If you watched any of the NBA Finals, you couldn’t miss the cool promos for the new ABC series premiering at 10 tonight, “Combat Hospital.”I was rooting for it as much as many NBA fans were rooting for LeBron James to fail before his Miami Heat fell to the Dallas Mavericks in six games.
And I can report this Canadian-produced series set in 2006 is passable for original summer entertainment as an alternative to all the reality shows that network TV usually airs in the summer.
Take tonight. “Combat” is the only new scripted show on as NBC airs reality shows “America’s Got Talent” and “The Voice,”; ABC airs “Wipeout” and “101 Ways to Leave a Game Show” before “Combat”; Fox airs “MasterChef” and repeats of “Raising Hope”; and CBS airs repeats of its popular Tuesday drama night, including “The Good Wife” opposite “Combat.”
Admittedly, the bar isn’t too high when it comes to summer scripted series. Another mediocre Canadian series focusing on a pretty female cop, “Rookie Blue,” became a 2010 summer hit for ABC and returns with original episodes for a second season in a few nights.
Set in a military hospital in Afghanistan and shot on an 185,000 foot, indoor-outdoor set in Toronto, “Combat” follows the “Rookie Blue” formula by focusing on a pretty female surgeon, Dr. Rebecca Gordon, played by Michelle Borth (“Hawaii 5-O”, see above).
Rebecca is a talented and supremely confident Canadian doctor who has a messy personal life. She just broke up with her fiancé and fears that she may be pregnant, which would end her tour of duty.
She arrives at the Kandahar hospital at the same time as an Asian doctor, Bobby Tran (Terry Chen), who has an early crisis of confidence as a team trauma leader.
The hospital leader, Col. Marks (Elias Koteas), is a 25-year, gun-toting veteran who values teamwork as much as the Dallas Mavericks. Koteas is a strong actor who delivers one of the highlights in the premiere – a speech to Rebecca about teamwork after she saves a life by taking charge of a patient prematurely.
The cast also includes Deborah Kara Unger as an Australian psychiatrist and Luke Maby as a cocky British neurosurgeon who thinks that Rebecca is as hot as Afghanistan.
All the characters are quickly established in tonight’s episode. Too quickly in the case of Dr. Tran, who goes from insecure to confident as quickly as you can write ABC.
The hour flies by pretty quickly, with a decent mix of predictable drama, warmth and humor. When I say humor, I’m not talking “M*A*S*H” here. The humor primarily concerns watching doctors having to mop floors and shoot snakes in the operating room.
“Combat” isn’t overloaded with suspense and doesn’t take a political stand on war or its costs. The script is as obvious as Dr. Gordon is when she asks a female colleague how to get a pregnancy test for a “friend.” The script also telegraphs who is going to live and who is going to die.
I suppose there is some suspense in whether Dr. Gordon “passes” the test, but I was more concerned about whether Dr. Marks was ever going to say the promo line “welcome to Kandahar.”
He eventually does – it is the hour’s final line.
It is doubtful that “Combat Hospital” will mop the floor with the ratings. But like “Rookie Blue,” it shows that when it comes to scripted shows graded on a summer curve, Canada’s Got Talent.
Alan Pergament was the television critic for The Buffalo News for 28 years. He currently is an adjunct professor at Buffalo State College and Medaille College, teaching courses in communications. He also writes a monthly column on the media for Buffalo Spree magazine.
Hey Alan,
Speaking of summer shows from Canada what the heck is going on with Flashpoint? Last weeks show was a cliffhanger. Now they are going into reruns. The cable guide says that the last few weeks have been reruns, but I don’t remember seeing any of these shows before.
What is CBS/CTV and I guess now ION doing? It is so confusing? Any answers? JOE