The cast and producers of Trauma were delighted to talk about their new NBC show with the Television Critics Association. They explained the premise of the series as well as some of the characters.
Trauma is Filled with Intensity
The series premier will definitely have viewers on the edge of their seats. But as Executive Producer Dario Scardapane said, “We’re not going to blow up the world every week, but there’s going to be an intense event that these people respond to [weekly].”
Scardapane also explained, “The legacy of medical shows comes from the legacy of character. With a medical show you have built-in stakes. It is life or death, and nobody's numb to life or death. And the thing that makes this different is that we are seeing the first-responders. We're seeing the paramedics that take you to the double doors. But like every good show, whether it's a medical show or not, we're trying to give you characters that you can dig into. So the explosions may grab your attention, but what's hopefully going to grab your hearts are going to be these characters, like something in the legacy of Chicago Hope."
And speaking of Chicago Hope and remembering other very popular medical shows of the past, Scardapane added, “But, you know, television tends to go in those waves where everybody is thinking about the same stuff at the same time. And I think that the spectre of ER in television looms large. It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room. And it's gone. And I think that a lot of people wanted to find what the next generation of medical show [is]. What is the 21st century version of a medical show? I know that's what we're shooting for.”
Emergency was the first TV series about paramedics. It ran from 1972-1979 and featured Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe as the first television paramedics. This was when paramedics were first becoming a profession.
The Life of Paramedics
“These people deal with trauma,” Scardapane exclaimed about the professional paramedics. “They deal with intense events. It's up to us as the writers and as the creators to come up with twists and variations on that intensity. That said, these traumas, these events, these - what sometimes are called MCIs - mass casualty incidents, they're going to be eye-popping. And they're not always going to be eye-popping because stuff is blowing up. They may be eye-popping for what's happening inside it. Because it's important to remember a stunt is a stunt is a stunt, but inside that there's people. So when you see a 10-car pileup, we're focusing on, yes, the fun of - not to sound sick - but the visual of the pileup. But the stories are about the people inside that pileup and, more importantly, the people that are tasked to save the people inside that pileup.”
Cliff Curtis who plays Reuben "Rabbit" Palchuk, commented about the evolution of television. “Since cable television … [there are] things you can do on HBO or on cable television that you can't necessarily do on network television. And I think that it's challenging networks to up the stakes. I think that's a part of what comes into the evolution of storytelling.”
Curtis spoke about his character in Trauma. “What's interesting about him is we set up an archetype of a kind of a very heroic, very confident masculine guy who's detached from any sort of emotional aspects of his life in terms of relationship, in terms of his work.”
Anastasia Griffith plays Nancy Carnahan. She said about her character, “She's sort of set up as the drug pusher who is very, very good at her job. And sort of more interestingly than that, she's actually got medical training. She's an M.D. who went through the however many years of medical school and then decided she wanted to work on the ground with the people. And she's just much more kind of grounded than she sees doctors being. She feels that doctors have an over-sort-of-blown ego and that actually the real point of doing what she wants to do is to deal with the patient and have that moment-to-moment contact with them.”
Dr. Joe Saviano is played by Jamey Sheridan who confided that the characters don’t always see eye to eye. “We go at each other sometimes. I guess it's not in the pilot that much. There were things that were not included. We go at each other, you know, hammer and tong, and the reason we go at each other is there's a huge respect for each other.”
Humor is a Necessity of Being a Paramedic
Aimee Garcia plays Marisa Benez in Trauma. She said that the paramedics need to have a sense of humor in order to get through their jobs. Aimee described the training the cast went through to prepare for their roles. “For our training, we went along with paramedics and rode in ambulances … I was with paramedics, and we came across a heroin addict who had run out of veins on his arms and on his neck. So he started injecting himself in his forehead. And this was just part of the everyday life of the paramedic, but they were joking around on the way to the scene, and it's -- a sense of humor and a sense of being able to make a joke out of things becomes crucial for these characters.
“And I think that, especially my character because [she’s] been in Basra, Baghdad, and Fallujah, and I've really been in the mud with having death be a part of everyday lives and having to see my friends die on the front lines, I think that Marisa's sense of humor is the only thing that keeps her going besides her faith.”
Trauma looks like it will be a hit with viewers. The show premiers Monday, September 28, 2009 at 9 PM ET/PT on NBC. There will be encore broadcasts on Saturdays at 9 PM ET/PT.
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