Is there any hope for Saving Hope?

On this week's Saving Hope, "Out of Sight," Dr. Alex Reid (Erica Durance, Smallville) is almost shut out of an important surgery, a double hand replacement, because she falls asleep during a meeting. Her new boss, Dr. Kinney (Wendy Crewson, 24, ReGenesis), thinks Alex has lost her edge, grieving over fiance Charlie (Michael Shanks, Smallville, Stargate SG-1) in a coma, and assumes Alex is close to a total crash and burn. But Alex has Joel (Daniel Gillies, The Vampire Diaries) to look out for her, and with his help, she is able to prove herself again.

Saving Hope isn't very good. It's also not bad. It's one of those medical shows that hangs out in the middle ground of watchable, but not appointment television. This is probably a death sentence, especially combined with the fact that it's airing on NBC in the summer and has lost ratings almost every week. It's hard to be sad about the impending demise.

On the face of it, it seems like a series worthy of taking a chance on. Staffed with a cast of sci-fi and CW actors, an intriguing move, the show's conceit is that Alex mourns Charlie, while Charlie hangs out as a ghost. But Charlie isn't helping Alex solve cases, which has so been done before. Rather, the best parts of the show involve Charlie trying to figure out how he might wake up by talking to other dead people and coma patients, and Alex struggling to hold on to herself while missing him.

In "Out of Sight," these plots seems to come to a head. Charlie meets someone who has been asleep for about thirty years, and this patient encourages Charlie to move on with his "life," as it is. Charlie, instead, decides to do the opposite, redoubling his efforts. At the same time, Alex is also told to move on, but the second she forgets about Charlie for a moment, she is overcome with grief and returns to his side.

The problem here is that such strong co-dependence is not attractive. Yes, everyone wants to be inspired by true love. And viewers are expected to continue to root for the pair because we see them both on screen every week. However, with the stories taken separately, they both really should begin to find a way to live without one another. It's folly to hold out this false hope, and put one's life on hold for an indefinite member of team. At least, until Charlie wakes out of his coma or finds a way to communicate with Alex, and then the series may take on a different tone. I'm not anxious for this day simply because it may fall into that helping each other solve medical cases formula, which is not at all fresh.

Saving Hope also relies relatively heavily on the patients. They are not the entire story, as there are some romantic triangles and hooking ups going on. Which is like early Grey's Anatomy with a cast of characters that just aren't as interesting. There is no sense copying something if you can't rise to the level of the original. Saving Hope fails to do so.

Even worse, in "Out of Sight" Dr. Tolliver (Glenda Braganza, Men With Brooms) admonishes Maggie (Julia Taylor Ross, Silent House) by telling her to "Look for horses, not zebras." This phrase instantly calls to mind the recently ended show, House, which is another medical show superior than Raising Hope. If you are a young series, still struggling to define your identity and build your fan base, you do yourself no favors by making viewers think of shows similar and better than yourself.

In summary, Saving Hope is not terrible. But it's not great either, and many of the choices being made for the series are not doing it any favors. It it is going to last or earn any type of support, it needs to figure out what it wants to be, what will set it apart from its peers, and commit to it fast.

Saving Hope airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.

Check out my new website, JeromeWetzel.com. If you like my reviews, please follow me on Twitter! Article first published as Is there any hope for Saving Hope? on TheTVKing.com

Smallville - "Luthor"

     Going in, I knew that this week's episode of Smallville, titled "Luthor", would feature the return of John Glover as Lionel Luthor, but I wasn't sure what that meant for the series or the plot.  I have long missed the complicated, often villainous, Lionel.  His untimely death mid-season years ago was hard to take, and I have wished for his comeback ever since that day.  Now that it's hear, I'm not sure this was the best Smallville episode.  It wasn't bad, but I was expecting more.  Hopefully, we'll get it when Lionel returns again early next year.

     Lionel himself was as brilliantly performed as he ever was.  Glover still inhabits the character like skin.  The alternate universe premise, though, is tired.  How many shows have used it over the years?  I get it; we get to see a favorite charcter in an evil incarnation.  In this case, there was also the nature vs. nurture argument, and once again glimpsing how Clark (Tom Welling) could have ended up evil if he was raised differently.  In Clark's case, we've already seen it before enough time that this was far from novel.  What was strange, as compared to most alternate universes in screen and literature, is that Lois (Erica Durance) and Oliver (Justin Hartley) seem to be the same people on both sides of the mirror.

