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Nov. 2nd, 2000 09:26 pmThe TV season has just started, but I think I already have a new favorite show: Gideon's Crossing (Wed 10PM EST, ABC -- how's that for a plug). I'm already a sucker for medical/hospital shows because of my background, but this one might even beat ER.
Part of it is Andre Braugher. I never got into Homicide, though I attempted it a few times (the TV show, that is ;) Part of this show's appeal is the medical scenarios, which tend to meld from one potential condition to another without it being obvious from the start that the poor doc is mis-diagnosing (like ER has been lately).
It's the guest spots that really get me into this show: A super-rich businessman, with semi-estranged wife and children, trying to buy his way out of his illness. A patient with reoccuring cancer who believes her New Age guru has a better chance of healing her than traditional medicine. A politician with prostate cancer who is cheating on his wife, trying to make up his mind whether or not to run for office (not that this would ever happen in real life....outside of NYC anyway). Each character, on the surface, is a cliche -- done on a hundred lesser shows, a hundred times in a hundred different surface treatments. In other shows, these characters are walking, talking, cardboard shadows of people, used for comic relief or as a neon-bright throwaway for the moral of the story to point to. Not on this show; each of these characters, with various levels of instinctive dislike, are molded by the writers into people of complexity. This isn't just a half-hearted attempt to turn an idiot or a jerk into a sympathetic character, but a real fleshing out of emotions and driving forces behind behavior. They don't make the right decisions every time, but they don't make the wrong ones every time, either. There is subtle moralization (maybe less subtle with Braugher's class lectures), but there is also a lot of objectivity -- displaying a character as he/she is, with all the flaws and all the dignity of someone making a life-changing (and sometimes life-ending) decision.
This is a show that assumes the audience has some intelligence, and it lets us judge characters with our own sense of ethics and morality. It doesn't always succeed, but it's the best I've seen this season.
Part of it is Andre Braugher. I never got into Homicide, though I attempted it a few times (the TV show, that is ;) Part of this show's appeal is the medical scenarios, which tend to meld from one potential condition to another without it being obvious from the start that the poor doc is mis-diagnosing (like ER has been lately).
It's the guest spots that really get me into this show: A super-rich businessman, with semi-estranged wife and children, trying to buy his way out of his illness. A patient with reoccuring cancer who believes her New Age guru has a better chance of healing her than traditional medicine. A politician with prostate cancer who is cheating on his wife, trying to make up his mind whether or not to run for office (not that this would ever happen in real life....outside of NYC anyway). Each character, on the surface, is a cliche -- done on a hundred lesser shows, a hundred times in a hundred different surface treatments. In other shows, these characters are walking, talking, cardboard shadows of people, used for comic relief or as a neon-bright throwaway for the moral of the story to point to. Not on this show; each of these characters, with various levels of instinctive dislike, are molded by the writers into people of complexity. This isn't just a half-hearted attempt to turn an idiot or a jerk into a sympathetic character, but a real fleshing out of emotions and driving forces behind behavior. They don't make the right decisions every time, but they don't make the wrong ones every time, either. There is subtle moralization (maybe less subtle with Braugher's class lectures), but there is also a lot of objectivity -- displaying a character as he/she is, with all the flaws and all the dignity of someone making a life-changing (and sometimes life-ending) decision.
This is a show that assumes the audience has some intelligence, and it lets us judge characters with our own sense of ethics and morality. It doesn't always succeed, but it's the best I've seen this season.
