TONIGHT: HawthoRNe (9pm on TNT)
Sorry, doctors, your thunder has officially been stolen. Nurses are the hottest television commodity since crimesolvers with really good attention spans, what with Nurse Jackie on Showtime, NBC’s fall drama Mercy and HawthoRNe, a Jada Pinkett Smith vehicle premiering tonight. Suddenly, orthopedic shoes are in.
It’s no surprise that Smith’s managerial Christina Hawthorne is no-nonsense (bad-assery is taught on week one of TV-nursing school, apparently), but she’s also saddled with a dead husband, a snotty teenage daughter and a suicidal pal, giving her pathos-ridden story lines to compete with fellow network tough chicks Holly Hunter and Kyra Sedgwick. Smith is appealing, but the show’s smug canonization of all the woefully underappreciated nursing staff is a bit broad; they can’t all be saintly, can they? The show is worth a shot, as long as future episodes feature more of Alias vet Michael Vartan, whose nice-boss character looks a little lost, and fewer hand-job gags—not even badass nurses should have to put up with that.
