Strong Medicine
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| Strong Medicine | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Medical/Drama |
| Starring | Rosa Blasi Janine Turner (2000-2002) Patricia Richardson (2002-2005) Rick Schroder (2005-2006) Philip Casnoff (2000-2005) Josh Coxx Brennan Elliot (2000-2004) Tamera Mowry (2004-2006) Nestor Carbonell Jenifer Lewis |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 132 episodes |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Lifetime |
| Original run | July 23, 2000 – February 5, 2006 |
- "Strong Medicine" is also the title of a 1984 novel by Arthur Hailey.
Strong Medicine was a fictional medical drama with a focus on women's health issues, as well as progressive social politics and class conflict. The television series has aired on the Lifetime network from 2000 to 2007. It is distributed by Sony Pictures. The series was created and produced in part by comedienne and activist Whoopi Goldberg, who made a couple of cameos in the series. The show employed a variety of regular and guest writers.
On November 1, 2005, Lifetime TV announced the cancellation of the series. The final episode of the series aired on February 5, 2006 (against the Super Bowl Halftime Show).
Contents |
[edit] Background
The show centers on the staff of fictional Rittenhouse Hospital in Philadelphia, largely involving the operations of the ER and a free women's health clinic, run by inner-city success story Dr. Luisa "Lu" Delgado. The urban facility receives a diverse mixture of patients, from upper- and middle-class patients, which generally allows the hospital to finance the free clinic, and lower-class or poor patients, who come to take advantage of Dr. Delgado's hospital-funded services.
The staff and its visitors tend to be racially, politically, and economically diverse. A core class/political duality in the episodes' storylines tend to be driven by comparisons and contrasts (and often cooperation) between liberal Delgado, with her lower-class origins, and her fellow women's health practitioner across the lobby, who sees paying patients and generally has more conservative values -- this role has been filled by various characters, most recently Dr. Dylan West. The show often places the characters in ironic, soul-searching situations in which they are forced to question the solidity of their personal beliefs or else cause them to fight for what they believe in.
[edit] Main characters
Main characters on the show as of 2005 include:
- Dr. Luisa "Lu" Delgado
- (Rosa Blasi) Delgado runs the free clinic (first the South Philly Woman's Clinic and, since the pilot, the Rittenhouse Women's Health Center), and hosts a weekly informal women's health group (most 2003 and 2004 episodes open with a scene from these meetings). Both as an inner-city resident and a doctor to many lower-class patients, Delgado regularly comes face-to-face with bitterly ironic situations involving the difficulties of the lower class with government, debt, drug abuse, and exploitation. Her character exhibits a perennial cleverness which allows her to wheedle or persuade positive outcomes from seemingly hopeless cases of victimization. She was raised by her grandmother, Isabel Santana, who now lives in Puerto Rico, and had a son, Marc, when she was 16, whom she raised alone. Marc has been at college since the 2004 season. Until recently, Delgado has had no luck with a relationship. Men such as Mickey have died or like Ben left. In the spring 2005 season she married Jonas Rey, a local millionaire CEO; at the start of the fall 2005 season Rey's millions (and stability) are called into question by an embezzlement scandal. Delgado gave birth to their first daughter, whom was named Milagros, in the series finale.
- Dr. Dylan West
- (Rick Schroder) Replacing Dr. Campbell's role is West, a male women's health specialist. His gender raises initial eyebrows, especially with Delgado, who has also had past negative experiences with him. He has his own troubled past and seems to be seeking to redeem himself from something at Rittenhouse. He is a diabetic, which becomes a recurring plot device. He has tremendously bad luck in romance, with many love interests dying. One such former love interest arrives at Rittenhouse needing a new heart to survive; West is unable to save her life, but gains a daughter, Araya (Eileen April Boylan), he never knew he had.
- Peter Riggs
- (Josh Coxx) A registered nurse and midwife, Peter is generally progressive, open-minded, and an eager advice-giver. He practices Buddhism and believes in the principles of holistic medicine. He is often a kindred spirit to Delgado. Often, Riggs' character makes a balanced sociopolitical observation that influences a positive action by one of the two doctors; other times he is the protagonist of action. When he meet Lu, he almost ran over her with the van of his band. He played the bass in that band until his girlfriend (the singer) dumped him during a fire, and Lu gave him a job in her new free clinic. Often shown as a lady's man with several girlfriends, has settled into a relationship with Kayla, whom he proposes to in the series finale.
