fan of Noah Wylie. So he was not the draw. But I thought he was very good in the role of Dr Robbie. I like the concept of a 15-episode season taking place over one 15-hour shift. It really had the feel of just how chaotic and stressful working in the ER really is. Not glamorized at all. It’s a drama that almost feels like a quasi-documentary. I particularly liked the scene on the roof of Dr Abbott, the night shift senior attending passing off to Dr Robbie starting his shift at 7am. I liked them being able to count on at least 3 patients arriving first thing in the morning from nursing homes after the nurse at the home does morning bed check. And that they forgot to send the DNR with one of those patients. So horribly realistic. This is an ER that has an 8% positive Press Ganey rating from patients in a hospital that has a 36% rating. Because who is going to say they had a good experience in that chaos — even if their life was saved.
I like that some of the patient cases will carry over into subsequent episodes (because they are still there!) instead of a case a week that gets resolved. It just seems to be addressing some of the very serious problems our healthcare system has and the special kind of people who choose to work there.
I’ve only watched the first episode so I don’t know the characters or most of their names yet. But I’m interested in getting to know them. I’m interested in finding out exactly what happened to Dr Robbie’s mentor and why he blames himself.
This is definitely not a feel good, happy endings show. But as a longtime healthcare reform activist, I like the realistic feel of this show.
We’ll see if I’m still liking after I watch a few more episodes.
