More Nurses on the Small Screen: Hawthorne
Two weeks after the premiere of Showtime's Nurse Jackie comes – can we believe it? – another nurse-focused TV show. Debuting on June 16 at 9 p.m. on TNT, Hawthorne (the "RN" in the credits is capitalized) stars Jada Pinkett Smith as Christina Hawthorne, the CNO of the fictional Richmond Trinity Hospital.
Pinkett Smith's real-life mother was an RN at a hospital in Baltimore, and in a June 16 interview on Philadelphia radio station WMMR, Pinkett Smith voiced her appreciation for nurses. "They're the glue that holds the hospital together," she said, "for sure."
Christina Hawthorne is a tough cookie who's not afraid to stand up for her patients, and she's doing her best to hold up as a single mom to a teenage daughter a year after her husband's death. But before you stand up and cheer, the advance word is that Hawthorne is a bit too predictable.
"The debut hour proves busy but not particularly distinctive," reads a June 14 review from Variety. "Indeed, the show's main ingredient … simply appears to be shifting the spotlight from doctors who care to nurses who care, which doesn't add a whole helluva lot to this well-traveled genre."
The supporting characters are a bit too one-dimensional, the main character a bit too saintly, the dialogue a bit too predictable ("Whose side are you on?" a nurse asks Hawthorne during the premiere; the response is, as we could guess, "Right now, the patient's").
Still, the Variety review notes that the show begins to evolve in the second and third episodes. And the hour-long format gives time for interesting storylines, medical cases and character development. I'm curious. I want to give it a chance. Will I be watching tonight? Yup. How about you?