'Chicago Med' sticks to winning formula
Dick Wolfs latest Windy City show is exactly what youd expect it to be. That doesnt have to be a bad thing.
* CHICAGO MED. 9 tonight, NBC10.
NO ONE ever starts the first day in a TV hospital filling out paperwork in human resources.
So there are things you can just see coming when NBC's "Chicago Fire" spin-off "Chicago Med" pulls out of the station tonight with a train crash for which Dr. Connor Rhodes (Colin Donnell) happens to be present.
Quite a few things.
But while the newest outpost in producer Dick Wolf's Windy City empire isn't wildly original, it doesn't have to be. Like the components of the Penn grad producer's "Law & Order" franchise, "Chicago Med" is the kind of TV that's topical, briefly gripping but easily shaken off.
In a medium where drama junkies increasingly seem to need recaps to confirm (or explain) what they've seen, there's a place for a relatively old-fashioned medical show, especially one with a cast this appealing.
Working with Donnell - who's so far seen his characters killed off on both "Arrow" and "The Affair" - are "L&O" veteran S. Epatha Merkerson, as hospital administrator Sharon Goodwin, and Oliver Platt, as Dr. Daniel Charles, head of psychiatry.
Yaya DaCosta, who played Whitney Houston on Lifetime, is ER nurse April Sexton, and Torrey DeVitto ("Army Wives") plays pregnant pediatrician Dr. Natalie Manning.
Some characters will be familiar to fans of "Chicago Fire" and "Chicago P.D.," but "Med," true to formula, could stand alone, even if, sandwiched tonight between "The Voice" and "Chicago Fire," it doesn't have to.