When the new shows were announced last May, one show stood out from the rest for me: Trauma. This says something as I stay away from medical shows due to my dislike of the sight of blood. But the show came from Peter Berg, the guy who gave us the second greatest television show of the 00’s, Friday Night Lights. Berg even pulled Herc from his wheelchair for the new show as one of the paramedics on the show. A finger-less Buddy Garrity even makes an appearance in the premiere.
Trauma also produced the best promo of the season with its mid-air helicopter collision that was even more jaw-droppingly looking in its entirety. That accident sets up the rest of the show as the plot then goes forward a year and everyone still seems shaken up. Anastasia Griffith (Damages
) lost her partner / lover and naturally she is struggling with the fact she was supposed to be on the chopper that crashed. She was kept off from the flight by Cliff Curtis (10,000 B.C.
) who may or may not also had a relationship with Griffith and somehow survived the crash when he was thrown from the cockpit onto a rooftop.After some time in a coma Curtis return to the job just son happens to be the one year anniversary. His first day back is also the first day coincides with the first day on the job Aimee Garcia (George Lopez
) who had been flying in Iraq because what show these days wouldn’t be complete without a war veteran in its cast? Filling out the cast are Derek Luke (Notorious
) as Herc’s partner who can’t get over that day a year ago and Jamey Sheridan (Chicago Hope) who seems to be in charge of the paramedics. While Griffith’s new partner may or masy not be the long lost Jonas Brother.Verdict: The crashes were visually stunning but one has to wonder how a show could keep that up in this economy. And aside from a few scenes like the Garrity car crash, the show wouldn’t have been that special without those crashes. But then again, if you check out my First Impressions of Friday Night Lights, I was not keen on the first episode and just look how that show turned out. And since they have graduated and Berg is fond of nepotism, I would not mind seeing, Smash Williams, Jason Street, Lyla Garrity and / or Tyra Collette make an appearance on Trauma.
Trauma airs Mondays at 9:00 on NBC. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Trauma on iTunes (as I write this, you can download the Pilot for free).
This debut was a lot of boom, bang, crash and very little else IMHO. I hope its a case of trying too hard to impress with the first episode and it calms down and gets more into the characters and maybe even some storytelling but I'm not hopeful. Disappointing debut for me.
ReplyDeleteI can't say I was disappointed, it was basically what I expected. But I agree they need to get more into the characters more and since I doubt they will have a budget to continue all the boom, bang, crash the premiere did, hopefully some more storytelling will get done in future episodes.
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