The new season of television is about to start which means there will be a slew of new shows and of returning shows. There is usually a handful of news that catch my eye but by the end of the third episode I’m over it. Whether because it never lives up to the expectations set in the 1st episode or because I just lose interest in the characters, plot and so forth. Sometimes though there is that show that I end up sticking with through the rest of the season and on to the next and I’m hoping that Red Band Society becomes one of those shows.
I was on Hulu this morning, as I am most mornings at work, looking for something to listen/watch while I’m doing work. I had already seen two episodes in my queue on television last night so they were out but then I noticed that pilot episodes for a few new shows were available to watch and I figured why not?
The first one I watched was the Red Band Society, a show I knew very little about prior but had piqued my interest. Offhand the best way to describe this show is The Breakfast Club meets a medical drama meets something else. The something else it reminds me of is actually a group of teens that are closer to being adults living in a hospice together. It really isn’t like anything else on television at the moment and I hope that it doesn’t get cancelled too soon.
The show is about a group of teens living at a hospital and the adults that help them and mentor them during their stay there. The two main adults that really try to be there for the kids are Nurse Jackson aka the scary bitch played the incredible Octavia Spencer and Doctor Jack McAndrew aka the hot doctor played by Dave Annable. There is also Ruben, a hypochondriac that lives at the hospital that plans to leave his entire fortune to it, that helps encourage some rebellion in some of the teens. Of the teens, we have Charlie (Griffin Gluck), a coma patient that also narrates the show while adding his own commentary at times, Dash (Astro), a teen with CF that thinks he’s the next Casanova, Emma (Ciara Bravo), a girl who could pretty much go anywhere if she could overcome her anorexia, Leo (Charlie Rowe) a cancer patient that likes to try and rebel as much as he can while pushing everyone away for fear of losing his battle with cancer, and the two new comers to the wards, Jordi (Nolan Sotillo), a teen without any family that came specifically for Doctor McAndrew’s to do his amputation and Kara (Zoe Levin) the mean girl that has no heart only to find out her enlarged heart might kill her one day.
It’s a pilot episode, a hello really. It’s an episode that invites you in to meet these kids and the adults that look after them. It introduces you to a unique group of teens that not only struggle with being a teenager, but struggle with being a teenager with a unique circumstance that means they have to live in a hospital as well. And by the end of the episode, not only do you want to know more about Kara, Charlie, Leo, Jordi, Emma, and Dash, you also want to know more about Doctor McAndrews and Nurse Jackson and even about Ruben. You want to see how they handle things like going through chemo while having a crush on a girl with an eating disorder or the mean girl trying to be a better person or if the coma boy is ever gonna wake up. It makes you want to cheer and laugh and cry and hug the people closest to you tight.
If there is a show to watch this fall season that isn’t what you expect I would definitely recommend this show. Yes in some ways its completely unrealistic but that shouldn’t matter. The show isn’t about the medicine or rules and regulations of a hospital but about a group of teens that are sick, that band together, that become the Red Band Society.
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