DJariya

By djariya at 2011-01-01

Synopsis:



13 episode 1st season

Starring:
Martin Henderson (The Ring, Windtalkers, Flyboys)
Jason George (Grey's Anatomy, What about Brian?)
Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights)
Valerie Cruz (True Blood, Dexter)
Mamie Gummer (The Good Wife)
Rachelle Lefevre (Twilight, New Moon, What about Brian?)

Promo:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gykDpFRVkLM" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Honestly, I wasn't sure if I was going to start a thread for this show since most of you here are pretty lukewarm to medical dramas/Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. But, it's got some pretty decent actors like Gilford, George and I really like Rachelle Lefevre Hopefully it offers a more fresh take on the medical drama since this takes place in the jungle in South America.

Anyways, I have the DVR set. The show should look pretty damn good in HD especially the exterior shots.

Timber

The promo I've seen tries to make this look like Lost and then it gets shitty. I'll pass.

RichC2

The promos I've seen make it look like Grey's in the jungle. Go figure.

DJariya

Lost? That's odd. All the promos I've seen make this look like a medical drama in a jungle.

It is from one of the writers of Grey's Anatomy (Jenna Bans) and Shonda Rhimes is one of the producers, but not the showrunner on this.

critterdvd

Jenna Bans is the showrunner and Shonda Rhimes is a producer in a mentor role for Bans. I doubt Rhimes will have a lot of involvement with this show past the first season, especially since it's filmed over a thousand miles from her shows.

Personally I liked "Grey's Anatomy" until Addison left and I've always been entertained by "Private Practice" so I will give this a shot, especially since it is finally a fresh take with them being in the jungle. Doesn't hurt that I like the whole cast especially the one from "Wonderfalls" whose name is alluding me at the moment.

DJariya

Yeah it's filmed on location in Oahu. Private Practice and Grey's are both shot in Los Angeles, so I know Shonda is going to have very minimal involvement with this show, which is good IMO. I'm familiar with a few of the episodes that Jenna wrote for Grey's and it's cool she's getting a chance to do her own show.

Timber

I'm talking about the opening shot of the promo. They do the grand Hawaiian jungle shot. Just got a Lost vibe from it.

meritocracy

Caroline Dhavernas. I've always liked her as well.

riley_dude

Exactly why I won't be watching either.

DJariya

So I watched this tonight. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.

I do have to say the day time exterior shots look great in HD. I noticed in the end credits the show is shot on location in Puerto Rico and Oahu, Hawai'i so those are definitely pluses.

Caroline Dhavernas' character Lilly does have potential to be a good lead to this series similar to Ellen Pompeo on Grey's Anatomy. The problem in this 1st episode is that her character, Zach Gilford and Mamie Gummer's came across as stereotypical idiot Americans who are clueless in a foreign country. I think Mamie Gummer's character Mina came across to me as a fucking idiot, especially when she couldn't even diagnose Asthma properly. It got annoying when these characters were doing the stereotypical thing of speaking loud to try to get their point across. They need to work on developing these 3 characters since they are the leads to this series.

Rachelle Lefevre (for those who have the hots for her) is in the Pilot less then 5 minutes. She does appear to have more screentime next week. I also like Valerie Cruz, but what the heck were they thinking giving her the fake South American accent? That accent was horrible. They should have just made her an American of South American decent. And it's so obvious that Henderson and George's characters are the stud doctors like McDreamy and McSteamy.

The final scene/segment where Lilly was so insistent on letting Michael McKean's character dump his wife's ashes even though the guy was in critical condition after major surgery was just cheesy.

If I had to give this episode a grade it would be a C+ maybe B-. I like the jungle/adventure type setting and the scenics are beautiful, but they need to work on the characters to make me want to care about them. The medical aspect was interesting, especially using the Coconuts as plasma, but that's a take it or leave it thing IMO. The concept of the show is a pretty fresh take on the medical drama, which is a pretty tired genre in TV. I will be watching next week to see if it improves since this is only an introduction. If your not a fan of this genre or show's similar to this like Grey's, then your probably not going like or be interested in this.

mdc3000

Pretty mediocre start IMO - just feels like a weak Private Practice in the jungle. I do like a lot of the cast though so I'm willing to give it a few more tries.

