HAWTHORNE: 1.01 “The Pilot”
So Hawthorne was not what I expected. To be clear, I’m going to stick it out for a while because I think it has promise, but it was not what I expected.
For example, the humorous quips I had mentioned were really non-existant. Maybe there were a couple at the end, but this show felt much more like ER than I had hoped. It seemed so…serious.
And it’s not that I expected it to be light. I mean, it’s a medical drama. Of course, it’s going to be heavy. But there was not really a break in the entire show from the heaviness of the plot. We had a baby and an angry homeless woman, a veteran almost killed by a nurse because of the doctor’s orders (that seemed a little pushed too far, by the way), and of course, Hawthorne’s friend jumping off a building.
I think part of the problem was trying to establish too much in the first episode. Hawthorne’s husband has died–partially because of her based on her daughter’s comment, meaning she probably couldn’t treat him–and his friend is so depressed on the anniversary (or maybe other things as well) that he tries to kill himself. That alone could be an entire episode.
Then you add in the homeless woman and the baby–both of who end up in the hospital by the end of the episode. Ok, that could be a decent side plot.
But then you add in the veteran? Not only is there a more-than-inappropriate nurse by his bedside, but we have someone overdosing him with insulin while just following the doctor’s orders. On top of that, the doctor is arguing back that she didn’t call that order–ok, this could be a multi-episode arc if it were really followed up with appropriately.
With all this drama (and you know TNT, they know their drama), how else can you fit in the lighter side? Even just a smile on someone’s face (even the chipper nurse is crying in the parking lot).
There’s just too much going on, and I think that’s all because it’s a pilot. It tried too hard to establish itself–including the very herioc-yet-failing attempt for Christina to get inside before her friend jumped. (Seriously, that guard was ridiculous.) And establish the characters. I think I’ve started counting on two hands if you consider we’ve met two doctors, Christina, a male nurse, three female nurses, and that’s not even including the other people in the background. Oh and the woman with the artificial leg–why was this introduced in the pilot?
I do think this show has potential, and I think if it takes a step back, it really could do well. In fact, it probably will. There’s a lot of acting wealth in Jada Pinkett Smith, and they clearly have interesting backgrounds on the characters already in the mix. But we need more gradually and less now.
I’m hoping this was just a case of overactive pilot. I guess we’ll see next week. It’s still worth taking a shot at, I think, so I would definitely choose to watch this over Mental, but it does need some work.
