Picks and Pans Review: Strong Medicine
updated 07/31/2000 AT 01:00 AM EDT
•originally published 07/31/2000 AT 01:00 AM EDT
It's a virtual rule in TV drama that two people can't work together unless they have a marked personality conflict that gives way to grudging respect. This new medical series establishes a partnership between Dr. Dana Stowe (Janine Turner), an ambitious research-oriented physician whose father was a Nobel Prize nominee, and Dr. Luisa Delgado (Rosa Blasi), a fiery working-class healer struggling to keep open a women's free clinic in Philadelphia. Why must Dana and "Lu" learn to get along? Because famous feminist Dr. Lydia Emerson (guest star and executive producer Whoopi Goldberg) says so in the July 23 pilot.
You might wish that the show's tone weren't so didactic, or that Lu didn't have a Liberty Bell-size chip on her shoulder. But Turner is a standout in her best TV role since Northern Exposure, and nurse Peter Riggs (Josh Coxx) qualifies as man of the year on Lifetime (slogan: Television for Women). He's handsome, caring, skilled at midwifery and effective against stubborn infections.
Bottom Line: A dose won't hurt