I had no desire to watch the second episodes of Mercy, Trauma, or Three Rivers, but Miami Medical will have me back again. This may be because I am quite a fan of Jeremy Northam from his days in Emma and in An Ideal Husband, but one actor would not get me back if I found no value in the show.
The opening scene was done very well. A couple, the wife pregnant, pulled over to get an ice cream cone. The women undid her seat belt, about to get out of the car, but short conversation with her husband kept both in the car until an explosion in the shop they were about to head into pushed the car back into the street, and an oncoming vehicles slammed into them, sending the wife hurdling from the car. The moment I saw her remove her seat belt, I knew that her injuries would be severe, but the removal itself made complete sense and was very natural.
Her husband's injuries seemed relatively mild, but the camera highlighted him removing a piece of glass from his neck. When, shortly afterwards, a nurse asked if his neck had been looked at, and he said it had, I knew that his serious injury would be the neck wound. There was little chance in the pilot episode for a pregnant mother to die, or lose her child, but killing off the husband was a very real possibility, and as soon as his wife was out of the clear, it was expected for him to go down.
Yes, cliche and predictable, but that's actually what one wants out of these kinds of shows. Not too many surprises. I was glad, also, that the writers chose to save the husband.
As for the characters, our introduction to the team showed us just how comfortable they were with extreme trauma. Dr. Raynard (Andre Braugher) was a good leader, but he lost it. After saving a man's life, the blood was just too much, and he left the OR, stripping down to nothing. Despite this, his team kept going, pushing forward, and figuring out the new power dynamic. As expected, a new guy, just transferred in and planning to start in a week, was on hand to help out. Dr. Proctor (Northam) proved himself very capable in a very short period of time.
The team's relationship with Raynard was one of colleague to colleague; he was their boss and a respected surgeon, but the depths of friendship did not bind him to the team. They can go on without him, in a way they have already shown they could not go on without each other. They rely on each other's ability to stay above the horror to stay there themselves.
The most unique part of the pilot, for me, was the death scene. Instead of having someone die on the table, unable to be saved by our heroes, the victim had been killed at the scene of the explosion, and though he survived several hours more and was transported to the hospital, nothing could be done to save him. He was going to die, and they did not even try to save him because they knew that they could not. The challenge then became simply completing his last wish, allowing him the chance to say goodbye to his fiancee. I thought this was perfect because we were confronted with mortality, and the inability for doctors to save everybody, but we were not confronted on the first day with someone dying on the table because a doctor made a mistake or did not move fast enough.
I plan on watching Miami Medical again. Do you?
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