‘Code Black,’ DOA (that’s dull on arrival)
CBS hospital drama brings nothing new to this well-worn genre
September 30, 2015
As many of us learned in the famous “Grey’s Anatomy” episode that ran after the 2006 Super Bowl, “code black” means there is an unexploded bomb in the hospital.
Well, it turns out that medical dramas don’t always provide definitive information. According to the graphic that opens the premiere episode of CBS’s emergency-room show “Code Black,” the term means a situation in which an influx of patients is so great that the hospital can’t treat them all.
The next graphic says that the fictional Los Angeles hospital in the show is in code black 300 times per year. But since nearly every TV hospital seems to be overwhelmed at least once per episode, this isn’t enough to set “Code Black” apart.
The show isn’t a bomb — or a dud, for that matter — but even CBS’s franchise-happy viewers must occasionally want to see something new.
Sadly, “Code Black” doesn’t provide it.
In the premiere episode, airing tonight at 10, four new residents start work at Angels Memorial Hospital. The head nurse, Jesse Sallander (Luis Guzmán), explains that they’re in mama’s house and that he’s their mama and that “there’s nothing that goes on in this house your mama don’t know about.”
The head ER doctor is Dr. Leanne Rorish (Marcia Gay Harden), who is willing to take risks and break rules in order to save patients. Her second-in-command is Dr. Neal Hudson (Raza Jaffrey), who is less willing to take risks and break rules in order to save patients.
The four residents also come in contrasting pairs: Dr. Christa Lorenson (Bonnie Somerville) is older and motherly; Dr. Mario Savetti (Benjamin Hollingsworth) is young and brash.
Dr. Malaya Pineda (Melanie Chandra) is confident; Dr. Angus Leighton (Harry Ford) is diffident.
The stories tend to teach the lesson that these opposites could learn a thing or two from each other.
Like many drama premieres, this one revolves around back stories. Mario is trying to figure out why Christa started practicing medicine so late in life.
After Neal and Leanne clash over her risky treatment of a shooting victim, Neal goes to the director of the ER, Dr. Mark Taylor (Kevin Dunn, billed as a guest star and, presumably, soon to be written out of the show), and asks whether “the horrible thing” that happened to her is making her more reckless.
Mario and Christa disagree over how to treat a pregnant woman with flulike symptoms. When Leanne sides with Mario, Christa puts her own future in jeopardy.
We have been warned to expect too many patients, but there’s such a thing as overkill.
At one point, Neal and Leanne and their teams are working cheek-by-jowl on “center stage,” the area where the most critical patients are treated. Both of the doctors are simultaneously shouting instructions via speakerphone to one of the junior residents, who is performing another life-or-death surgery in the back of an ambulance.
Whatever code that is, we’ve all seen plenty of shows in which doctors perform miracles under pressure. Adding more pressure doesn’t make this show unique.
The actors are generally good, and the writer, Michael Seitzman, gives them juicy dialogue that they’re probably enjoying more than the audience is. When Dr. Taylor gets fed up with Neal and Leanne’s argument, he says, “Fun stuff, but I just got a text that 40 people checked in while we were having this little ménage, so if nobody’s taking their clothes off, I need you both back down on the floor, now.”
One thing that does set “Code Black” apart is its look.
The generally dim lighting — which one would think would be a nuisance in an emergency room — sometimes gives way to the sort of golden haze that in TV often suggests a flashback.
Maybe this is the producers’ way of admitting that, yes, you’ve seen all this before.
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