- Lana Hawkins
- (Jenifer Lewis) Hawkins serves as the front receptionist for the RWHC, or the Rittenhouse Women's Health Center. A former drug addict and prostitute long since rehabilitated, she meet Lu at the same bar Peter and his band were playing at. After a fire destroyed the bar and the owner rented the local to Lu for her clinic, she gave Lana a job. She has two sons, Harry, an officer in the Navy and Maurice, a con artist who once pretended he had a wife and son to trick his mother out of money. Hawkins is the hospital's eyes and ears, i.e. chief gossip, as well as matchmaker, and general benevolent schemer and rule-bender. Lana often refers to herself in the third person. She went back to school and earned a degree in Psychology. She is now an "official - unofficial" free clinic psychologist.
- Kayla Thornton
- (Tamera Mowry) A new doctor and young black medical prodigy, Thornton is a fast study at Rittenhouse, entering residency in the 2004 season and becoming a depended-upon ER regular by the 2005 season, despite occasional disbelief by patients that she is a qualified doctor. As she becomes a main character to the show, her personality can be compared to that of a young Dr. Delgado with her ambition and hard work. Throughout the medical drama's seasons, Thornton rooms with various fellow staff members in her search for affordable housing; first in Dr. Campbell's house, where she spends some of her time helping with Andy's two daughters. After Andy's departure, she rooms with Lana, and later with Peter, with whom she has a budding relationship. She was later on selected as chief resident. We find out that she has a twin sister, Keisha (played by real-life twin sister Tia Mowry) who ends up needing 24-hour care for a schizophrenic mental disorder, an emotional time for Kayla.
[edit] Former characters
- Dr. Andy Campbell
- (Patricia Richardson) A former military doctor with the rank of Colonel, Campbell came on the staff during the 2002 season to replace the much more ambitious and strict Dr. Dana Stowe. Her patients tend to be upper-middle-class, and often include minor local celebrities and professionals. Her character ostensibly lives the almost typical suburban nuclear family lifestyle, aside from her status as breadwinner. She has two teenage daughters, Jesse and Lizzie. Campbell was named United States Surgeon General (which was also a stated ambition of her predecessor) at the end of the 2004 season and left the show.
- Dr. Robert "Bob" Jackson
- (Philip Casnoff) Chief of staff of Rittenhouse Hospital, he is the stoic, administrative figure and also ultimately in charge of decisions regarding funding, especially to the women's clinic. Jackson considers himself a personal friend of Dr. Campbell (as he was with Dr. Stowe), but generally is more impersonal and sometimes butts heads with Dr. Delgado over financial or liability issues, and with Lana over administrative issues. He was married with two daughters, Lauren and Paige. A recurring subplot throughout the series was Jackson dealing with his beloved wife Susan's advancing MS condition. He even briefly left her, unable to watch her succumb but eventually went back to her. Jackson's character was laid off by hospital owner Octavian prior to the start of the 2005 season.
- Dr. Dana Stowe
- (Janine Turner), an ambitious doctor and scientist seeking a cure for cancer; she is rigid and stoic, but cares deeply about her patients. Like her successor Andy Campbell, she was good friends with Jackson. She had a short-lived relationship with resident doctor Nick Biancavilla. Her character left the show at the end of the 2001 season after adopting two challenged children (an HIV-positive infant and her older sister), choosing to put her medical ambitions aside to pursue a successful motherhood.
- Dr. Nick Biancavilla
- (Brennan Elliott), an ER doctor at Rittenhouse who had a brief relationship with Dr. Stowe. He has four older sisters, one of them (Francine 'Frankie' Biancavilla) a lesbian whose girlfriend he married to get her the medical care she needed. It didn't work because Dr. Jackson found out, but he gave his sister a medical plan as "wedding gift" that covered existing illnesses. She promised she'd pay it herself once she got promoted. He left at the end of season 4 when he transferred to Manhattan General.
- Marc Delgado
- (Paul Robert Santiago, Season 1; Chris Marquette Seasons 2-5), Lu's teenage son, whom she had when she was a teenager herself. He once saved his great-grandmother Isabel Santana's life with a bone marrow transplant. He left for college in the middle of season 5.
[edit] Major plot developments
Major show plot developments as of 2005:
- Campbell kicks out her husband, Leslie, after he hits her during a domestic dispute, forcing her to examine domestic abuse issues as well as single motherhood. Campbell and Leslie had been married for thirty years without any violence in the home, and Leslie is presented as changing from a loving husband to a violent maniac over the course of a few weeks.
