I don't really care for the genre of "doctor" TV shows, but to give Chicago Hope credit, it does have more appeal than the majority of them. I was once a faithful viewer in its first season, after seeing the characters played by Mandy Patinkin and Hector Elizondo on a brilliant "cross over" episode of Picket Fences. Back then, Chicago Hope was admirable for its "quirky" plots and great character development, but over the years it has adapted more of the "formula" doctor show(6 thousand subplots and little chance to "bond" with the characters)and I have moved on. I still catch an occasional rerun on the show, and while it would not convert me back to being a regular viewer.
I do enjoy the characters of Adam Arkin and Hector Elizondo and the others aren't bad, except Christine Lahti's "feminist" character gets tiresome, and tends to overuse and ugly word that is a part of the male anatomy. Nevertheless, even an episode consisting of her, Jayne Brook and Stacy Edwards going to the mountains that I thought I would loathe did not turn out to be too bad, considering. Mark Harmon and Peter Berg's characters bring a slight amount of life, but as I said, it's still not enough to make me watch the show regularly and I hope it does not steal viewers away from Frasier, as it prepares to face against it in the 1999-2000 season. It's not THAT great.
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