Symptoms have been checked, experts have been called in, and tests have been run, but the bedside attendants are still left scratching their heads.
This tantalizing enigma was the focal plotline of the premiere episode of "Grey's Anatomy," the new ABC medical drama that follows the life of Meredith Grey, an intern fresh out of medical school working in a Seattle hospital.
But like the young patient in the show, "Anatomy" itself is somewhat of an enigma; it's a program that seems to teeter on the brink of greatness, though its feet are still firmly planted in convention.
Ellen Pompeo, a virtual unknown in the world of small screen drama, sufficiently passes her primetime debut test, but not exactly with flying colors. She outperforms most of her mid-season competition by handling even the weightiest high-drama moments with seasoned grace. Yet, in the intervening screen time between weighty plot points, Pompeo falters in reaching for a simply neutral performance, exposing her immaturity.
In the show's premiere, audiences could feel their own stomachs lurch with Meredith's when she blanked out during an emergency response and almost cost a young patient her life. And viewers couldn't help but reach for the Kleenex when the episode closed with a tragic twist: Meredith's mother, a legendary surgeon in her heyday and Meredith's inspiration, is now confined to a nursing home with dementia that leaves her unable to recall even her own daughter's face.
In these emotional situations, Pompeo shines, but she tries to maintain the same emotional intensity in every scene, no matter how mundane or routine, and her breathy delivery comes off sounding forced. Pompeo better chill out and watch an episode of "Scrubs" - if she doesn't learn how to lighten up her ER attitude, she'll burn out before the end of the season.
Or she could take a few cues from co-star Patrick Dempsey who audiences may remember from 2002's "Sweet Home Alabama." Whether it's his natural talent (doubtful) or his more extensive (if unimpressive) r?©sum?©, Dempsey surprisingly has the chops to play the roles of leading man and head surgeon with just the right balance of seriousness and laxity.
Granted, no real-life doctor has blue eyes that sparkle so alluringly or the luck to "accidentally" sleep with a hot young intern (Meredith) on the first day, Dempsey defies such a tacky plotline with a classy, down-to-earth performance. Aside from a few subtle, well-timed jokes, he handles the role with a low-key professionalism that makes him look capable without being too good to be true.
The supporting cast, though, is just as puzzling as Pompeo, vacillating between done-to-death medical drama stereotypes and genuinely captivating performances. The first half of "Anatomy's" premiere panned out like a "How to Assemble a Medical Show Cast" handbook. Sandra Oh played the hard-nosed tough chick who never cracks a smile, while T.R. Knight provided the token bumbler for James Pickens, Jr.'s grizzled veteran character to pick on. We're introduced to the cocky show-off, the sassy senior resident, and the obligatory doctor-intern sexual tension.
The prognosis was not looking good, but by the end of the episode, the characters settled into a less extremist approach, and started playing doctors more like, well ... real doctors. They pulled all-night shifts, they choked during surgery, and bags might have even formed at one point under Dempsey's baby blues. Sandra Oh lowered her guard enough to befriend Pompeo's character, and the cocky intern's swollen head was summarily deflated. The hen-pecking veteran turned out to be a gentle giant, and T.R. Knight's hopeless bumbler turned out to be, well ... a hopeless bumbler after all.
Though it might be a little unsettling for audiences who are used to seeing Noah Wyle swoop in to miraculously save even the bleakest of days, "Anatomy" provides a refreshingly realistic look at life under the knife. There is no sugar coating and very little fluff, despite the fact that the camera work does keep things relatively sterile in terms of potentially graphic ER scenes.
In that vein, the show does not, with the exception of the Dempsey-Pompeo tryst, concern itself with the petty subplots that tend to bog down other programs of its genre. It's a novel concept, but "Anatomy's" writers finally realized that cutting edge medical dramas should take place more in the emergency room than the bedroom, and the doctors' personal lives are mercifully kept offscreen.
While this one-dimensional characterization could get old after a while, the ensemble nature of the cast should provide enough relationship dynamics between the doctors themselves without having to introduce plots outside the hospital.
As of right now, it's too soon to call how "Grey's Anatomy" will fare in the future, and further tests may be necessary. If Pompeo can't get her act together and the supporting cast crumbles into cookie-cutter roles, "Anatomy" will be just another malignant blemish on the mid-season startup show record.
But if the characters continue to evolve as promisingly as they did over the course of the first episode, "Anatomy" just might be the benign boon that caps off ABC's rejuvenation season and provides the resurrected network with a viable "ER" rival.
