Date of airing: July 26, 2011 (Global)
Audience viewership information: 1.576 million viewers
It was another well-done episode, this time around with a little more medically political procedure, and setting precedence for certain cases, so that the characters in this show can look like heroes, and real-time military medical personnel can maybe check out their own protocol when it comes to taking care of their patients the best way they possibly can. But what I noticed about the show at this stage is that the writers were scaling back the medical aspect of the show, so that the characters can become a little more visible to the audience. That is alright, I guess, although I wanted to have a medical drama set in a war zone, and watch the action unfold in an operating room that doesn’t have all the safety and security you would expect from other medical dramas on television, let alone a roof that could get bombed any second of the day and fall on the heads of the characters. I don’t have a problem with characters in a medical drama, but it would be awesome if both elements would get the same amount of attention from the writers. How COMBAT HOSPITAL did it is good, but it can always be better, and I really want it to be better.
Rebecca’s fight for Private Flax’s life was good and partly emotional, and I liked how the writers separated the “lucky charm” plot of the story from his dying wish of being an organ donor. When Rebecca and Colonel Marks were talking about Fortuna, the goddess of fortune, and how Rebecca might even jinx her own luck by not believing in Fortuna, I was expecting her cases to go sour, and for Flax to possibly die, and while that was what I thought would happen, it didn’t exactly happen the way I was expecting it to go down. Instead, the story made a slight turn in the middle of the episode, and Rebecca was a fighting woman trying to fulfill a dying wish, which made her a doctor and a Major out to change the protocol of her job, hoping to not only succeed in fulfilling Flax’s last wish, but to also save some lives in the distance.
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| A daily occurrence in Afghanistan after the exit of all international forces. |
In addition, I liked that the writers brought military protocol into
the show as a topic to discuss, together with the fact that protocols
are the best way to show that military organizations can be assholes
sometimes. Here is an organ donor – why is it so damn difficult to get
him flown to another hospital for his organs to be donated? I liked that
there was some criticism thrown into the faces of potential real-life
military viewers, proving that setting a new protocol is indeed
possible. By the way, I’m talking as someone who has clearly no idea if
that protocol for organ donors existed back in the day, and if this episode just took an idea and went with it, no matter if the protocol issue was a true thing back in 2006 or not.
Grace’s story was nice as well, although a little creepy during a noteworthy scene. First of all, I have liked Christina Cox for a while, so I was all kinds of “Heck yes!” when I saw her name during the opening credits, but as soon as her character made a move towards Grace, I was a little weirded out. Not only could I not believe that Ariel had the guts to make her affection to another soldier shown this directly, but I also found it problematic that she seemed to pressure Grace into liking her, and manipulate her into expressing feelings for her. And when Ariel turned up to accompany Grace to the women’s clinic, my stalker alarm went up. I almost would have said to myself that Ariel was way too big of a creep to be a soldier and I would have taken away her gun. She behaved selfishly during that dinner scene, clearly not taking hold of her aggressive self, and turning herself into a bit of a villain. It’s almost a little surprise that Grace behaved as professionally as she could, because I would have wondered whether or not to go to official channels to do something about Ariel’s presence around me.
On the other hand, the episode fell short of depicting Ariel’s state of mind more obviously. During her first session with Grace and her group, she had something to talk about, something was bothering her, and I was expecting her to tread lightly in that emotional minefield of hers, but that story pretty much vanished as soon as it became clear why Ariel was still talking to Grace.
The part in the women’s clinic was interesting, but sadly too short. Marital abuse in Afghanistan seems to be a normal thing from what is being covered in Western media, and since COMBAT HOSPITAL is set in Afghanistan, it surely could bring stories like these more often. ER was known for regularly bringing domestic abuse storylines, and COMBAT HOSPITAL has a good-enough premise to do the same. Maybe this thought of mine is in hindsight, with the retreat of international forces out of Afghanistan in 2021 having been a logistical nightmare, and the plight of Afghan women in a Taliban-run country being more obvious to those who follow the news, but what was this series stopping from going into that kind of storytelling and make its audience aware of what really happens behind closed doors and shut-off cameras in Afghanistan?
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| Friends can talk to each other about everything. |
And finally, there was Bobby who was a fine character in this episode. I was surprised to hear that he was once in prison – it would have been interesting to learn how he got from being a criminal to being a soldier and a doctor and what made him change his life (plus, the reason for his stint in prison). I was also surprised that he was depicted as a good friend and nurturing human being here, trying to be the best friend he can be to everyone around him, including the woman who may or may not be sexually interested in him. Yes, his business with Suzy definitely opened up a story possibility here that could lead to some screentime outside the hospital for both characters, but I even appreciated Boby and Rebecca’s hug. Just that little moment of pure friendship was all that I needed at the time – a reminder that this still exists.
