Welcome to Kandahar

First episode out of the box for COMBAT HOSPITAL did a fine job of quickly establishing the series' own identity, to take it out of the (unfairly compared to by typically pre-judging IMDb boarders, sight unseen) M*A*S*H wannabe mode. Good casting had something to do with this.

I've long enjoyed the work of Elias Koteas, best remembered by the fans as Skinhead in SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL. Not surprisingly his breakthroughs were in films by fellow Canadians Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg and recently he stole the show (and certainly the trailer) in Scorsese's SHUTTER ISLAND. ("Combat Hospital", like ABC's "Rookie Blue", is a Canadian production.)

He's wonderful as the tough but sympathetic head doctor running the makeshift hospital in Kandahar. Series makes the expected "death is just around the corner" use of its Afghan War setting, and packs in the so-trendy gore that TV fans have doted on for a decade or more (not me, however) in both medical and the current spate of procedural "Quincy" ripoffs.

Fortunately Koteas is foregrounded by solid protagonists, notably the lovely Michelle Borth as surgeon Rebecca Kincaid (easily dominating this first segment), another Canadian talent Terry Chen as Capt. Trang, finding his feet as the not-quite-ready key member of the team of doctors, and tantalizingly my long-time fave Deborah Unger, also from Canada (playing opposite Koteas in Cronenberg's CRASH) and distractingly beautiful, fitted with a European accent as Major Pedersen. Hopefully she will get featured in future segments.

The story's timeliness is a plus, and it will be interesting to see, assuming the show's a hit, how it adapts to our eventual departure (I hope, I hope) from Afghanistan.