I am – Hercules!!
A few notes on “Heartland,” the new drama about a Pittsburgh hospital’s crack organ-transplant unit: * “Heartland” was created by David Hollander, who created and wrote a great many episodes of CBS’ “The Guardian,” a bland show I never watched beyond its pilot. I got a little further on “Heartland,” mostly because publicists sent along its first two episodes. * As he did in “Everwood,” Treat Williams plays a hotshot surgeon and single father. “Everwood” was a much better show, and Treat Williams was not the reason I watched it. He is no Hugh Laurie. * Morena Baccarin, who played the lead space-geisha on “Firefly” and in “Serenity,” is horribly underutilized as the Williams character’s nurse-girlfriend. She doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but every time she pops up you can’t help but marvel at how insanely beautiful she is. * The element of this series with the most potential is the Kari Matchett character. She plays the Treat Williams character’s ex-wife, and it’s her job to solicit organ donations from the dying and the relatives of the dying. This has got to be one of the toughest, most depressing jobs in the world, but it might be interesting to follow someone like this around. * Skinny Canadian Matchett, a film and TV actress for more than a decade now, appears to have moved to Los Angeles somewhere between 2004’s “Wonderfalls” and 2005’s “Invasion,” and seems to be fricking everywhere now. This season alone, in addition to her regular role on “Heartland,” she’s had major recurring roles as the vice president’s favorite aide on “24” and the network lawyer who wants Matt Albie on “Studio 60.” * Gage Golightly, who plays the teen daughter of the Williams and Matchett characters, also starred with Matchett in SciFi’s “Five Days To Midnight.” * Another criminally underutilized regular on the show is the great Dabney Coleman, who spends the first two episodes walking around with an oxygen hose up his nose. * The pop ballads used for the montages seem designed to send panicked viewers scurrying after their remotes. * “Heartland” does not get a season-pass on my DVR mostly because it’s nothing special. I feel like I’ve seen a zillion organ-transplant stories over the past two decades, on far better shows like “St. Elsewhere,” “Chicago Hope” and “ER.” But what matters Herc’s opinion? TV Guide says:

… where's the pulse? The blandness is especially acute in the personal subplots, which require Matchett to be snippy one moment, supportive the next. When she tells her ex, "I'll take my heart elsewhere" (metaphor alert), it's enough to make you heartsick.

USA Today says:

… a thoroughly ordinary medical drama … It commits many TV sins, but wasting the talents of Treat Williams, Kari Matchett and Morena Baccarin is chief among them.

The New York Times says:

… … David Hollander, who created “Heartland,” isn’t the kind of television auteur who, when he feels the impulse toward literalism, immediately expunges it. (On “Heartland” a successful surgery is followed by the sound of Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.”) But he has pared the medical drama down to its barest notions of life and death and sliced away the acronyms, arguably just when they needed some cutting.

The Los Angeles Times says:

… I don't want to see lungs and hearts and livers being cut out of dead people, hustled down hallways in lunch coolers and dropped in a bloody hole every week, thank you very much. … Dr. Grant is more wooden than deep, and his weaknesses — secret smoking and skirt-chasing — are too predictable to be interesting. … The second episode brings in a former failed resident as an ideological sparring partner, and whatever else happened was just too boring to mention. …

Chicago Tribune says:

… This by-the-numbers medical drama, in which Williams plays Nathaniel Grant, a workaholic transplant surgeon, doesn’t give Williams much material of any depth to work with …

The Orlando Sentinel says:

… Heartland made me miss Everwood, not a good sign. …

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel says:

What {Dr. Nate Grant] he lacks, poor guy, is a personality. And that makes "Heartland," a new drama set in a hospital transplant program, hard to take. … Williams drifts through the part almost listlessly. And the writers haven't given him much to work with. …

The Boston Globe says:

"Heartland" is the kind of series that taints its actors with mediocrity. … The blandly earnest TNT show, which premieres tonight at 10, is a medical drama that just didn't need to be made. Like the short-lived "3 Lbs." starring Stanley Tucci , "Heartland" goes through the motions of "House," "Grey's Anatomy," and "ER" with no real spirit or drive. It's hard to believe this series, from David Hollander of "The Guardian," is the best one TNT could find to follow "The Closer." Perhaps the network's hidden agenda is to remind viewers how successfully "The Closer" vitalizes the procedural format by pairing the hit with a show that only parrots others of its genre.

Variety says:

… Treat Williams' turn as an organ-transplant surgeon is so straight-laced, all that's missing are the "Marcus Welby, M.D." opening titles. In terms of concocting drama, the characters and situations don't strike sharply enough to break the skin, much less stir the heart. … when a doctor employs an awkward double negative by firmly saying, "We can't not take risks," it's easy to wish the producers of "Heartland" had taken that advice to heart in developing this risk-free series.

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… despite Williams' proven charisma and the presence of Kari Matchett (Kate Armstrong) as Grant's ex-wife and, conveniently, the organ donor coordinator -- the show remains mostly in stable condition. The characters connect mostly on a clinical level, rarely deeper. … What "Heartland" needs most is a referral to a script doctor. …

Boston Now says:

… While Heartland clearly still needs work, after the promise of the second episode I am more than willing to give it a chance.

10 p.m. Monday. TNT.





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