Depending on how strong an arm you have, watching ABC’s “Off the Map” (10 p.m. EST Wednesdays) could require medical attention: It’s a head-smacker. You know, a show so preposterous that it inspires the watcher to smack his or her forehead with the palm of the hand. Executive produced by Shonda Rhimes (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “Private Practice”) and created by Jenna Bans (a “Grey’s” writer), “Off the Map” follows a trio of young doctors who arrive at a clinic “somewhere in South America” (played by Hawaii and locations that may look familiar to “Lost” fans).
These young docs proceed to behave like stereotypically idiotic, privileged Americans — and sappy characters on a TV melodrama.
Wednesday’s premiere opens and closes with scenes of doctors diving off cliffs into the ocean, which provide a fantastic tropical visual but may also leave rational viewers to wonder: Are these doctors morons? Have they never treated a kid in the emergency room who dived into the shallow end of a swimming pool?
| ON TV |
| ‘Off the Map’ |
| » When: 10 p.m. Wednesday (premieres Jan. 12) |
| » Channel: ABC |
| » Info: abc.com |
Each of the young docs comes with a prefab backstory that explains what brought them to this place. Brunette Lily Brenner (Caroline Dhavernas, mostly MIA since the short-lived 2004 Fox series “Wonderfalls”) grieves the death of her fiance; Mina Minard (Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep’s daughter, who had a memorable guest appearance on “The Good Wife”) misdiagnosed a child patient when she was exhausted and the kid died; frat boy Tommy Fuller (Zach Gilford, “Friday Night Lights”) disappointed his family by becoming a plastic surgeon.
These three pups are matched by three elders: Local doctor Zitajalehrena Alvarez (Valerie Cruz), Dr. Otis Cole (Jason George) and aloof clinic founder Ben Keeton (Martin Henderson, looking a lot like Sawyer from “Lost”), who also serves the role of designated hunk.
Continuity is not the show’s strong suit. In one scene, Lily goes down a zip wire to get to a tourist who got his arm mangled while soaring though the tree canopy. Viewers see her cutting the guy loose, and then next thing you know they’re on the ground. How exactly did they get down?
The premiere’s absolute worst moment is saved for near the end: Lily, having bonded with the zip-wire patient who came back to the country where he went on his honeymoon to dump his recently deceased wife’s ashes, demands that — rather than evacuate the man immediately when an infection sets in, with a helicopter standing by — they take time to help the man fulfill his wish to spread his wife’s ashes on a lake glowing from phosphorous microscopic organisms. The next scene is of Lily, Keeton and the patient, still on a stretcher, paddling on the lake in a canoe. It’s intended to be a heartwarming moment, but it’s difficult to have your heart warmed when your intelligence is being insulted at the same time. Seriously, would any real doctor take time in an emergency for such sappy nonsense?
It’s a shame that the writing makes “Off the Map” so unwatchable. The show benefits from a strong cast — particularly the three young docs — but even they cannot offset the show’s fatal flaw: It’s brain-dead and clearly expects viewers to be, too.
