CBS is known for packing more than a few cop dramas into its overcrowded schedule, punctuated by the odd, and usually successful, reality series, one funny prime-time lineup and one not-so-funny one. And that format seems to work for the Eye, since it consistently wins the most household viewers.
Branching out hasn’t fared as well for the network. The mini-series format from Harper’s Island was an instant flop, Moonlight was over before anyone could sink their teeth into it, and nobody fell in love with The Ex List. In the end, cop dramas and Charlie Sheen are still No. 1.
So it’s eyebrow-raising that the Eye is trying a medical drama on for size, from a producer who was specifically looking for a medical drama — any medical drama it seems — and whose resumé includes the likes of Swingtown, Jericho and Judging Amy.
The result is Three Rivers, an organ-donor medical drama starring Moonlight’s Alex O’Loughlin, The L Word’s Katherine Moennig and St. Elsewhere’s Alfre Woodard.
“I had seen a documentary in doing research for the show I was trying to put together, and in it there was a transplant in the operation,” says creator and executive producer Carol Barbee. “It didn't occur to me to do a show about transplants, but I knew exactly what I would do.”
Each episode of the series, of which the pilot is currently being re-shot, will feature three different perspectives: the organ donor, the recipient and the doctors — hence the titular play on words in the title.
Hand-in-hand with the series is a campaign to raise awareness of the actual need for organ donors in America. Barbee and the cast are working with Donate Life to raise awareness and dispel common myths about the process, including the fact that only one religion, Shinto, does not support or allow organ donation.
“There's no [other] religion that actually has a policy that says don't do this," says Barbee. "Even Orthodox Judaism, at the highest level, there is the thing about not desecrating the body, but at the highest level, it says that the thing that supersedes all things is that if you can save a life, you can save a life."
If only someone could save this train wreck of a show.
Three Rivers begins Sunday, Oct. 4, 9 p.m. ET, CBS.
Amber is currently reporting live from the TV Critics Press Tour in L.A. Check out complete coverage here. amber@tvguide.ca
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