- Delgado loses her boyfriend, Mickey, to murder perpetrated by one of her patients, forcing her to face her moral objection to the death penalty.
- Campbell becomes involved with another doctor, cardiac surgeon Dr. Milo Morton (Richard Biggs).
- Delgado becomes involved with Ben Sanderson (Grant Show), an administrator brought on after Rittenhouse is bought by a health care conglomerate. Sanderson later leaves to be reassigned to a facility in Miami.
- Campbell's love interest dies in an accident (a development forced by the death of actor Richard Biggs due to an undiagnosed heart condition). Leslie, having sought therapy to control his anger, helps Andy through her pain and they mend their relationship to friendly terms.
- Delgado becomes involved with Jonas Ray (Nestor Carbonell), a local self-made billionaire with a good heart but a large soulless corporation.
- Campbell brings a new hospital resident, Dr. Kayla Thornton (Tamera Mowry), into her home.
- Thornton and Riggs begin a relationship after a season of occasional plot hints.
- Campbell leaves Rittenhouse to become U.S. Surgeon General.
- Campbell is replaced by Dylan West, with whom Delgado has had past dealings, and encounters various life struggles as he tries to overcome his demons.
- West discovers he has a daughter, and suddenly becomes a father for the first time, as a single parent of a rebellious teenager.
- Hawkins receives her degree in psychology, and Lu enlists her to consult for her women's group, as volunteer work towards her Master's degree.
- Delgado and Jonas get married, and Lu struggles to get accustomed to a wealthier life, while trying to reconcile it with her inner-city loyalties.
- Lu discovers she is pregnant with Jonas' baby.
- Kayla is named Chief Resident after narrowly missing it due to a complex emergency house call.
- After personally bringing sick South American children to Rittenhouse for treatment, Jonas is plagued by an embezzlement scandal at his company, bringing his fortune and stability into doubt.
[edit] Episodes
[edit] Season 1 (2000-2001)
| Episode Number |
Original Air Date |
Episode Title |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7/23/00 | Pilot |
| 2 | 7/30/00 | Preexsisting Conditions |
| 3 | 8/6/00 | Misconceptions |
| 4 | 8/13/00 | Second Look |
| 5 | 8/20/00 | Performance Anxiety |
| 6 | 8/27/00 | Drug Interactions |
| 7 | 9/3/00 | Do No Harm |
| 8 | 9/10/00 | Miracle Cure |
| 9 | 10/8/00 | Dependency |
| 10 | 10/15/00 | BRCA1 |
| 11 | 10/15/00 | BRCA2 |
| 12 | 10/29/00 | Brainchild |
| 13 | 12/3/00 | Second Opinion |
| 14 | 12/10/00 | Side Effects |
| 15 | 12/17/00 | Blessed Events |
| 16 | 1/7/01 | Fix |
| 17 | 1/14/01 | Maternity |
| 18 | 1/21/01 | Complications |
| 19 | 2/18/01 | Childcare |
| 20 | 2/25/01 | Drugstore Cowgirl |
| 21 | 3/4/01 | Wednesday Night Fever |
| 22 | 3/11/01 | Mortality |
[edit] Season 2 (2001-2002)
| Episode Number |
Original Air Date |
Episode Title |
|---|---|---|
| 23 | 7/15/01 | Donors |
| 24 | 7/22/01 | Adverse Reactions |
| 25 | 7/29/01 | Gray Matter |
| 26 | 8/5/01 | History |
| 27 | 8/12/01 | Attachments |
| 28 | 8/19/01 | Relief |
| 29 | 8/26/01 | Impaired |
| 30 | 9/9/01 | Rebirth |
[edit] First Response spinoff
Near the end of the 2004-2005 season, a special episode "First Response" aired, prominently featuring three new characters: Katie and Zack, both EMTs, and Dr. Vanessa Burke, head of the new Rittenhouse Trauma Center and adopted black sister of Katie. The TV Home website reports that this episode was meant as the pilot to a potential Strong Medicine spinoff series, Strong Medicine: First Response. Such a series would have been the first spin-off to an existing Lifetime original series. Lifetime did not order the new series into production after the ratings for the pilot were not what was expected.
[edit] External links
- www.strongmedicinetv.com Official Sony Pictures Strong Medicine site
- Strong Medicine at the Internet Movie Database
- Strong Medicine at Lifetime
- Strong Medicine at TV.com
