Combat Hospital Review: Did I Miss Something?
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Combat Hospital really ticked me off this week.
"Triage" was painful for many reasons. Watching Col. Marks struggle to save his friend should have been the sole origin of my angst. Unfortunately, it ranked second to the frustration of feeling like I'd missed something.
Oh, yes. I had missed something. An entire episode, in fact. For whatever reason, ABC pulled an hour of Combat Hospital, deciding not to air "Brothers in Arms." I've heard rumors that some affiliates chose to show the missing episode in the earlier time slot, but here in the NYC area it wasn't shown and, boy, did that make this show difficult to review.
So I was left with several questions and no way of answering them. What happened with Simon's DVDs? Since when does Bobby Trang have anger management issues? Didn't Araf go to his uncle? What is he doing back at the hospital? And Rebecca and Simon had some sort of aborted date which she is really pissed off about.
Did ABC have to pull such a pivotal episode leaving fans lost and confused? Like I said, I have lots of questions and no answers.
But on with our show. Even having to watch it out of context, "Triage" was a great episode. Col. Marks stopped being the consummate soldier and reacted as a man doing everything to save his friend. In turn, Rebecca stepped up to make the tough decisions Marks had taught her to make, even when it meant standing up to the man himself. The question was how many lives were expendable to save one? The answer was that it depended upon what that one life meant to you.
Marks' anguish was heartbreaking. It would be one thing to watch your friend die knowing you'd done everything in your power to save him. It was quite another knowing that he died due to a lack of resources. Marks was in hell, both from his friend's death and from admitting his own weakness.
I appreciated that Simon backed Rebecca when she made the tough call and told Marks his friend had to wait. Then, his open-ended invitation to her at the end was almost sweet.
I find it hard to comment on Bobby's breakdown because I have no idea what triggered it. But I really felt for poor Araf. The ice cream cone scene was both adorable and sad all at the same time.
As a fan who invested an entire summer into this show, I'm ticked. Couldn't ABC have at least aired the missing episode "Brothers in Arms" in the dead zone of Saturday night so fans could watch the entire series? I feel cheated that I missed so much storyline. This is really how the network wanted the series to go out? Lame.
C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.