Review by rlquall

"Island Son" was well done and it is a shame that it never really had a chance to find an audience. It would be easy to say that this was hindered by its being moved in mid-season, but this was almost certainly an attempt to get it away from "thirtysomething", which was killing it in the ratings and had an almost-unimaginable amount of "buzz" going for it at the time. I think that Chamberlain's performance was fine, as usual. It should be remembered that this was his first regular series (as opposed to miniseries, of which he was/is the recognized "king") role since "Dr. Kildare" over two decades earlier. Perhaps older viewers were unimpressed at the idea of seeing him as a doctor again, I don't know. Maybe most viewers who watched the show saw the plot as too complicated as it involved not only his work at the hospital but also his relationships with his (adoptive) parents, his son, and a love interest who (in violation of most norms for a show of this type) was NOT a nurse at the hospital where he worked but a high school drama teacher who was also a single parent. In any event, far lesser shows got more than 18 episodes aired.