     How big a presence the Luthor name will be in the final season of Smallville has been a topic of much debate among fans.  Obviously, for anyone who cares about the Superman character, Lex Luthor is the ultimate foil.  The character was so wonderfully handled on this series by Michael Rosenbaum, and the actor's reluctance to return has caused grief.  The show's writers have kept things under wraps, but a number of possibilities are brewing.  Tess (Cassidy Freeman), though not a surprising revelation, is fully out as a Luthor family member.  The alternate Lionel, still living long after he died off in the show's normal universe, secretly crossed over, unnoticed by the other characters.  He will be featured in at least one more episode early next year, the season's 13th, which also boasts returning former series stars Annette O'Toole and Allison Mack, according to the imdb page, even though there is no title assigned yet.  Additionally, a young reborn clone of Lex named Alexander is apparently grown and on the loose.  When he is next seen, will he be played by Rosenbaum, as fans long for, or someone else?

     The only character that got serious development this week was Tess.  Her secrets have been exposed to Clark, and although the beginning of the episode, when he initially found out, felt awkward and out of character for them both, the resolution at the end was sweet and true.  I am an ardent fan of Tess, and if anyone could succeed Rosenbaum, as regretable as it is that he needed a fill-in, it's Freeman.  Her struggle with humanity and moral goodness mirrors Lex's own, but unlike him, she seems to mostly be winning hers.  Her inclusion at Watchtower was one of the most emotionally rewarding of the series, and her final season arc has been fantastic.  I can't wait to see how it ends, and how the return of other Luthors will affect her.

     As final seasons go, this one has had far more hits than misses (this week's episode leaning slightly towards hit, despite its problems, because of what it set up), and I believe the series is having one of it's strongest years yet.  Smallville's fall finale will be next Friday night, and will feature many recurring characters including Cat Grant (Keri Lynn Pratt), the not-dead Slade Wilson (Michael Hogan, bringing back the eyepatch again, as he did in Battlestar Galactica), Stargirl (Brittney Irvin), Hawkman (Michael Shanks), and Black Canary (Alaina Huffman).  Plus, this week's Entertainment Weekly showed a picture from the episode with Clark on bended knee to Lois, holding a ring.  It will surely be amazing, and you won't want to miss it.

     Smallville airs Friday nights at 8pm on the CW.

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Smallville: Absolute Justice an absolute joy

     Long anticipated, Friday night's two hour television movie Smallville: Absolute Justice was more than just two episodes of the CW's popular Smallville series.  It mapped out the direction the show is heading towards.  The story centered on the discovery of an old group of super heroes known as the Justice Society of America.  DC Comics readers will know that this group was the original grouping of heroes.  However, besides adding new, possibly recurring characters such as Hawkman (Michael Shanks, Stargate SG-1) and Stargirl (Brittney Irvin), it also gave us large clues into what Clark's (Tom Welling) fate on the series will be, as per the visions of Dr. Fate (Brent Stait).

     By the end of the tv movie, it was clear that Clark would be forming his own society soon.  Currently, that consists of Chloe a.k.a. Watchtower (Allison Mack) and Oliver a.k.a. Green Arrow (Justin Hartley), as well as the newly reinvigorated John Jones a.k.a. Martian Manhunter (Phil Morris).  While we have seen Clark and company working with other superheroes in the show, they were all strangely absent, as were almost all the rest of Hawkman's team.  This was presumably due to budget and time constraints, though it gives hope that many or all will return soon.  The question is, will it just be another chapter in Clark's life?  Or will that be the new direction the show makes, as the network has no desire to end Smallville, but Welling seems ready to go?  Would a bigger ensemble series where his role is much more limited appeal to him?  It is an intriguing concept for a show that has often reinvented itself.

     For now, though, it seems Clark and his group will soon be facing a large army of super villians, and he is being manipulated into getting heroes together by Checkmate and Agent Waller (Pam Grier, The L Word), who clearly are far from moralistic.  This will be an interesting plot, and will it be connected or seperate from this season's big bad, Zod (Callum Blue, Dead Like Me, The Tudors)?  Other tidbits found out in the two hour special were that Tess (Cassidy Freeman) is a part of Checkmate, and to no one's surprise, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) is still alive, and will be Clark's archnemesis.  Fans have long anticipated Lex's return, and the reveal will only fuel calls to get Rosenbaum back on the show.  Ultimately, for the series finale to be truly satisfying, whenever that ends up being, Lex will have to play a part.

     Smallville continues to air Friday nights at 8pm on the CW.