Date of airing: August 30, 2011 (Global)
Audience viewership information: 1.210 million viewers
It was to be expected that this episode of COMBAT HOSPITAL, after following an unusually strong hour, would be a little bit weaker. It’s the general rule of television: Put something genius on the air, but for next week they are scaling down again and driving the car a little slower, so as not to burn all the fuel immediately. Not that this episode was especially weak, but it went back to the way the show was handling storylines during the first half of the season before the show became more character-focused. This episode was not heavily focused on the characters and instead went for a story dealing with a Taliban attack and a hockey rivalry, although there was the opportunity to let Grace Pedersen shine in the spotlight this time, let her define the character that would have given her something to deal with if there had been a second season. However, there wasn’t a lot of drama in the story, and I even found her aggressive stance to get answers out of the kids a little out of character. Then again, can Pedersen be out of character in this story when her character hasn’t been properly developed up to this point?
This episode did a surprising thing by bringing back two stories from previous episodes, showcasing that the writers of this show were interested in a serialized narrative and didn’t shy away from giving those narratives a break for a few episodes. Granted, the story of Simon’s suicidal brother didn’t get that break, since it was Simon’s anchor story in the previous episode, but the return of Aref and Will not knowing what to do now was definitely a welcomed addition to an episode that wanted to deal with the Taliban and the typical Canadian hockey obsession. It’s almost a shame that the story of Aref’s arrival at the hospital was underdeveloped in this episode, almost feeling like it was added because the script came in too short.
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| Sometimes, you need to be unarmed to help people. |
The hockey game between the Canadians and the Americans was kind of interesting. Again, the writers were using a comedic storyline to balance out the at times tense drama, and I liked that the story became something of a prank war halfway through. But maybe the episode would have had a little more comedy if the story had been a total prank war from beginning to end, with Rebecca exacting revenge for the kidnapping of the mascot, and Simon outplaying both sides for his own amusement. As always, stories on this series come out a little too short at the end, and I get the feeling that the narrative is more half-assed than completely focused on by the writers. It may have something to do with the rather large ensemble cast for a 43-minute weekly drama, but at least the hockey story turned prank war brought some attention to how the soldiers in Kandahar were dealing with downtime and how this could be considered a great way to let off some steam and keep the sanity alive. Although the latter was certainly not part of the story, which is a shame since it would have been a great subplot. Because the ending to the hockey rivalry was weird and questionable.
I don’t quite understand why Bobby would go seriously nuts on somebody random like that. I would have imagined for Bobby to go violent on Max, since the story was building up toward a confrontation between Max and Bobby after the former’s idiotic behavior in the operating room, but Bobby went nuts on some random guest character that didn’t even have a scene of dialogue, making this entire story feel randomized. That Bobby might turn to violence was expected, however. He was talking about having been in prison once before, and there is a reason for people being in prison (violence, most likely). Plus, Bobby felt the aggression towards Max rising and he was certainly interested in keeping it in check, even going so far as to make an appointment with Pedersen (would Bobby have solved his anger issues if she hadn’t blown him off?). This episode could be seen as the start-up to a character arc of Bobby’s, which would eventually reveal his past and define his persona. For that alone, the story was good enough, although I don’t believe that the chain of command would give Colonel Marks the right to decide Bobby’s punishment. Violent burst-outs like these are simply a ticket back home, and if this show had been a documentary, Bobby would be on a plane back to Germany and then the United States by now.
The story about the orphanage was okay, but I didn’t understand all of it. It was probably just written in to bring back Joe, bring him back to Rebecca, and work towards a relationship-of-sorts between the two. It wasn’t really a good-enough story for Joe to be part of, since he got rejected by Rebecca at the end, making his appearance here sort of useless. But I guess it was helpful enough for the viewers to find out that Simon likes Rebecca, that he saw competition in Joe, and that he finally needed to do something about it.
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| Bobby is losing it during a friendly game of aggressive hockey. |
The orphanage story itself, which belonged to Joe in the beginning, was turned over to Pedersen instead, and I liked that she went a little hard on the kids, because all she wanted was to find out the truth and help the missing kids. Then again, I don’t quite know if she went a little too aggressive as well when she was questioning the girl, or if it was just a ploy to get the truth out of the older boy and to solve the story by the end of the hour. If the former is the case, Bobby and Pedersen’s stories are connected, and they show that this place is getting to them, and that you can lose your mind every once in a while and hopelessly lose control over yourself in the process. Bobby resorts to violence when that happens, and Pedersen seemed to lose her friendly and mannered objectivity. It was however nice to see that there is a dark side to Pedersen as well. Again, if there had been a second season, this would have been performance gold for Deborah Kara Unger and her character’s development.
