Two dramas premiere this week, one a traditional closed-end hour, the other a tightly plotted serial. The serial has everything going for it.
The first to weigh in is “3 Lbs.”
In the new CBS hospital drama (the title refers to the average weight of the adult human brain), special effects zoom inside the tissue, up the nerves, into the cells of the patients in a hospital, as two doctors of clashing personalities look on.
Wouldn’t you know, one doctor is a precise, coldly scientific genius – renowned in his field but lacking a warm bedside manner; the other, younger doctor has an affinity for people, empathy for their pain and an ability to translate medical jargon into lay terms.
The CBS hour takes the familiar life-and-death medical drama and ups the ante, centering on neurosurgeons.
In “3 Lbs.,” premiering at 9 tonight on KCNC-Channel 4, Stanley Tucci (“The Devil Wears Prada”) is a strong if dour lead as Dr. Douglas Hanson, a brilliant New York City brain surgeon. Mark Feuerstein (“The West Wing”) plays Dr. Jonathan Seger, his younger colleague emotionally tuned to the human needs of the frightened folks attached to those brains.
The puzzler here: Why do we need Stanley Tucci as a logical genius in scrubs when we already have Hugh Laurie? Fox’s “House” mines the same territory – a physician who likes diseases more than he likes patients – without making every case a brain tumor.
Tucci delivers a more realistic, less flamboyant version of a dedicated man of science, but Laurie has a greater range.
Unlike “House,” this hour doesn’t swing for the surreal fences, preferring a more credible, ultimately mundane style.
Almost before they scrub in, the Hanson-Fowler back-and-forth gets old. By the second episode, as the good doctors argue their way down a hospital hall, we get the feeling we’ve already heard their dialogue too many times.
“Can you really empathize with a person who’s dying?” Hanson (Tucci) asks.
“I can imagine,” Fowler (Feuerstein) retorts.
“You’re pretending.”
“So I shouldn’t try?”
And so on, as a pregnant woman debates whether or not to get radiation for her brain tumor if it means losing her baby.
Take the serial – please ABC premieres the Taye Diggs serial “Day Break” at 8 p.m. Wednesday (KMGH-Channel 7). Viewers may think they’ve already seen it at length, thanks to incessant promos.
“Day Break” is “Groundhog Day” minus the humor. It’s a violent deja vu all over again each week as Diggs’ character attempts to make sense of what’s going on.
What is going on? Near as we can tell, Detective Brett Hopper (Diggs) is stuck in a hellish day in which he will be accused of shooting state attorney Alberto Garza. He has an alibi and is aware he’s being framed. He knows he’s got to run. As he attempts to lose his tormentors, and set right various mishaps of the previous run-through of the day, he’s kicked and beaten and left in the dirt. Boom! Then he wakes up and starts the day over again.
Admiring the perfect specimen that is Diggs is half the fun.
Each day, the determined Hopper will learn from his mistakes and try a different strategy as he attempts to solve the puzzle and declare his innocence. He knows what went before, he knows where his bruises came from, he knows his loved ones’ lives are in danger. He knows he’s at the center of a huge mystery.
“Listen, honey, I know this looks crazy. … I’ll explain everything later,” he tells his girlfriend. Like her, we’re lost.
The tone is similar to “The X-Files” (and Mitch Pileggi) with the frantic pace of “24.” The story’s intricacies are reflected in the infinite loopings of a mobile sculpture and in an aerial shot of a Los Angeles freeway cloverleaf. There are almost too many moving parts to follow, but attentive viewers will be up to the challenge.
The question is – and here’s the suspense driving all of television’s dramatic hours this season – can he solve the puzzle before the heavily serialized drama starts to bleed ratings?
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
