The new television season has been starting in dribs and drabs. I've been enjoying returning favorites like The Good Wife, Revenge, Once Upon a Time, and Modern Family. And as a former NBC employee, I'm getting a wicked kick out of 30 Rock's final season, in which Jack Donaghy and Liz Lemon are conspiring to tank the network.
As for new shows: So far, I love The Mindy Project and Nashville. And tonight debuts another new series that I'll be making time to watch: Emily Owens, MD.
The pilot follows Emily, a young doctor on her first day as a surgical intern as she meets the other attractive, multi-racial young doctors on her team. That description makes it sound a lot like Grey's Anatomy, doesn't it? The similarities don't stop there: the show relies heavily on voiceovers, like the beginning, with Emily's narration of how things were when she was growing up, over a shot of a young girl in high school. But just when you think you're watching a flashback, the girl interrupts the narrator with a good dose of sass. And that's when you realize you're not in Seattle Grace any more.
Because of the similarities, it is really tempting to compare this show to Grey's -- at least, the older show's first couple of seasons, when most of the storylines and characters had a semblance of reality.
Confession: I LOVED the first two seasons of Grey's Anatomy and watched it way past its sell-by date, but finally gave up a couple of years ago. How many bomb plots/shootings/hostage situations can one hospital take? As the situations became more extreme, the characters became less and less believable and therfore less likeable for me.
The pilot for Emily Owens, MD reminded me a lot of the first episode of Grey's, as we meet the characters we will hopefully learn to love. There's Will (portrayed by Justin Hartley), who is Emily's McDreamy -- except he doesn't know it, and Micah (Michael Rady), the group's resident who could turn out to be Emily's true match. Tyra (Kelly McCreary) is the daughter of the chief of staff, who may end up being a friend, like Christina. And Emily has her own "Nazi" in the form of Dr. Gina Bendari (Necar Zadegan), the brilliant (and cold) attending surgeon who will be supervising Emily and her crew of interns.
But Emily Owens is NOT Meredith Grey. Instead of being "dark and twisty," Mamie Gummer's Emily is just a beautiful nerd who is still waiting for that "confident kickass thing to happen." Whereas Meredith celebrated the start of her internship with a one-night stand, Emily crushes on handsome Will, who befriended her in med school. And she is terrified to let him know how she feels.
The pilot's theme is that working in the hospital is just like high school, right down to the arrival of a mean girl who tormented Emily in her actual high school.
Life as high school is a theme we can all relate to, because let's face it: it's true (a fact I had to sadly tell my own teenage daughter the other day -- that she'd better get used to it, because she'll always be in situations that remind her of what she's going through now).
As this is a medical show, the doctors' personal situations will play out while they deal with two or three patients of the week. For the pilot, these are Julia, a wise 12-year-old who is admitted to the hospital after fainting gym class, a couple of accident victims (one of whom may have been driving drunk) and a woman with senile dementia. How novice Emily deals with these patients on her first day drives the drama (and demonstrates that despite her social awkwardness, she's intelligent and capable).
I found myself breathing a sigh of relief when Emily avoids the mistakes that doomed poor George in Grey's first season: she does not promise that her patients will make it through their surgery - just that they are in good hands.
And where even at the beginning, Grey's was all about sex with a little bit of medicine, this show is a lot more innocent, which means a mom can feel comfortable watching it with her kids (something I never felt right about until Megan was in her teens). I'm not sure how that happened on the CW, but I like it.
And unlike Grey's, the Emily Owens pilot had some positive messaging. Even bad girl Cassandra has a hidden good side, which is a reminder that what we see on the surface isn't the whole story.
All in all, Emily Owens, MD is an entertaining addition to the Tuesday night lineup -- one I'll be adding to my viewing queue. And one I'll enjoy watching with my daughter.
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