RichC2

Show struck me as beautiful but idiotic.

Gizmo

Never seen a single episode of Greys/PP, but with Caroline, Rachel and Zach, I might give this a shot if it gets a second season.

Dan

She is the only reason I'm going to check this first episode out (it's on my DVR right now). Unfortunately, I doubt she's reason enough to keep watching.

DJariya

According to Off the Map's facebook page, this is re-airing tonight at 10pm after a new Grey's Anatomy. Private Practice is being pre-empted But, I get why they are doing it, OTM has been heavily hyped and the ratings were a little disappointing last night (It got a 2.2 in the demos) because of the messed up schedule due to the President's speech.

I thought it was funny that I made a comment on the OTM page how I thought it was a decent, but mediocre start and 4 people responded being very defensive.

djones6746

I liked it. Will definitely finish watching the rest of the season eps!!! I have stayed away from medical drama type shows for years. I feel this one is worth my time for now to see how it pans out. Reminds me of Puerto Rico with the mountain scenes. Especially the Lago De Luz...there is a lake in Puerto Rico..much bigger lake....that has the same organisms. It is really neat to see at night.

Brooklyn

I thought it was just terrible, and the writing was about as bad as it gets.

The storyline with the new male doctor and the guy who'd rather let his family die... The lead doctor gets angry because he was lazy, yet he's the one who didn't follow through to make sure the wife took the meds. Then after his wife dies, the local guy won't let his family take any medication? Hello!!! What was going on there? Oh, but that's ok, it'll all be wrapped up nicely after a soul searching outburst. I faded in and out after that, but did they do a transfusion with a coconut (or something to that effect), without even a thought to whether what was being infused was bacteria free or otherwise clean?

And although a nitpick, did it bother anyone else that during the 'fireflies' scene (aside from the fact that they took him away from getting to the chopper), that the skipping rock, or pouring ashes into the water lights the algae up, but rowing the boat through the water doesn't? That seemed just too obvious a mistake.

Giantrobo

"Grey's Jungle".

it was ok. about what i'd expect from the people who made Grey's

djones6746

It does not.....once you get into the area you really need to stir up the water for the reaction to occur. Not sure if they truly filmed that on location but the depiction was accurate. They showed the boat easing into the area where the lake is known to have these organisms. Once there....you need to throw something in.....and really make a splash...dive into the water etc for the reaction to occur.

Brooklyn

I could have sworn they showed them row out some, which would cause more of a stir than a skipping stone, and just pouring the ash out caused a glow that grew outward to occur.

djones6746

The pouring of the ash was not realistic. That was pure crap....I was on a much bigger boat holding a lot of people and when we arrived in the area they shut down the engines and floated into it. When one of the deck hands jumped into the water it was amazing....

Dan

We watched this last night. Ugh...

Caroline Dhavernas - Poor girl. I like her, but I don't like her character.
Red Head - shouldn't have came back. Her "exit" was bad enough.
Blondie - Totally unlikeable.
Young guy - Kind of a douche.
Older guy - Accent was all over the place. Not much of a 'leader'
Other woman - forgettable.
Token black guy - expecting him to get killed off before the end of the season, somehow.
Token child actor - Didn't care for him.
Michael McKean - Too good for this show. Good thing it was just a cameo.

Plot - an okay idea, I guess. But the three "new" doctors' brief backstories make them seem very similar. Just a bunch of pretty faces.

Dialog - horrendous.

Clearly I didn't think much of this first episode. I'm definitely not the target audience here, but I was hoping I'd be able to stomach some bad acting and poor storylines in order to get a chance to see Caroline really shine. Unfortunately, I thought it was unbearably bad. My wife claims it was "decent" and "it has potential... maybe." We'll probably watch the second episode together, but after that, I'm done.

Fist of Doom

Thought this was pretty cheesy. You'd think speaking Spanish would be important if these 3 doctors were picked out of 100 candidates. And the place looks more like a summer camp than a third world clinic.

On the plus side, I liked the cast and the humor ( at the coconut IV).