Monica the Medium is an American reality television series about Monica Ten-Kate, a student at Pennsylvania State University who claims to be able to communicate with the dead. The show premiered August 25, 2015 on ABC Family. On October 26, 2015 the show got picked up for a second season which premiered on April 25, 2016. It is the opinion of scientific skeptics that mediumship is a confidence trick, and that what is portrayed in this TV show is no exception. After initially publicizing the local show, Onward State published an article, "Psychic Mediums Like Monica Ten-Kate Are Lying Frauds: A Retraction", which provided a detailed critique of the show. Also, Bad Psychics panned the show, stating that "everything about act screams fake", and recommending that people "avoid this pap."
Critical reception
On April 7, 2015, Onward State published a short article "Penn State Medium To Star In ABC Family Reality Show" which promoted the show notifying its readers that "the television series will take place right here in State College." It then described the show saying "The unscripted reality series will follow Ten-Kate as she carries out her daily life as a communications major while juggling her side job as a spirit medium, someone who is able to communicate with those 'who have crossed over.'" Just a day later, Onward State printed an apology for their first article. It was titled "Psychic Mediums Like Monica Ten-Kate Are Lying Frauds: A Retraction" and said: The article also stated that: On August 27, 2015, the website Bad Psychics, which is devoted to "Exposing Fake Psychics, Mediums and the Paranormal" reviewed the series. It stated that "Despite this being a reality show, it is very clear that she is using various known techniques when giving her readings, reminds me of John Edward and his shotgun techniques... I am curious as to who trained Monica, as everything about her act screams fake, from her verbiage, to her body language and so on, it seems very trained and not at all natural or self delusional. She is very definitely using cold reading. ABC Family who have commissioned this pile of crap need to take responsibility for giving Monica a platform to build her career. Surely the execs at ABC realize that Monica is not the real deal, the fact she asks so many questions, and controls the readings, not to mention they are editing out all the misses, and keeping all the hits." In March 2018, skeptical activistSusan Gerbic published an article in Skeptical Inquirer summarizing a number of techniques which she says are used by psychics, such as Ten-Kate, to achieve their effects. In a 2019 segment of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver criticized the media for producing shows such as this, because they convince viewers that psychic powers are real, and so enable neighborhood psychics to prey on grieving families. Oliver said "...when psychic abilities are presented as authentic, it emboldens a vast underworld of unscrupulous vultures, more than happy to make money by offering an open line to the afterlife, as well as many other bullshit services."
