Nurse Christina Hawthorne, the main character in TNT’s “Hawthorne,” is like many hardworking professionals on television these days.
Passionate. Willing to do anything to get the job done. Brash and a little rough around the edges.
Think along the lines of fellow TNT leading lady Grace Hanadarko on “Saving Grace,” Mary Shannon on USA’s “In Plain Sight” or, in the most extreme case, Dr. Gregory House on Fox’s “House” — he’s, shall we say, very rough around the edges.
Normally I’d be complaining about this, saying that Christina is adding nothing new to the TV landscape.
But star Jada Pinkett Smith elevates the material and makes “Hawthorne,” which premieres at 9 p.m. Tuesday, totally worth watching.
Christina, the chief nursing officer at Richmond Trinity Hospital, has an ear for everyone, whether it be a bullied nurse or a janitor who needs a new brand of disinfectant.
But it’s the patients whose side she’s always on, and I have a feeling we’re going to get a lot of storylines featuring Christina against the world or, at the very least, hospital big wigs.
When a fellow hospital employee tells Christina she’s not willing to risk her job over a patient, Christina answers with what could probably be her very own mantra: “I do it practically every day and, I have to tell you, it gets really easy once you get in the habit.”
Christina’s co-workers include fellow nurse and best pal Bobbie Jackson, who is being pursued by a cute paramedic, and Chief of Surgery Tom Wakefield (the dreamy Michael Vartan, whom I’ve loved since his “Alias” days), a genuinely nice guy and good doctor.
At home, Christina is dealing with the recent death of her husband — she does this by talking to an urn full of his ashes; it’s a plot device that I hope does not continue — and a teenage daughter, with whom she shares a funny, cute mother/daughter relationship. When they’re not fighting, that is.
So far, my favorite — besides Vartan, of course — is male nurse Ray Stein, a self-described “bitter know-it-all” who could’ve gone to med school. In Paraguay.
His portrayer, David Julian Hirsch, reminds me of T.R. Knight, who plays my beloved George on “Grey’s Anatomy,” so there was really no way I wouldn’t like the guy.
The show’s villains, if you can even call them that, are a little one-note: Dr. Marshall, a female doctor who looks down on nurses and blames them for her mistakes, and Christina’s overbearing mother-in-law (guest star Joanna Cassidy), who seems to be suspicious of the circumstances surrounding her son’s death.
“Hawthorne” certainly isn’t breaking any new ground. In fact, it can be pretty formulaic and predictable at times.
But Smith should be enough to keep viewers coming back.
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