3 lbs.

After watching the 4th episode today, I said to myself: why can't I like this show? It has likable and charismatic characters. It has a powerful and refreshing approach to it, by showing the effects of brain deceases on human lives. The dialogs are well-written, witty and filled with hilarious one-liners. But despite all my praise, I constantly had the feeling that something was missing and I can't really put my finger on what it might be. Maybe Dr Hanson can find the answer somewhere in my neurological system?! I'm at a serious loss here.

Maybe it has something to do with the format being too crystal clear. We have Dr Hanson, the cynical surgeon representing the ratio, and Dr Seger, the empathic surgeon representing the feeling. In every episode their method of approaching patients is significantly different, but in the end they must admit that they both are right in their thinking. By YOUR powers combined! No real surprises anywhere. The other characters are also too crisp to really ignite any real fondness for them. Charming, yes, but at the same time very dull and predictable. It'd be a much more powerful show if the writers either chose to make its main characters morally less transparent ( like in Nip/Tuck ) or by choosing for a more over-the-top style (like in Grey's anatomy ). I didn't need Dr Hanson after all...and neither did CBS apparently.

I think the real letdown of the show was the lack of diagnosis and the relative simplicity of the cases. Right off the bat Tucci knows what the problem is and since they don't show the actual surgeries a lot of the excitement and suspense is lost. All that was left was the drama of the character interplay and the Tucci's hallucinations, which sadly, it appears will never be explained. My attitude is, if you're going to make a show about the brain use cases that require diagnosis that would be unique to the brain rather than just difficult tumors. Nonetheless, I must admit I did enjoy watching it and am disappointed it is getting canceled.

I watched the pilot and noticed more than a few similarities between 3 lbs and House, M.D.. Tucci's character is brilliant but socially inept out of choice, similar to Laurie's character House, but without the acerbic wit that Laurie brings to House. Meanwhile, Tucci's 'straight guy', the emphatic doctor Seger, is not developed into a more interesting character, like the fallible 'straight guys' Cuddy and Wilson. Indira Varma's character Adrienne Holland is too similar to Jennifer Morrison's doctor Cameron to be a co-incidence.

Someone at CBS obviously noticed the success of House, M.D. and told his staff to get him (her) a similar show, hoping that mimicry would prove successful. However, copying a show like House demands the same high level balance of wit and suspense and Tucci and company are just not up to the challenge.

I didn't know the show was canceled until I read the comments on IMDb, but it doesn't come as a surprise to me.

I thought the pilot was beautifully done. The story of the young violinist's struggle to get her dexterity back was extremely touching and the episode was lavishly filmed. Stanley Tucci's character was well fleshed out and full of contradictions. I was eager to watch as Tucci and Feuerstein learned from each other and grew as characters. I will admit that subsequent episodes failed to pack the punch that the pilot did but I felt the show held a lot of promise. It really is a shame they are canceling it. The show was entertaining and educational. Simply put: fascinating. It's truly a shame they're canceling it in light of some of the other less interesting medical dramas that exist out there.

"Did you know the human head weighs eight pounds?"

You might, if you saw the film "Jerry Maguire," where precocious Jonathan Lipnicki says that line; one of many quotable quotes from that movie.

But you may not have realized that three of those eight pounds is the human brain. That's where the title for this program originates.

Let's be clear. Television has trends and when a show becomes a hit series, every network wants a piece of that action. In this case, the show that this program was aspiring to be was Fox's "House, MD," which was the current hit medical drama of the day, about a team of doctors researching mysterious diseases, week to week.

It goes without saying that many people think that those who live in and around New York City have to be losing their grey matter. That's where this team of surgeons and physicians comes in!

Here, Stanley Tucci, as Dr. Douglas Hanson, the impatient, know-it-all, head of the the Neuro wing named for himself, and his team, including Hanson's newcomer assistant Dr. Jonathan Seger, played by Mark Feuerstein, were there to mind their patients as they dealt with their tumors, aneurysms and strokes.

Much like Dr. Gregory House on that other series I mentioned, Dr. Hanson here has a bothersome little problem with his own condition, which, of course, he keeps quiet, but the viewers can see the elements in his mind as he deals with his visions and demons when he's not mouthing off to his second, or flirting with his female coworkers, or the single moms of his daughter's (Addison Timlin) classmates.

The most interesting quality about this series is they were trying to expose what we know about how the brain works, what elements are connected and perhaps more importantly, what we still DON'T know about this organ of ours that controls most everything we think, write, say and do, and acts as a recorder and storage space for everything we encounter. That's a worthwhile effort, even if they had to simplify things so the jargon didn't get too technical for the non-medical student viewers.

Indira Varma provides a welcome relief from the not always friendly banter between Doctors Hanson and Seger as Dr. Adrienne Holland, the neurologist intent on solving problems and prepping those she encounters for what comes next. But even she rubbed Dr. Seger the wrong way.

New York plays a part, in that the name "Bellevue" has come to be associated with both mental disorders and The City, and though this hospital is clearly not THAT one, it shares the real life reputation of that other institution for being run-down and on the mend, with issues that create problems occasionally, like power outages at just the wrong moment.

As a bit of an aside, from a strictly behind-the-scenes perspective, Mr. Tucci didn't want to have to fly to Los Angeles to make this series, so the production accommodated him by shooting in NYC.

The special effects used were fascinating: when a patient has an episode, we see into their body, the brain stem, the spinal cord, the sinew and muscle that moves and get a glimpse as to what is happening, in real time. This was cutting edge stuff for 2006 and, in most cases, was cooler than the scripts for the stories being told.

But the problem was that those stories told were relentless, with some visual metaphors to help the audience understand what was happening to the patients, at least, and the embattled staff dealing with their temperamental and possibly cranially challenged leader. There wasn't much of a break between the patients' issues and Dr. Hanson's attitude and circumstances.

In the end, it seemed like the "3 lbs" was made up of two pounds, fifteen ounces of vinegar and only one ounce of honey, and that just seemed to give its viewers a headache.