Gotham and Dr. Who

I've been watching Gotham on Netflix, and it is an engaging look at the time right after Bruce Wayne's parents are killed, before he becomes Batman.  The city is corrupt, mob bosses are trying to outdo each other and have the police department in their pocket.  It is dark, but the acting is excellent.

The whole cast contributes to the show, but I especially like Ben McKenzie as Jim Gordon, the honest cop who wants to clean up Gotham, and Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock, the streetwise cop who isn't above using the mob for his own ends.  Jada Pinkett Smith as Fish Mooney, a nightclub owner and mob leader who wants to take crime boss Carmine Falcone's place and Robin Lord Taylor as Oswald Cobblepot, who has his own plans for Gotham, are also excellent.  The whole cast is outstanding, but there are too many characters to talk about in one post.   

I have finished season 3 of Dr. Who and will watch season 4 when I have a chance.  I think the scene when Rose and Dr. Who are separated is sad, although part of the point of Dr. Who is that the characters change.   I am glad I started watching this show.

Complications

I recently caught up on the series Complications on the USA Network's website.  For the most part, it's enjoyable.  I like medical dramas.  Jason O'Mara is a good actor, and it is a treat to see Kevin Tighe in another series.  However, the storylines are a bit over-the-top.

I do understand about people getting in over their heads and things getting out of hand, but a doctor getting caught in the middle of a gang war is far-fetched.  Also, ER doctors do not perform surgery (the episode where Ellison removed a bullet from a gang member's leg).  A trauma surgeon would have been doing that, and it would have been done in the controlled environment of an operating room where any problems could be dealt with.  Ellison did this in an empty room in the hospital, only gave the guy a local anesthetic, didn't have equipment to monitor vital signs and didn't have anything to replace fluids or deal with any bleeding.  Not gonna happen.

Finally, although of course there will be bad apples in the medical field the same as anywhere else, it's not likely a hospital employee would be able to falsify patient records or steal drugs without getting caught.

Whatever the case, the show has been cancelled, so my opinion probably isn't relevant.  I do think Complications had potential and might have gotten more realistic given a chance.  I kind of wonder what might have taken place after the phone call Ellison got about the clinic he burned down, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Emergency!

I got the images from Wikipedia.

One of my favorite shows when I was a kid was Emergency! The storylines centered on the beginning of the paramedic program in the 1970s and followed the adventures of Station 51. There was a good combination of drama (the sometimes scary rescues and scenes at the hospital) and comedy (the amusing and sometimes silly banter between the men at Station 51-Especially Chet and Johnny).




EMS has come a long way since Emergency was on the air. Admittedly some of the situations/dialogue/equipment, etc. are dated now, although for the time it was pretty accurate. I'm working my way through the show on Netflix and it's bringing back some good childhood memories.


I liked the whole cast, but my favorite character was Johnny Gage, charmingly portray by Randy Mantooth. He and Kevin Tighe (Roy Desoto) had good chemistry as partners. Roy's somewhat more serious character brought balance to Johnny's more carefree, no strings on me character.

Quantum Leap

The images are from Wikipedia.

I watched Quantum Leap back when it was on the air in the late 80s-early 90s. I became reacquainted with QL when it was in reruns on the G4 network (although unfortunately that particular network doesn't exist any longer). QL was and still is one of my favorite shows. It had such a positive, hopeful message, which is something that is rare in entertainment today.

A lot of what made QL special was the chemistry between the two lead actors, Scott Bakula (Sam Beckett) and Dean Stockwell (Al Calavicci). The contrast between Sam's somewhat naïve, idealistic, kind and gentle character and Al's more worldly and irritable (though good-hearted underneath the gruff exterior) character was excellent. Sam and Al often disagreed on various issues, but they did care a great deal for each other.





Also, Sam had to deal with a different situation every week where his job was to "put right what once went wrong." Sam never knew, and neither did fans, what he would have to deal with from leap to leap. Sam was one of the kindest, most unselfish characters in T.V. history. There were times when he got tired of not being able to stay in one place long enough to have a life of his own, but he always did what was right.





A series of Quantum Leap novels and comic books were published from 1990 to 2000, and although I have read and for the most part enjoyed them, the T.V. show is a tough act to follow.