Tyler Henry: Paranormal Bore

Just as Tyler Henry (supposedly the most famous medium in the world) claims that he knows nothing about the people he is about to consult or do what he calls a “reading”, I didn’t know anything about him either. I had heard his name, but I had never seen him in action, talking to the dead or whatever he does, until I watched a couple of episodes of his new show on Netflix: Live From the Other Side, which premiered on September 17 and every Tuesday it is streams live at 3 p.m. PST / 6 p.m. EST, until the supposed grand finale this Tuesday night, Election Eve in the United States.

In this new show, a celebrity attends in the company of family and/or friends to receive messages from the beyond. And I assure you something: I sat with an open mind hoping that this 28-year-old guy was some kind of savant. I really wanted him to be a real medium who communicates with the dead and that the more than 600,000 people who, according to Henry’s website, are on the waiting list for a reading, are not wasting their time facing a fiasco.

The first impression I had of Henry was: Man, this guy looks like a 28 years old, gay, healthy and successful Macaulay Culkin ..

And here began what I hoped would be a true journey beyond death. In the first episode, the celebrity guest was actress Chrishell Stause, who was accompanied by her sister and some friends; in the second, the Broadway actor and singer Billy Porter, also accompanied by his sister and friends.

The first thing anyone can notice (seriously, anyone) is that the people sitting across from Henry need to believe that Tyler Henry has superpowers and will help them connect with their dead relatives. You can see the fervor in their eyes, the anxiety, an enormous expectation and the feeling of wanting to have definitive closure with their loved ones who are no longer with us. But what does this mean? It means Tyler Henry already has half of the problem solved: he has these people in his pocket. Now he has to deal with the other half, and not necessarily the most difficult one: talking to the dead.

Just tell me what the ghosts are saying!

Then the show starts, and don’t ask me what Tyler’s mom is supposed to be doing sitting there, near all of them. That seemed weird to me, to say the least.

Tyler asks them to give him objects that they have brought and that have links to their dead relatives and then… (fanfare) the most famous medium in the world begins to scratch with a pencil in a notebook. That, apparently, helps him connect with the afterlife. And the next thing he does is…laugh. For some strange reason everything is a laugh, almost a celebration for Henry; he is having a funny, great time. It’s as if the ghosts were part of a stand-up group from heaven (or hell) and had a perpetual routine that only he can hear.

But, to my surprise, Tyler Henry doesn’t start out saying or conveying what the ghosts tell him. What Tyler Henry does is… ask things, information, to his guests. And this was what made me doubt and follow in detail his way of approaching the whole situation.

Something must be said, after so many years of experience and even though he is only 28 years old, Tyler Henry is an excellent showman and great speaker who never stops talking; he actually knows how to read people. Although the only star is him and not the supposed messages from the dead.

And it doesn’t make sense (or it does make sense at all) for Henry to start asking things like: Did any of you know someone who died perhaps younger than the time he was supposed to have died? Or does a name that starts with the letter D sound familiar?

Here I got up from the chair. No, no, no, no, Tyler Henry. You don’t have to ask them anything. As a medium, YOU are supposed to tell them what their dead family or friends want to communicate. But Tyler uses each person’s responses, and begins to make associations, normal patterns. In these two episodes he asked practically the same questions to his guests, with almost the same conclusions. Always in the midst of smiles (on his side) and tears on the side of his guests, who have heard what they wanted/needed to hear: that their loved ones are in a beautiful place, that they are taking care of them from beyond, that everything will be fine.

No! I want Voldemort, Gandalf, Merlin or the boy from The Sixth Sense, he DID see dead people and didn’t walk around smiling everywhere.

In the end it is Tyler himself who ends up giving comfort and hope to his guests. But perhaps my biggest doubt is: Are we all good people? All celebrities are wonderful and the spirits have nothing to reproach or complain to them? Not even something like, “Look, idiot, give your sister back the ten dollars you stole from her allowance when she was 13?” Not even something like that? Come one Tyler, give me something juicy… or at least creepy (other than your mama sitting like a guest of honor).