ABC’s New Summer Doctor Series – Reality TV, Including A Face Transplant
ABC has several new summer series, including Rookie Blue and Boston Med. The difference?
One is a fiction cop drama and the other, the latest in ABC News’ award-winning documentary series from the team that brought Hopkins and NYPD 24/7.
Boston Med premieres tonight at 10pm (right after Rookie Blue), and the eight-part series continues through the summer. It’s a mix of lighter personality-based storylines about doctors and nurses, emotional stories of patients and their struggles and intense hospital scenes featuring everything from a baby’s heart surgery to a face transplant.
Yes, a face transplant – just the second ever performed in the United States. Earlier this month Mediaite attended a screening of this episode, the final in the series that airs in August. In attendance were the doctor who performed the surgery as well as the transplant recipient, James Maki. Maki received the face of another subject ABC News had been following, Joseph Helfgot, who was slated for heart surgery. He died of complications, his wife, Susan Whitman-Helfgot (also in attendance) pushed forward and an engrossing episode of television (and medical miracle) was born.
“I thought it was very good,” said Maki after viewing the episode about him. “I never knew how the surgery went before.” Whitman-Helfgot described it as “like watching a home movie I guess.” Now Maki and Whitman-Helfgot are teaming up again – for a book about the experience. (See Maki post surgery here.)
ABC News President David Westin praised the show, not just for the content but the way it was produced. “I’m very proud of the work on its own,” he said. “It has taken us forward, while the news division is moving forward to the next century.”
Here’s more reaction from around the media:
• The Associated Press writes, “ABC’s remarkable program bringing together the recipient of the nation’s second face transplant and the donor’s family may someday stand as a bittersweet reminder of what broadcast news divisions can do at their best.”
• The New York Daily News calls it “triumph and tragedy. Humor and a heart. Best yet, it’s all real, which makes the roller coaster of emotions of Boston Med all the more powerful.”
• Variety writes that it is “another welcome respite from the summer stupids…Whatever the Nielsen chart might finally indicate, consider Boston Med another successful operation by Mr. Wrong.”
Check out the trailer here.
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