Does Code Black Have Encouraging Vital Signs?

What Is This Thing?

If by "This Thing" you mean a code black, opening title cards tell us it's "[a]n influx of patients so great there aren't enough resources to treat them," and that while most ERs get five of those in a year, (fictional) Angels Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles "is in code black 300 times per year." So the show Code Black is about that: in the pilot, Residency Director Dr. Leanne Rorish is breaking in a new class of residents on their first day in the ER, where even a routine broken bone is way, way worse than it seems (and everything else is even worse than that). In short: it's a medical procedural.

When Is It On?

Wednesdays at 10 PM on CBS.

Why Was It Made Now?

While CBS is full up with cop, investigator, crime-fighting, and legal procedurals, this will actually be the only medical procedural on its schedule this season. And since the other networks aren't really going great guns with that genre anymore either -- Grey's Anatomy, The Night Shift, and the forthcoming Chicago Med are kind of it since House ended -- so CBS might as well try to start a new dynasty with a format that's kind of on the fallow side.

What's Its Pedigree?

Code Black is based on a 2013 documentary feature directed by Ryan McGarry, "an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and a physician at The Weill Medical College of Cornell University/New York Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City"; the film documented the ER at Los Angeles County General Hospital, where McGarry himself trained and which was, per the documentary's website, "the birthplace of emergency medicine." (No one tell The Knick.) McGarry is on board as an Executive Producer alongside Marti Noxon (who was also an EP on the film), but the show was adapted by creator Michael Seitzman, late of CBS's short-lived Intelligence and the screenwriter for the Oscar-nominated Charlize Theron feature North Country. Headlining the cast as Leanne is Marcia Gay Harden, returning to a series-regular TV gig for the first time since Trophy Wife. Joining her are Veep's Kevin Dunn as Mark Taylor, Director of the ER; Raza Jaffrey (Smash Season 1) as Neal Hudson, one of Leanne's doctor colleagues; and Luis Guzman (...everything) as Jesse, the head ER nurse/Mama to the incoming residents. The only recognizable face among said residents belongs to Bonnie Somerville (formerly Ross's girlfriend Mona on Friends) as Christa Lorenson, an unusually elderly resident with A Secret.

...And?

Just like real nurses, Guzman's Jesse is the best. Leanne is kind of a cliché (more on that anon), but Jesse's relationship with her raises her worth immensely. Early on, he comes up behind Leanne in the hall just after she's had to tell a tween girl that her dad is brain-dead but that, since he is an organ donor, he's being kept alive artificially until the transplant team can come harvest them -- so, a C- kind of a moment in a doctor's life -- and effortlessly cheers her up.

Jesse: I wanna tell you how fabulous you look right now.

Leanne: I do?

Jesse: No. I want to tell you that, but then it would be a lie. You look like you've been strapped to the bow of a ship.

Leanne: Is that so.

Jesse: Mm-hmm!

Leanne: [Chuckles.]

Jesse: Oh no. Don't do that. You don't need any more laugh lines, believe me.

Leanne: Me? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?

Jesse: [Opens his arms; she steps into a hug.] I love you I want to break you in half.

Leanne: I love you so much I want to punch your face in.

This evidence of their lived-in friendship is the most natural, easy, authentic moment of the episode. Later, new resident Malaya Pineda bitches that while one of her colleagues is going to get to assist on something cool, she's going to have to finish casting a kid's arm -- or, as she puts it, "do a nurse's job." When Jesse calls her on her dismissiveness, Malaya quickly tries to backpedal, and he patiently reminds her that she's trying to be part of a team, instead of laying into her with a ton of attitude à la Grey's Anatomy's Bailey; he reacts the way a person would who can command respect, and who will undoubtedly never hear Malaya minimize nurses' work again.

Also fun is Kevin Dunn's Mark, maybe because I'm just pretending he's playing the equally sardonic twin brother of Veep's Ben. "Where's your concern?" whines Neal at him after Leanne does an experimental procedure on a dying patient. Mark: "Left it in a bottle of Xanax."

Finally, I assume we have McGarry to thank for the realistically gnarly-looking C-Section Christa has to perform, in an ambulance, with Leanne on speaker talking her through it. I realize that kind of grossness is a weird thing to praise, but I feel like the kind of viewer who buys in to a hospital show deserves it to seem realistic; it always takes me out of the moment when the camera decorously cuts to a doctor's tense face -- or, worse, when we do see the distressed body part and it looks like some red poster paint fell on a Resusci-Annie.

...But?

Leanne is a cliché, like I said. She's a Loose Cannon who doesn't care about Breaking Rules if it means Saving Her Patient. Poor Marcia Gay Harden has to say "We are going to kill him. We're going to kill him...to save him" IN THE COLD OPEN. Worse, it turns out that what made Leanne a Loose Cannon is A Personal Trauma, which Neal and Mark have to exposit about as Neal tattles to Mark about her latest risky move.

Neal: Look, it was a horrible thing that happened to Leanne. We all felt it. But you know, in the three years since, she's had more dropouts than any Residency Director we've ever had. She's become more dangerous and more reckless. She's been investigated four times--

Mark: Exonerated four times. Where are we going with this?

Neal: She's different. You know she is.

Mark: No, what I know is that while the accident was deeply tragic, all that rage made her better!...She makes great docs, Neal. The board likes her, which means I love her.

I guess it's the Terrible Knowledge Leanne gained from going through The Accident that makes her later tell a dithering Christa, "Trepidation is a deadly quality in this place." But Leanne's not the only one with Terrible Knowledge: Christa ALSO has A Secret! The reason she decided to become a doctor at the advanced age of...God, nine months older than I am is that she lost her son to Stage 4 Glioblastoma; she learned so much during his illness that she decided not to let it go to waste. We don't find this out, though, until AFTER she's gotten fired from the program, and then rehired thanks to a dot-connecting diagnosis inspired by a chance mention of exhaust fumes that's straight out of a medical version of Legally Blonde. The point is: a lot of the load-bearing walls this show is built with will feel familiar to you. Tiresomely familiar, possibly.

...So?

If you've really been missing House these past few years, this will probably be very satisfying. The medical procedural is not really my jam, but while I personally don't feel the need to watch any more of these at home, if I were in a hotel room with no other options to put on while I unpacked, this would be fine.