully this will not be the case with this show.
Christiaan
Evidence Based Thought
Ian
Grae O'S
Martin
Evidence Based Thought 
I have advertised this show on the Sensing Murder NZ site. The only reason is because Richard Saunders (A most respected Australian Sceptic) is the shows Sceptic.
Will be updating this blog after tomorrows show.
Will make comment tonight after work.
Well, saw the show last night and was underwhelmed.
The show is in 2 parts.
Firstly there are 7 Psychics.
First off they are to find a boy secreted in the bush and they have 15 minutes to do it in. The search is done one at a time. They are in an area that has 2 tracks that join each other. I am unsure of the size but it does not look very large. The area has a boundary and if you go beyond the boundary you are told you are out of bounds, so you search elsewhere.
Well 2 psychics found him and all of the others except for 1 was very close. So on face value it was a little impressive, but there should have been controls in place such as non psychics searching as well etc, etc.
The second part was psychic readings and Reiki carry on which I was not overly impressed with. There was a lot of editing because the sceptic Richard Saunders said in the JREF forum that the length of time in the studio to the time shown on TV was an immense difference.
I am only watching this because Richard is the sceptic.
Overall as an entertainment out of 10 about a 3.
Thanks for the update Bruce. For those people who are interested they can read Richard Saunders and other skeptics comments on the JREF Forum.
I have a question, related to TV psychics and Sensing Murder. Apparently the lead character in Medium, Allison DuBois, has a real-life counterpart. Is this real DuBois credited with solving or helping to solve murders in Arizona, or finding bodies, as she does on the show? Have the police in Arizona ever admitted to having had her on the pay roll? I’ve googled and can’t get answers.
You never will get a straight answer.
I am extremely sceptical.
Anonymous, have a read of this article published by the Phoenix New Times News. I think you will find that the show is very much of a fictionalized account of Allison DuBois’s life. The real life Allison DuBois’s ‘assistance’ with solving murders does not appear to have held up to scrutiny.
Two episodes down and the show is a sham. There’s very little skepticism allowed and Richard is disrespected for daring not to believe. Once the editors have had their way, it appears Saunders is the only skeptic in the building.
A few blogs, including my own and podblack.com have given detailed, and perhaps entertaining, breakdowns of the show so far.
As for Allison DuBois, there is a wikipedia page that outlines some of the criticism against her claims.
Well the series is over, and what a hopeless piece of entertainment it was. The Australian psychics were pretty dreadful. I have made comment on this on the sensing murder website forum so will not repeat myself. URLs for the thread on “The One”. http://www.sensingmurder.co.nz/regfrm/viewtopic.php?t=814&start=200
Also I started a thread comparing Aussie and N.Z. Psychics here
http://www.sensingmurder.co.nz/regfrm/viewtopic.php?t=964