What to Expect From NBC's Saving Hope Besides Ghosts
Michael Shanks
Tornoto's Hope-Zion Hospital is haunted, but not by a vengeful spirit.
On NBC's new medical drama Saving Hope, which premieres Thursday at 9/8c, Chief of Surgery Charlie Harris (Michael Shanks) falls into a coma and finds himself in an out-of-body experience, roaming the hallways as a ghost. Fellow surgeon and fiancee Alex Reid (Smallville's Erica Durance) is torn between her emotional attachment and her objectivity as a doctor who is still very much needed by the other patients coming into the hospital daily.
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Check out what else to expect from Saving Hope:
Ordinary-looking ghosts: Forget Jacob Marley or Casper. There are no chains, paleness or transparency to separate these spirits from the living. Saving's Hope's Charlie appears dapper in a tuxedo because that was the outfit he was wearing when he was injured, and he looks just as solid and full-color as when he was alive. The only visual clues we get that he's in-between is that no one else interacts with him.
Existential questions: All medical shows deal with life and death, but the very premise of Saving Hope questions if there is life after death, if there is such a thing as a soul, if expectations will be met. As one ghost says to Charlie, "It beats the void. You know, nothingness?"
Bleeding boundaries: The ghosts aren't just leading parallel lives as observers in the hospital. There will be moments where Charlie is able to affect the corporeal world and vice versa. How far this progresses remains to be seen.
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Uncertain motivations: The series does a good job presenting viewers with stereotypical characters but then upending preconceived notions. Exes aren't necessarily evil, and heroes aren't always the most generous. How will this affect Charlie's possible recovery?
Hookups: This is a medical drama after all, and there's just something about dealing with life and death in those sexy scrubs that make people want to connect and get naked. As far as we know, though, there isn't any ghost sex a la Grey Anatomy's Denny-Izzie affair.
Watch this sneak peek of Saving Hope, which airs Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC: