Saving Hope Review: Pain and Suffering

at .

Saving Hope is a show I'm trying really hard to sink my teeth into. It's a great concept, really. And then sometimes in practice it seems a little too "one of these things is not like the other."

Maybe that's what makes the show work. "The Great Randall" certainly succeeded in bringing us a little closer to combining the medical and supernatural elements of this show.

And bonus? The annoying blue lens flare seems to be gone.

Charlie Gets Connected

From the minute the hypnotist, who also happens to be a psychic, complimented Charlie's tux, I was intrigued. Finally, someone who could help Charlie communicate with Alex. Someone who could be his go-between while he's trapped in the in-between! If the writers never plan to wake Charlie from his coma, we're going to have to have some way for him to communicate with people. Otherwise, Michael Shanks' talent is being tremendously wasted.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to add a psychic to the cast and have him become Charlie's mouthpiece. But at some point, if the living world and the in-between world are going to intersect, someone, or something, is going to have to make that happen.

While I liked seeing Charlie making connections through The Great Randall, I'm somewhat annoyed, and also amused, by this week's "Serious Case."

Alex is a surgeon. Not House. Or Cameron. Or Foreman. Or Chase. Her job is to perform surgeries, make sure patients are stable, and check on how they're recovering. Her job is not to call in hypnotists to life a hypnosis (a surgeon who believes in hypnotists??) or to diagnose some mystery illness the patient has had for years that no other doctor has ever been able to diagnose. Week after week, Alex acts more like a general hospital doctor than a surgeon. Her interactions with patients are almost too personal.

But, this week's Serious Case did give us some tiny bits of awesome. Namely, an elevator full of vampire jokes that seemed to poke fun at Daniel Gillies' role as Elijah on The Vampire Diaries. (To read that exchange, check out the Saving Hope quotes page.)

The Serious Case, Chester, had a condition known as Porphyria, which makes people blister in the sun, not unlike our favorite walking undead over on the CW. But it's still odd to me that Alex would be so determined to find this patient a diagnosis given her role as a surgeon. It's one of the medical aspects of the show that doesn't work for me as a loyal fan of numerous medical dramas throughout the years.

In keeping up with the vampires, it seems that perhaps Joel has bitten off more than he can chew in deciding to have an exclusive relationship with Maggie. But then again, she did bite him first, right?

I'm sure the purpose of Joel and Maggie attempting monogamy and a "boyfriend-girlfriend relationship" (Seriously? Is Maggie twelve?) is to prove how bad he is at commitment, but even when he called himself a jerk, it didn't feel believable. He hasn't been a jerk. He's been honest. She said this was no strings attached, he accepted, and then she changed the terms of their arrangement. He declined to accept those new terms and wasn't a jerk about it at all. And the entire time he was telling her he wanted to be exclusive, I couldn't help but feel like he was stumbling through awkward nerves that were somehow endearing.

For the past few weeks, the Saving Hope has been steadily climbing uphill for me, and this week it was a little flat. Maybe I need a second viewing, if for no other reason than to see Gillies' flash his smile and stammer his way through a discussion about being exclusive.

What did you think of The Great Randall?

The Great Randall Review

Editor Rating: 3.9 / 5.0
  • 3.9 / 5.0
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
User Rating:

Rating: 4.4 / 5.0 (49 Votes)

Miranda Wicker was a Staff Writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in 2017. Follow her on Twitter.

Show Comments
Tags: ,

Saving Hope Season 1 Episode 6 Quotes

Joel: Ow! Did you just bite me?
Maggie: Yeah, I had an impulse.

Doctors call pain "the fifth vital sign." But unlike the other four, you want it to stop.

Charlie