LOS ANGELES--Some shows, like some patients, simply can’t be saved. Not that CBS isn’t in there pitching.
Retooling a terrible first-attempt pilot, the network has given its transplant-doctor drama, “Three Rivers,” a signature CBS set--a sprawling, elaborately lit, airy affair filled to the brim with high-tech toys.
The costumes, which drew howls of laughter in the first version, have been changed, and the cast has received a beautification makeover.
CBS even added a terrific actress to the mix: Alfre Woodard, as the head of surgery.
All for naught.
The show may be easier on the eyes, but it’s still terribly hard on the ears.
It’s possible that the concept itself, with its trifurcated focus on organ recipients, their donors and the staff at a Pittsburgh transplant center, is too constricting for a weekly drama.
Each outing, someone must die so someone else might, possibly, live, which already limits your chances for happy endings, and, already, after just one exposition-heavy hour, the details--the countdown to retrieval, the battle to persuade the donor family--feel stultifyingly predictable.
To be fair, it’s hard to judge a concept when it’s this poorly executed, starting with a bloodless star turn from Alex O’Loughlin.
He’s not bad, but he’s so bland, no one who missed him in “Moonlight’s” black coat and vampire fangs could possibly understand what CBS sees in him. Perhaps he hasn’t found the character yet, but if that’s the case, he’d better speed up the hunt.
But, then, that’s the problem with “Three Rivers:” It feels both ordinary and pokey, as if the plot points were being spelled out for slow TV learners.
The newbie transplant co-coordinator (Christopher Hanke) berates a potential donor’s daughter just so the hotshot surgeon (Daniel Henney) can explain why he’s out of line. The rebel surgical fellow (Katherine Moennig) argues with a patient’s father just so Miss Woodard’s head of surgery can let us in on the fellow’s own father issues.
That scene and what follows, by the way, are as good a sign as any that you’ve stumbled into a terminally dull show.
The surgical fellow takes her boss’s words to heart and apologizes to the dad, who took the fellow’s words to heart and apologizes back--the kind of facile, instantly reasonable resolution that is the hallmark of dramatic mediocrities.
“Three Rivers” tries to work around the failings of its script through quick cuts and colored gels, but they’re a vain attempt to build excitement where none exists.
Pittsburgh looks pretty, but the show it’s hosting appears dead on arrival, and none of CBS’ extreme measures is likely to change that fate.
Sometimes, it really is kinder just to pull the plug.
