Gather round ‘ye psychic binches and mediums from the other side, it’s time we spoke about The One: The Search for Australia’s Most Gifted Psychic. My third eye and my sixth sense are telling me we should bring it back to our screens, because television hasn’t been the same since.
Please, friend, cast your spirit guide back to 2008 and 2009, the only years in Australian history to be blessed with a season of The One: a high-camp low-stakes competition show in which psychics compete to prove who amongst them has the greatest abilities.
Every week the silly little psychics would be sent off on silly little tasks (like finding a missing child in the forest in under 15 minutes), and it was your job to simply watch in awe as they complete these random feats using otherworldly abilities.
Think of how much coke they did in the Seven storyboard room when they thought of this one.
The thing is though, I fkn loved it. I ate up every second of this whimsical-ass show. It was high camp and nobody can change my mind.
You see, guiding The One were two hosts: one who was a psychic sceptic (representing a mindset similar to the audiences) and the other who absolutely believed that folks amongst us can communicate with the beyond.
The back and forth between them as they witnessed the psychics doing their wild missions was truly delectable.
Sometimes the contestants truly do manage the impossible using nothing but their “gift”, while other times their “gift” fails them. There’s nothing more fun than watching a middle-aged Aussie mum trawling through the woods and complaining that her psychic abilities just aren’t working like some kind of phone that won’t connect to the internet.
Does this not sound like the pinnacle of entertainment to you?
Sure it was a fanciful two-year flirt with forces beyond our understanding (camp) which fit right in in the late 2000s, but I want it back.
Think of all the wild shit we can make the psychics do with that 2022 money and all the drama that will come from the vastly different personalities clashing.
Stick them in a house and call it the Mind Manor or some shit. I’ll put money through a paywall if I have to.
And the psychics on The One don’t even have to be real psychics. Hell, they probably weren’t the first time considering one of this years MAFS contestants was once on the show.
Here’s the only remnant of The One that I could find on the internet. We could have a much better-looking version of this show if we wanted.
Seven, you know what to do.
Just let me in on the first round of auditions, mates. I reckon I can smoke all these binches with my “gift”.
